Observing India

Easy path and difficult path

2010-02-01T04:26:00.002+05:30

There is a general notion among some progressive people that the path of armed revolution is a difficult one in comparison to any other 'career'. It certainly looks difficult: It has obvious difficulties as a way of life. But, as a part of bringing out change in the society, is it really a difficult path?
Working with the tribal communities on issues like land rights, basic developmental facilities including infrastructure, bringing to the people the benefits of 'market' without exploitation, education and skill development,attempting better participation to take advantage of developmental schemes----is by no means an easy path.
Those who got inspired by romantic notions of left revolution in Indian context need to observe dispassionately which one is the challeniging path.
Working openly with the communities and attempting a continuous enhancement of choices for the poor in a human rights framework, based on Truth is certainly a challenging option.
To take to weapons and do a few acts of violence here and there does not lead to sustainable gains for the people. There may be a heady feeling of power. But if the objective is not such temporary feeling but building a really just society, one needs to look at the sustainability of the efforts.
It may invite criticism that in the last analysis, one has become an apology for the State. But to my mind it appears that accepting the Constitution of India and making genuine efforts to enhance the space for the poor is certainly not an easy path.

Review of ‘Dark angles’, an article written by K Balgopal

2010-01-21T08:23:00.000+05:30

This is an article spanning 70 pages, contained in a Telugu book titled ‘three decades of naxalism: Goal and journey’, published in 1998 by Perspectives, Hyderabad. This article stands apart in the book, as it is highly critical of the practical aspects of naxalism, unlike the rest of the articles. It is divided into nine parts.

1. In the first part, KB introduces the subject and mentions why he has chosen to criticise the dark side of naxalites separately, rather than putting it in parentheses of a general broad eulogy. He says one should publicly question those who think it proper to kill for the sake of progress, and who declare they have the sole wisdom to decide what progress is. We should have no hesitation in criticising those who don’t hesitate to violate people’s rights including right to life. If we hesitate, we would also be responsible for the lives lost, for the violation of people’s rights by naxalites, who have self-styled claims to scientific wisdom. He says many liberals in Andhra Pradesh including himself have realised this fact for quite some time, but thought that such criticism would be used by the State for further repression and so remained silent. This silence has cost a great deal as he has now realised that the benefits of such criticism to the society and to people’s movements far outweigh the possible gains to the repressive State. Such criticism may be just useful for the state, but it is necessary for the society.

KB says it is true that naxalites have finished feudalism, which tormented the countryside in Telengana. This job could have been done by methods other than use of force, but it is a fact that it was done by use of force. This is a gain that Telengana got from the ML movements. This is more clearly a gain to the people of depressed castes and groups, who suffered under feudalism. But the efforts of naxalites did not stop there. Naxalite groups also believe that only under their armed leadership will revolution come and exploitation of workers will stop. Their strategy is to take the gains due to anti-feudal struggles, land struggles and struggles for better wages as their social base. With this social base, they want to capture political power. By moving in this direction, they are helping poor people. They are solving their economic and social problems. These groups want to gain legitimacy and public consent to their political strategy through such efforts. They blow up telephone exchanges, destroy public property, kill mostly poor people after alleging them to be police informers, behave arbitrarily in ‘praja courts’, inflict heavy punishments for small misdeeds, force lands of not only big landlords, but also small peasants, to remain uncultivated in the name of waging land struggles and do such other things. Whatever they do, they try to gain legitimacy by portraying such deeds as their solution to people’s social and economic problems. These parties want the society to look at these deeds as the efforts of people to solve their own problems and as people’s efforts to capture state power. They want society to believe that such actions are legitimate steps against those who oppose them. We have no dearth of intellectuals who think precisely this to be their duty. But there is no reason to accept this claim blindly. KB says it is necessary to ask questions like whether this strategy of the ML groups will really lead to an egalitarian society, whether these parties have some understanding of such issues, whether the people on whose behalf tall claims are being made, have their support or consent for such strategy, whether it is really inevitable for the revolution that so much of damage is to be caused by these parties to the society and so many lives are lost and whether these parties care to notice the disturbing changes in social life and erosion of culture in this process.

KB clarifies his stand by stating that firstly, any social change that is brought out by social acceptance and cultural internalisation by the community would be long-lasting and stable. The kind of social change brought out in Telangana was by use of force or threat of force. Of course, this is not to blame those who used force, but rather those who prevented any other alternatives to work. While looking at the positive changes, it is also necessary to see the damage caused by use of force. Secondly, the ML parties’ objective is not only to oppose injustice from time to time, but also to build a society that has no injustice. For building such society, they have chosen the path of attaining political power through armed struggle. But, there is no evidence to show that either in the strategy or in the specific steps that they take, they have people’s participation or people’s support. KB clarifies here that he believes that building an egalitarian society is not possible through capture of state power. (Note this fundamental departure from Marxist theory by Balgopal here----Reviewer) Not only building an egalitarian society, but even building its economic wing, of common production system is not possible to be done through State and this is what KB says has been proved by the experience of 20^th Century. But, despite this limitation, some steps like having laws for abolition of private property, protection of state’s sovereignty from international financial institutions, etc. can be done by the State. But, even these things can be durable only if the State is democratic. Within this limit, attaining political power can be a legitimate goal. But whether this is possible only through armed struggle depends on several factors. In the present Indian context, there is no reason to presume that this limited political goal can only be attained by negating parliamentary democracy and by choosing armed struggle. Despite this, if somebody chooses armed struggle, it need not necessarily be a meaningless decision as there could be several forceful reasons in favour of armed struggle. But armed struggle need not necessarily be of one particular variety. (Note that Balgopal is attempting to lead the discussion by cutting through several branches/ divisions----possibility of social change through capture of political power vs. other than political power, if it is capture of political power and then two ways of doing it, one by armed struggle vs. the second otherwise and finally, if it is through armed struggle, doing it the present PWG way vs. otherwise.) For doing this analysis, he believes in certain universal principles. There may be different opinions on what is right and what is wrong but in whatever manner you may define it, nobody should be punished for a wrong which he/ she has not committed. (Here it is relevant to recall the children’s story of a tiger attacking a goat near the water tank on the ground that the goat had teased him some days ago. When the goat said ‘no, I am not the one who teased you the other day’, the tiger brushed the objection aside by saying, ‘if it was not you, then it must be your cousin. Even then, it is the same thing’. And thus the tiger swallows the goat.) Similarly, another basic principle can be that in whatever manner one may define ‘justice’, the same justice that we ask for ourselves must be applied to the other person. Similarly, he says he does not object to somebody behaving revengefully if he/ she has suffered some injustice. But those who have taken upon themselves the task of building a better society should particularly be careful to check the tendencies of use of force, or a culture that worships use of force or such mentality in individuals. He says it is not unreasonable to expect from those who wanted to bring about cultural revolution till the other day, to at least see that violence, arbitrary authoritarianism, factionism or opportunism is not encouraged in the society. KB says it is necessary to ask the questions of what these groups are destroying and what is it that they are building? What kind of social culture are they promoting? What kind of people they are attracting to their movement? What kind of activists are they preparing? What kind of social change and moral environment they are helping to create? Whom are they helping and whom are they harming?

2. KB proceeds by analysing an incident reported in the press that took place some time in 1996 or so. ‘When a ruling party MLA (who later on became a minister), went to a village, people protested with chappals’. This was a news item that got published in a Telugu daily. It was alleged that supporters of the MLA were angry with the news reporter and assaulted him in presence of the MLA, perhaps at his instance. MLA said the allegation was false and that he tried to prevent his supporters from misbehaving. The pressmen protested, demanded action against the MLA and his supporters and threatened agitation. Now, MLA said just because he belonged to a ‘dalit’ caste, the pressmen are creating problems. Then the pressmen took the stand that he was misusing his ‘dalit’ status to cover up his own misdeed. That is how a debate started, with both parties canvassing their viewpoints. There were different angles in the debate like the role of press, whether it was proper to publish anything and then apologise, the role of caste in press reports, who was right and who was wrong, what is fair and what is unfair and so on. All this debate was a healthy contribution to the social dynamics. But suddenly the matter closed, with an advice given by PW to the MLA. The MLA gave a press statement to the effect that he accepted his mistake because the naxalites told him so and promised not to repeat the mistake. The entire debate was stopped and the journalists called off their agitation. What has been proved is not whether Chandrasekhar the MLA committed a mistake or not. What has been proved is that other than fear and terror, there are no more civilised methods for the naxalites.

KB takes this incident as a case study to help understand the role of the naxalites in the social psyche of Telengana. The person of PW who gave the threat can say that he only advised the MLA or only gave their group’s opinion. But everybody knows that the opinion or advice of the naxalites is a real threat. Now, an incident like this can help to bring to focus important social issues. All ML parties claim that they work through enhancing social awareness. But what they mean by ‘awareness’ is only awareness of protest about the system, an awareness that helps them fight the system. It is a different question as to whether they are allowing even this limited awareness to really spread among the masses or whether they are considering the militancy of the party workers to be ‘awareness’ is an important question. But leaving that aside, KB points out that while protest and awareness to struggle are important, they are not everything. If our objective is not merely throwing down the existing system, but also in building a better society, then we should also realise that such protest may serve a limited purpose. Thoughtful awareness which is beyond ‘opposing, protesting, demolishing’ is required in many things. It calls for sensitivity, not ‘class hatred’. It does not call for an awareness of identifying an enemy. It calls for a mature understanding that ‘friend-enemy’ analysis is not always adequate to deal with various issues and that one needs patience to see existence of various viewpoints. This in turn calls for dialogue and free exchange of ideas. Do these ML parties recognise the need to promote such free dialogue, as that alone would help providing a real and long-term solution to problems? Not merely confining to some self-introspection documents, but in real conduct, do they have a space for this realisation in their strategy? Normal strategy of the armed ML parties is to take their social base consisting of the poor, attempt to control the society through use of force, by creating a feeling that it is only through their tutelage that any issue can be resolved and to gradually expand their trust, fear and threat among people of their social base and also people of other classes. Reconstruction of a society is quite far. But this strategy leaves no scope for dissent or dialogue. It has scope for only power and use of force. KB makes an important point here that in social progress, the role for total truth which is possible through use of force will be limited. The role of partial truths which need to be deliberated through dialogue is immense. In other words, KB says the issues which can really be resolved through use of force are but a few. One can understand such need when a question arises of tackling a cruel feudal lord, who keeps the law under his control and continues his exploitation for several years. May be in such cases, there is no other option but to threaten the use of force or even use force. But, how can the same solution be advocated for resolving a dispute between journalists and MLA in Vikarabad, a neighbourhood dispute, a conflict over water distribution, to remove or correct somebody who has become a police informer because of some reasons and for resolving a host of such diverse situations? Even if there is no other concrete issue and if the only issue is that of reasserting their power, they apply the same solution. The ML groups do not feel apologetic or responsible to explain use of force by them. They think it is their right to remove by use of force those whom they think are against the movement. When they are questioned as to why they apply such methods in resolving people’s issues, their reply is that the victims want it.

Of course those who have problems will look for speedy solutions. But they do not desire that the solution to their problem should be achieved through the process of society’s progress. This is the reason for the usage ‘justice should be done to me’ rather than ‘justice should be done’. If resolution of an issue is to be a part of society’s progress, then justice should be done and it should be done in a just manner. Any feudal culture gets reinforced by creating a feeling that whoever approaches the powerful person will get a favourable order. In a house, if two children are quarrelling, whichever child goes and complains to the father first, is believed to get his sympathy and the other child gets punished. All fathers may not be of that type to use force or to use force without thinking pros and cons of a specific issue. But this feeling remains in the society as alive, as such belief helps reinforcing the tutelage of the fathers. Similar things happen in the feudal society. KB says it is natural under the circumstances for any affected party to think of approaching the naxalites as a power centre. But what is objectionable is the practice of ML parties to encourage such a belief, to let people think that whoever approaches them first gets a favourable decision. And what lies at the end of the decision, irrespective of the nature of the conflict is the threat of force. Both the parties to the dispute know that however well they may try to explain their position, if they do not honour the ultimate verdict, they will be beaten. And what kind of beating do they visualise? Everyone knows the favourite punishment the naxalites award when they do not want to kill their target is to break both legs below the knees with iron rods and disable the person for life!

3. Why did the Vikarabad MLA accept his ‘mistake’? Obviously it was not because he was afraid that the naxalites would misbehave with him. The reason could be that he wanted the ‘good image’ that he abided by the wishes of naxalites. This image can be of use in future, when occasion arises. Wherever power politics plays its role, opportunism gets encouraged in the society. From the naxalites’ point of view, they know that people who show obedience may be doing so for ulterior motives. But they play the game, as it is part of power politics. The game goes on till it crosses a limit, when the naxalites would brand a person as ‘enemy of people’ and beat him up. KB makes a very interesting point here that this ‘fear’ caused by the naxalites through this game is not something comparable to a mental feeling of happiness among the downtrodden when an oppressive dictator is done away with by their combined action. This feeling of ‘fear’ is passed on not only to oppressive landlords, but to society as a whole. KB comments about some ultra-left-intellectuals here and wonders to what extent they are genuinely democratic and to what extent they take solace from the left-extremists because of sheer urge to be close to power, when due whatever reason they are not able to be proximate to state power. As the number of AK 47s among the naxalites is rising, the number of such intellectuals who sympathise with them due to the second reason is also increasing.

The left extremist parties, which had taught the people to stand up against authoritarianism and had given backbone to the downtrodden in the Telengana once in history, are now most authoritarian and are subjugating the Telengana completely. Under their rule, no dissent is tolerated. Nobody asserts their self-respect in the presence of these groups. The attitude is to somehow adjust themselves to the power situation and get things done through the support of these groups if needed. The arbitrary authoritarianism of the naxalites has been encouraged partly by their theory of ‘uprooting the system’ and partly due to lack of self-respect and opportunism among common people, which got promoted by fall of general moral values in the society. KB observes that there is no dearth of illicit liquor mafia, who continued their business unabated not only during government prohibition but also during the prohibition announced by the naxalites. The key to their success was by giving shelter, money, uniform etc. to the ultra-left cadres and thereby saving their own lands from being left fallow. Whenever public criticism becomes too much, the naxalites then brand such people as ‘police informer’ or ‘enemy of people’. Nobody questions as to why such realisation dawned so late and how cosy relationship prevailed all along. The naxalites also know that such businessmen cannot ask such questions, as they lack basic self-dignity anyway.

A good communist party should have their base among the poor and should have friendly relations with good individuals and progressive people among the middle class and rich class. Our ML parties may have their base among the poor, but they have no use from people of character among other classes. They maintain relationship with only opportunists and people of inferior moral fibre. They are interested only in some shelter some time, some weapons, some vehicles as and when required. KB gives specific examples and names of people in this context who belong to this category, which is ‘friendly’ with the naxalites but which is highly opportunistic and self-seeking. ML sympathisers may see news reports titled ‘liquor trader killed by naxalites’ etc. But close observers have lots of doubts: “Why is it that only such and such liquor trader has been killed? Why not the other one, who is more vicious?” Anyway, people know that killing liquor traders or landlords is not the policy of naxalites. There must be other compelling reasons for such acts and evidence is not forthcoming to link the tyranny or anti-people nature of such victims. More often than not, the reasons themselves appear to be arbitrary. Some times the ML parties appear to give patient replies to their own sympathisers when they spontaneously question their actions. But, such questions from ‘outsiders’ are never tolerated. Not only cruel landlords, but nobody from any walk of life can question the conduct of naxalites. There are innumerable cases of people who questioned and got beaten up. There are many villagers in Nizamabad district, for example, who tasted this bitter experience, both from Janashakti and from PW.

An occasional question may be tolerated. But, a concerted effort to organise people or public opinion will definitely be opposed by the ML groups. These parties as well as the left democratic rights groups have originally taught the Telugu people that people have a right to oppose arbitrary power. That is indeed a valuable contribution. But these parties do not support right to organise people against their own line, however legitimate the cause may be, and even if such people who attempt to organise might be from among the downtrodden communities. The ML parties may tolerate any other liberty but the political liberty to question their party line can never be granted. KB illustrates here specific cases of Madhusudan Raj, a leader of ‘pratighatana’ group, who had done great work for mobilisation of masses and who was killed by Police. But the reasons for his death were not his revolutionary deeds, but the involvement of his ML group in Telugu Desam-Congress power politics, with arrests, torture etc all related to Govindraopet Mandal constituency in Mulugu area of Warangal district. The real reason for such incidents, i.e. arbitrary power politics or ‘dadagiri’ of the left extremist parties is ignored by many observers. KB cites further examples of NGO ‘shakti’ working among tribals of West Godavari and ‘Samata’ working among tribals of Visakhapatnam district. These two NGOs may have pursued lines distinct from the lines of the naxalites. But, instead of tolerating dissent, canards were spread against these NGOs by the PW, which ultimately drove these NGOs out. It is to be noted that PW otherwise uses vehicles and other support services of many funded NGOs and they are not in principle against such NGOs. It is only when an NGO tries to mobilise the masses along a line that would challenge their authority, that an ML group brands the NGO as ‘agent of imperialists’.

4. In this section, KB describes in detail the conflicts that arise between one ML group when another one enters their operational area. Such conflicts lead to mutual attacks, bloodshed and killings. Some left intellectuals theorise, ‘it is a clash of strategies and whoever is true will win’. Because PW is generally strong in terms of physical power, they adopt this line throughout. Other ML groups remember democratic principles in whichever geographical area they are weak and appeal to democrats for support in such occasions, while conveniently forgetting it in areas where they are strong. KB cites specific cases of such clashes and power politics among various ML groups in Andhra Pradesh.

5. Not only when there is a conflict with another ML group, but even in faction politics of a village, KB mentions it is not uncommon that an ML group sides with one group against another arbitrarily, without any consideration of relative merit or levels of poverty or exploitation. It is also not uncommon to brand a person they don’t like as police informer or a person with loose moral character etc and then take physical action or to use physical force to a degree highly disproportionate to the need, with the sole objective to terrorise. There is also a gulf between their announcements and actual practice. They announced that they do not target ordinary police constables. But many police constables are killed. They say they do not burn ordinary RTC red buses. But the word is not kept. They said incidents of ‘Kakatiya express’ in which innocent passengers were killed would not be repeated. But even after that during general elections, knowing that tribals are accompanying the poll party, they laid land mine and killed eight tribals along with policemen on duty. Similarly, arbitrary standards are adopted on fund collection. How can all this be justified as some dilution between top leadership and lower cadres? Involvement of PW in caste politics is also not uncommon. It is not that the ML parties are not opposing caste. They do take lead in organising inter-caste marriages and advocating against caste. But the problem is that they support one caste-based faction against another, due to sheer power politics. The problem is essentially that the ML groups support whichever party in a conflict approaches them first, irrespective of merits of the matter.

6. Terror adopted by ML parties is inhuman and cruel. KB cites the case of an elected public leader in Karimnagar district, who was caught by the ML groups. He begged them for life and said, ‘I never harmed anybody, why should I be killed?’ The group took the stand ‘it is only when a good man is killed that the government moves and therefore you must die’. Saying these words, the ML group killed the person. Who hold these groups accountable for their actions? At least in government or police, there is a modicum of action by superiors by way of disciplinary proceedings. What is its counterpart among ML groups? Who supervises the cadres? Highly inhuman acts of terror are resorted to by the naxalites. Not ordinary murders. But, beating a person completely with iron rods in presence of all villagers and declaring that ‘nobody shall take this man to the hospital during the night’--- even when the village had a jeep, nobody dared to take the victim to the hospital and the person died while the family members continued to lament the whole night. Instances of this kind are truly revolting and create a feeling of utter terror. Even when a victim dies in police custody, it is normal that the family members demand a right to have the dead body, just to shed tears. This is a basic and natural right for any victim’s family. But terror by ML groups some times is so cruel, that the face of the victim is completely mutilated with an axe after the person is killed, in a highly perverse manner. What kind of a perverse mind is it, when PW killed Ravinder Reddy in Medak district, fired a gun through his skull and then kept a note inside the mutilated skull, explaining reasons for the killing? How can this be called revolutionary, when in several occasions, the victim is not a rich landlord but an ordinary BC or SC poor person? Behaviour of ML groups on gender issues also shows highly disturbing features, not all of which can be attributed merely to ‘false campaign by the police’.

7. Transparency can exist in value-based politics. But, power politics requires lies, bluffing and hypocrisy. ML parties had transparency at some point of time. In those days when they led struggles against social and economic inequalities, they had the reputation of ‘doing what they say and saying what they do’. In the 1980’s, even those who were opposed to naxalite politics were praising them on this point. Nowadays, leave alone their opponents, who dare not open their mouths; but even their supporters cannot admit such beliefs. Rather, they have reached a state when they argue, “Have revolutionary movements ever been carried out anywhere without unfair deals and lies?” Killings and maiming persons based on false campaigns and hypocrisy are taking place. The invariable allegation they make against any of their opponents is that the person is a police informer and it appears that such allegation is enough to make the ‘list’ complete. Many arbitrary acts are being done by branding people as informers.

8. Words change their meanings due to passage of time. Meanings of land struggles, famine raids, and people’s courts are also undergoing changes. Over time, difference between robbery and ‘famine raid’ narrowed down. In Manthani area of Karimanagar district, ‘famine raids’ took place, in which even ordinary and small farmers were not spared. Not only paddy bags, but household utensils, watches, radio sets, gold were all looted in the name of famine raid. Similarly, ‘land struggle’ did not remain to mean occupying with red flags the land belonging to big landlords and distributing it among the landless. From big landlords and authoritarians, the ML groups, especially the PW has come down up to middle peasants. The group may claim that they are following not just government fixed ceiling but their own ceilings, but even that appears arbitrary and varies from place to place. The fact that natural division of land holdings takes place over generations is not considered. Land now belonging to splinter members of an originally powerful family is forcibly kept fallow, even though the present landholders may be only medium peasants. High state of uncertainty both on part of the landholders as well as on part of the poor allottees has resulted in thousands of acres of land in Telengana to lie fallow. When the ML group dictates somebody not to purchase a piece of land, if the person opposes, he is beaten mercilessly and some times killed. It is quite common in the name of land struggle. Uncertainty is an important tool in power politics. What they would do, when, how and whether they would adhere to their own word… all these issues are best left in the realm of conjecture, which helps in upholding their diktat. As a squad leader changes, the position of the ML group vis-à-vis a local issue changes. See the similarity of this with the transfer of an SI or a CI of Police.

Like transparency, discipline should be an important ingredient, in organisations involved in movements. There should be some strict principles and clear decisions based on principles. There should be a system of review. There should be a system of explaining to people who are put to a loss, a system of punishing the cadre responsible for the mistake. These are important ingredients of a responsive public movement. In our ML groups, this concept of accountability is missing. They may have discipline in military matters internally, but there is no discipline when it comes to questions involving the public. There is no assurance that decisions taken at higher level in the party are carried out at lower levels. KB gives specific examples of Peddapalli in Karimnagar district in this context.

9. KB talks about role of ML parties in farmers’ issues, cooperative sector, mining and other trade unions. In many of these roles, use of arbitrary power and power politics seems to be the driving force, though it is a welcome step that the parties are able to transcend the language of ‘dying and killing’. He cites instances of PW taking up lead in getting some constructive work like deepening of a village tank done. He notes that not only extreme left parties, but even mainstream parties including RSS have had a tradition of getting such village assets created. KB concludes by stating that review of naxalites movement does not mean visualising an amorphous entity called revolution, but it calls for examining the strategy chosen by the ML parties and the actual manner they are implementing it. It is necessary to see not only the new ideas and values that have been developed in society, but its dark angles and their social consequences. Kb says that it is necessary to see these angles not only for the cadres and their supporters but for the people themselves, because naxalism even now continues to be an important political force.

This essay is historically important, because KB has been an extraordinarily close observer of the naxalite movement. By his long association with civil liberties movement, he had seen society with a rare perspective that is based on concern for universal human rights. I recall that almost two decades ago he introduced D D Kosambi’s work in history to Telugu readers and explained how he became a Marxist. Now, in this essay, KB goes further in his quest for truth and analyses the practical aspects of what is going on in the name of revolution. This essay explains how naxalism in its present form has alienated ordinary people. It highlights the crying need for value-based politics even among the ultra-left. It highlights the importance of ‘positive’ aspects of human nature at the individual level. There is always an inherent sincerity of purpose in KB’s writings, an intellectual insistence on searching for truth without any prejudices and an uncompromising adherence to basic human values.

8^th Nov 2002

BOOK REVIEW ‘Why I am not a Hindu?’ by Kancha Ilaiah

2010-01-21T08:12:00.001+05:30

Samya publishers of Calcutta published this book in 1996 in English. It was later rendered into Telugu and published by Hyderabad Book Trust in 2000. The author was born in 1952 in the ‘kuruma’ caste in telengana region of Andhra Pradesh. As a small boy, he used to do goat and sheep-grazing, like all other kids of his caste, when teacher Rajalingam forcibly admitted him in school. He went ahead to do his M Phil on Land reforms and did Ph D on Buddhist philosophy. He teaches political science in Osmania University, Hyderabad as an Associate Professor. He has widely contributed to a number of prestigious journals. In this book he used the term ‘dalit-bahujan’ to denote those communities of Scheduled Castes as well as ‘other backward castes’. Unlike Kanshiram, he has not included people of Scheduled Tribes in this nomenclature, as he felt that they are outside the caste framework. He has not used the words like harijan or ‘lower castes’ because these words describe people involved in production in a derogatory sense. He has also not used the word ‘dalit’ alone, as it would not sufficiently communicate the idea that they form a big majority of Indian people. That is how he used the noun ‘dalit-bahujans’ to describe the vast majority of the people, who have been suppressed and subjected to exploitation. He makes it clear in his foreword that the brahmin, vyshya and naya kshatriya intellectuals should realise that for about 3000 years, they had only learnt what to teach and how to teach the dalit-bahujans. “In your own interest, and in the interest of this great Nation, you should start with an open mind listening to what we say and reading what we write”, he says.

In the first chapter, he gives a vivid description of his childhood. He starts off by saying that it is true that he was not born as a muslim, or a parsi, or a christian or a sikh. But he was not born as a hindu because his parents never knew that they were hindus. He says the only identity his illiterate parents had in society was that of their caste, not that of any religion. There could be some religious identity, if there had been common participation in praying to god, or visiting temple, or taking part in religious rituals or celebrations. He says his parents never had any such identity with the hindus, as all their existence revolved around caste. Their festivals, their gods and goddesses were all local. They were all so local that at times they differed from one village to the next village. Their village never had a temple where the villagers of all communities could regularly visit and meet one another. It is not because they were ‘expelled’ or anything of that kind. For two generations, his family formed the caste elders of kuruma caste. The village economy ran because of production by the people of kuruma, cowherd, kaapu or peasant farmer, weaver, washerman, barber, leather worker castes, who formed the big majority. The common life in the village was not linked to religion but was based on production relations between castes. He mentions that as a small boy, most of his friends were from his caste. Some of his friends included boys from peasant castes. Whenever these boys came to our house, they were kept a little away and served food. Similar thing happened when these people went to houses of those boys of peasant castes. While eating, they used to sit a bit away from each other, without touching one another. But, after food, they would go out and play around together. They used to drink water from the running streams together. When they used to go to the fields, carrying packed food, they would try to touch each other’s food packets, but soon would remember what their parents had told and avoid doing that. Some times they used to blame each other’s caste but soon forget it and start playing again. But it never happened even for a day, that the boys of Brahmins or Vyshyas of the village ever came alongwith them for playing. The Kuruma boys had some chance of meeting all other boys from castes of leather worker to peasant over the fields or meadows or grazing lands, but they never could peep into the lives of brahmin boys or vyshya boys. As they grew up, all the dalit-bahujan boys started taking up economic activities pertaining to their castes, but in summer, under the shade of trees, they would all meet together, play for some time, fight for some time, again mix up and play. It was so nice to see boys of barber caste of their age using scissors deftly and cutting hair of other boys. He heard that the barber boys would cut the hair of even brahmin and vyshya boys. But Kuruma boys never knew the differences in food patterns of brahmins and vyshyas, as much as barber and washerman boys did. That was because washerman and barber were needed for every house in the village and there is no house, whose food was not tasted by these people.

Ilaiah describes how he started learning the tricks of his caste work, that of grazing goats and sheep. He mentions how he learnt all the names of all the sheep, the names of common diseases, how to conduct deliveries, how to take care of baby goats or sheep, what kind of fodder to be given, how to take the baby sheep to the mother for milk, what kind of grass to be given, which part of the grazing areas to be covered during which part of the year etc. Unlike sheep, the goats won’t eat grass as they like leaves of trees like ber, kanuga. He learnt the nuances of giving medical treatment of making a steel rod red hot, and burning body parts of sheep, how to cut the wool from the sheep without hurting them and so on. A really brilliant boy in his caste was one who would do the job of making a small goat shed with palm leaves before he turned 10 years of age. You are not a good barber boy, if you don’t learn the job of cutting hair well. Same thing for all dalit-bahujan castes, as skill development in one’s caste work was considered essential to the people of that caste. But, as a child he had no way of knowing what kind of education or skill development takes place among boys of brahmin or vyshya castes. In his entire childhood, he remarks, he never came across anybody being told that he would not be a good hindu if he does not do such and such thing. Caste was the identity, not the religion, he repeats. He also mentions how girls receive their knowledge from the women of their castes. He narrates how children start understanding sexuality. If a man of dalit-bahujan family goes for an extra-marital relation, it does not remain a secret. It gets known to the kids also, as everything is open. Boys learn about sexuality, through their interaction with Nature. The morals that they learn as kids are dependent only on family harmony and happiness, not on basis of any divine code. He mentions that pictures like radha-krishna are not found in their households, as it was not intelligible to them as to what kind of morals a dalit-bahujan girl can learn from physical relationship which a cowherd boy had with an unmarried girl. There was no convention of giving any pictorial depiction to their goddesses like mysamma, pochamma or ellamma. They simply had no culture of projecting human beings’ sexual relationships onto gods and goddesses. Similarly, they had their grammar and vocabulary which was quite distinct from the bookish language of brahmins or vyshyas. Each caste has a rich vocabulary built from of names of their instruments, the steps of their economic activities, and generally the life around them.

In their religious beliefs, they had no concept of heaven and hell. They used to believe that if people cannot eat well in their life, they die and become ghosts. The ghosts lie at the roof of the house. All dead persons live together somewhere in the sky. In their honour, all of them together are given rice on a particular full moon day in the year. They did not have paternalistic gods like brahma, vishnu or mahesh. What they believed in were a number of independent goddesses like mysamma or ellamma, who had powers to cure diseases of human beings. As kids, they found as much foreign-ness with krishna or rama as with yehovah or allah. In brahmin families, they respect lakshmi or saraswathy, as he learnt later, because they were women having husbands. They derive their power from gods like vishnu or mahesh. In contrast, the dalit-bahujan goddesses derive their own power and are not dependent on a husband. Such thinking that perhaps a woman not having a husband is not worthy of respect, never occurred to dalit-bahujans. He writes that is because, in their society, divorcees as well as widows were respected and there never was any taboo on such matters. Somebody is treated with respect based on how she or he is efficient in work, how she or he behaves with other villagers and so on. The fact of whether the person is married, or widowed etc does not figure in deciding one’s status at all.

Ilaiah goes on with a comparison of the life of a boy in leather worker’s caste with a boy in kuruma caste and says life of the leather worker was tougher. They were never self-sufficient in food. Beef was one item which distinguished their diet. A feeling that beef is an inferior diet was ingrained, as a result of dominant brahminical influence, among the minds of kuruma people also and they did not realise the nutritive value of beef. Drinking toddy or cigar or eating all kinds of pickles was common to dalit-bahujans. But only beef was not the diet of kurumas, while the leather workers used to have it. These boys learnt how to take the skin off a carcass. They had visibly different dress from brahmin boys. They were very good in beating drum. Their boys were taught right from childhood, to stand obediently before a brahmin, vyshya or a ‘lord’, meaning a rich peasant.

Ilaiah recalls that his was the first generation among dalit-bahujans to have actually seen a slate and a pencil. He was one of the few, who gave up caste work and joined in school. In school also he started influence of brahminism. For example, dalit-bahujans liked fish and meat. The moment they mentioned these items of food, the boys of brahmins or vyshyas would close their noses in a snobbish manner and would feel nausea. Muslims and weather workers used to like beef, which other caste people were not consuming. But the people of other castes won’t close their noses or say ‘cheee..’ in contempt, like the children of hindus did. As a kid, he did not realise that the tyranny of childhood food habits and tastes would determine their future norms of life. But he says he realised later how much different their culture was from the brahminical culture, starting from food habits onwards. The behaviour of the school teacher also varied depending on the student’s caste. The teacher would say ‘it is because now we are in kaliyug that I am being forced to teach people like you’. The teacher had total contempt for manual labour. The teachers of course liked boys from brahmin, vyshya and ‘lord’ families, as they would not do any work with their hands and feet. Most of the words that were taught in school had no relevance to their day-to-day lives. They were made to read about alien concepts like rama and krishna, but not about ellamma or mysamma or potharaju or beerappa or kotamaraju. The children of dalit-bahujans found Kalidas as alien as Shakespeare. The brahmins determined the syllabi and they must have felt that the gods of dalit-bahujans are “sudras’ gods, not worthy of discussing in a classroom”. For example, in language class, it is taught that ‘doing hardwork similar to penance by a great rishi’ is considered an apt usage, but ‘doing hardwork similar to the plough in the hands of a good farmer’ is not considered a good example of correct poetic usage. Ilaiah makes an interesting observation that the priests sang in praise of the hindu gods, while the communists and rationalists criticised the priests. But, neither has seen the situation from the viewpoint of dalit-bahujans, he remarks. Nobody thought it necessary to talk about gods, goddesses and culture of the dalit-bahujans. He also mentions ceremonies like ‘aksharabhyasam’ and ‘upanayanam’, which were being done exclusively for boys of brahmins and vyshyas. How jealous the dalit-bahujan children used to feel those days that they were being deprived of such functions!

The second chapter covers marriages, markets and social relationships. Ilaiah reiterates that unlike hindus, the dalit bahujans never had a concept of marriage being a divine sacrament. For them, marriage is just a secular need for organising economic production, and reproduction in a functional sense. There is no concept of any ritual. No dowry and no bride price are associated with marriage. But, over a period of time, the role of the brahmin priest became more and more vicious. A typical marriage scene depicts on both the sides emaciated people who normally don’t have good nutritious food, amidst whom a totally different brahmin priest is seen bossing around, who is fat bellied with a body made useless by lack of exercise and too much of fat. He wears a silk dhoti while the poor people, even in their best clothes, are of no match. It gives an appearance as if the dalit-bahujans have given their blood to the priest. Many weddings end up dissipating a great deal of energy on the question of gifts or ‘dakshin’ to be given to the priests. Rather than expressing empathy with the poor for their lack of savings or inability to provide everything, the priest invariably takes rice, dates, tamarind, dry coconut, vegetables, beetlenuts, beetle leaves and so on as a matter of right. While making these demands, the priest takes no consideration of the financial condition of the family concerned, nor does he evince any interest to understand their livelihoods. In most families, the priest gives them sorrow, not blessings or some words of solace. There is no spirituality whatsoever in the relationship of the priest with the people. All meaningless rituals like walking around the fire etc are all dictated by the priest, with the final ritual being touching his feet and seeking his blessings as representative of God Almighty. Ilaiah says either in ritual part or in actual marriage part, the married life of dalit bahujans is a lot different from hindus. They simply don’t have leisure like hindus for even thinking about enjoying 64 different varieties of sexual postures like Vatsyayan. For them, to snatch a few moments of privacy is a great and unusual thing for a husband and wife. He also mentions that distribution of labour between man and woman is also fairer and not based on patriarchal values in case of dalit-bahujans, as most items of work are physically done together by man and woman. The images treating man as powerful and woman a weaker partner do not exist in the ideological framework of a dalit-bahujan family. The most important depiction of reality, which drives the economy of a dalit-bahujan household, is ‘if your hands don’t move, your stomach cannot get filled up’. For them, quotations of ‘karmanyevadhikaraste’ of bhagavad gita have no meaning. They would really wonder why the priest who regularly visits their houses and collects his ‘dakshin’ by various methods has never told them about the existence of this particular sloka in the gita. If dalit-bahujans should work hard and should not anticipate its fruits, who gets the fruits? It is the parasitical brahmins who are expected to receive the benefits. Similarly, the vyshyas are the people who exploit the people and take their hard-earned resources through a number of methods. Ilaiah explains in detail how a typical vyshya boy is taught the business skills, right from young age, apart from getting exposed to stories of mythology like the brahmin boys. One essential ingredient of these ‘business skills’ that are taught is ‘how to tell lies’. The village vyshya or a sahukar acts with every villager as if he loves him, while doing utmost cheating, with no concern for either quality norms of the product or even elementary principles of fair business like ensuring correct weighment of the commodity. Hoarding is of course most common. The vyshya never does business with the commodities that are allegedly against hindu religion. For example, most of the items which are a product of sweat of dalit-bahujans like toddy, cattle, goats, meat, leather chappals, leather items of daily use like the belt for an ox are all not touched by the vyshya. In terms of culture also, there is lot of resemblance among brahmins and vyshyas, which is at variance with dalit-bahujans. For example, the role of sex in cultural symbols. In the brahmin and vyshya families, there are rigid rules governing sexual behaviour of women. But, in their mythology, there are a number of stories describing amorous details. Radha-Krishna, Varoodhini-Pravarakhya, Siva-Parvathi stories have been developed with lot of romantic inputs. In dalit-bahujan families, the culture is totally different. The sexual act was never depicted as a work of art. This is not to say that they did not have love songs. But mostly their love songs are secular, realistic and have nothing to do with gods or goddesses. They don’t have man-woman relationships based on oppression or exploitation. Like hindus, dalit-bahujans also may prefer a son to a daughter, but then, sheer economic necessities rather than any religious ideology like going to heaven or something like that dictate it.

In the third chapter, Ilaiah describes the emergence of ‘sudra’ higher castes like reddys, kammas and velamas in Andhra Pradesh, or jats, marathas, patils, bhumihar, rajputs, whom her terms as ‘naya kshatriyas’ who are fast adopting the hindu lifestyles, both physically as well as mentally. He mentions how caste acts as a symbol denoting power. Even a middle caste people like kurumas among dalit-bahujans typically attempt to address leather workers or washermen with authority. The children of dalit-bahujans are typically taught to remain standing in display of servility and obedience. The ‘naya kshatriyas’ have found the ideological framework developed by brahmins—that of brahmin playing the role of a minister while the kshatriya plays the role of king----very convenient. They are increasingly taking up this traditional role of dwijas in the present days and are attempting to dominate the dalit-bahujans. These naya kshatriyas are considering themselves to be protectors of hindu religious ideology. Ilaiah describes the essence of hindu religious ideology as ‘join and divide’. The brahmins and vyshyas are gradually attempting to join the naya-kshatriyas with themselves, and are simultaneously keeping the lower castes away. But for these naya-kshatriyas, the hindu ideology would have got weakened long back because of the fact that the brahmin or the vyshya were not really meeting the dalit-bahujans very often and their influence would have come down. But these naya-kshatriyas are still linked to agricultural lands, unlike the brahmins and vyshyas now. They meet the dalit-bahujans and interact with them day in and day out. They attempt to keep them under dominance, thereby giving (an unnecessary) life to hindu ideology. But these naya-kshatriyas have no roots. Neither they can say they respect mysamma or pochamma. Nor do the dwijas accept these naya-kshatriyas as part of themselves. Eventhough culturally the brahmins are not accepting them, these naya-kshatriyas are trying, without any thinking, to get assimilated into the hindu brahminical ideology. In man-woman relations also, the naya-kshatriya woman addresses her husband as ‘meeru’ i.e. ‘aap’ by using the honorific in the pattern of the brahmins, while the naya-kshatriya man still addresses her as ‘ende, eme’ i.e. ‘tu’ in a pejorative sense. These women are increasingly being taught to play a submissive role and they are being found giving religious significance to food, just like the brahmins. Ilaiah says that even dalit-bahujans are male-dominated. Their men beat the women. But, at least their women are in a position to shout back and some times beat back their husbands. Their caste panchayats do take up issues like wife-beating.

Ilaiah looks at the brahminical hindu ideology as one which has the basic historical objective of defeating by manipulation, the political existence of dalit-bahujans. Ilaiah says this political existence of dalit-bahujans is in reality the secular and democratic social foundation for India. He makes an important observation that this hindu ideology, while attempting to rejuevenate old traditional brahminical hold, while attempting to control government institutions and civil society, moulds itself into new fascist forms. This ideology is a reflection of family structure of brahmins, where the brahmin woman is meant only as a commodity that satisfies the sexual needs of men and as a cook or domestic servant. The women have no individuality or desires or ambitions whatsoever in this ideology. The women cannot even perform the role of priests. In contrast, the dalit-bahujan women are as efficient in bread-winning work as their men. They are much more democratic than hindus. The brahmins as well as vyshyas believe in ‘own property’ whereas for dalit-bahujans, most of the earnings are pooled together and then redistributed. A good worker gets good respect in dalit-bahujan society, whereas in brahmin or vyshya society, a bigger evader of work gets greater respect. Ilaiah highlights the role of Dr Ambedkar, who had proclaimed that the dalit-bahujans should not join any political party that is controlled by brahmins, vyshyas or naya-skhatriyas. Dr Ambedkar’s attempt to bring out an anti-caste political revolution has shaken the foundations of hindu religious ideology. In this context, Ilaiah compares this revolution with the communist revolutions and says that had colonial rule generated anti-brahminical dalit-bahujan intellectuals and had they taken leadership for a communist revolution, perhaps by now, India would have had a truly socialist society. But unfortunately it did not happen so. The colonial rule strengthened the brahminical ideology. A very potent revolutionary ideology like marxism fell into hands of people representing reactionary social forces like brahmins, vyshyas and naya-kshatriyas. By this process, social revolution got delayed and even lost its track. He observes that apparently there are differences in power relations between communists and non-communists among the brahminical forces. But in reality they are all basically friends, as they are different branches of same tree, with roots in same place. In India the results of communist movement were determined more by roots than by branches. In 1980’s, dalit-bahujan intellectuals, having inspired by Dr Ambedkar’s ideology, initiated a process of driving away brahminical forces in all fields and usurping power from them. The hindu forces were worried and soon gave a religious colour to this caste-struggle and caused demolition of babri maszid in 1992. That was the peak of diversionary tactics of the hindu forces. According to Ilaiah, the role of naya-kshatriyas has been most dubious. They have done maximum damage to the socio-political structure of this country. Dalit-bahujan movement against caste has found it difficult to determine how to classify these people. Should they be treated as ‘not-enemies’ if not friends? Or should they be treated by the anti-caste struggle as outright enemies to the cause of social justice, just like brahmins? From their role in anti- mandal agitation, from their role in UP politics, it appears that they should be treated on par with the rest of brahminical hindu lot. In order to counter them, the dalit-bahujans have to form coalitions with the muslims and other minorities.

In the remaining four chapters, Ilaiah more or less repeats the same points as mentioned above. The book is a brilliant display of the viewpoint of dalit-bahujans. It is a view that does not normally enter discourses by so-called higher castes. I must admit that this reviewer was born into a so-called higher caste. Exposure to this book is a particularly learning experience for me at an individual level. I agree with a number of points made by Ilaiah on the past. But, I have reservations about his analysis of the present and his prescriptions for future. 1. His analysis of the present is not correct, as things are changing even at a village level. A great deal of space has been created by spread of modern education, and ideas of equality and social justice, thanks to social welfare hostels and government schools. Not everybody is prepared to accept social inequalities these days. The role of religion, as an ideology is declining among ordinary hindu masses of all castes. And of course, hindu religion is not monolithic like Islam or Christianity and whatever happens can get easily assimilated, which can work both ways. It can completely submerge the identity of dominated ideologies, but it can also deny the existence of a dominant ideology in the first place. I would hold that the declining importance of ram janmabhoomi issue in Ayodhya is an example for the latter. Ordinary hindus are just not buying the arguments advanced by the sangh parivar. 2. Ilaiah makes no reference to technology. Modern technology has a potential of bringing out changes in structural relations in the society. By use of technologically superior machines and changing production patterns, it is possible for large number of people to improve their incomes. More effort needs to go into understanding why technology is not spreading and more effective solutions have to be found for integrating technology with the markets, while at the same time government must play more supportive role for the poor by ensuring rule of law and by extending positive help to enable artisans to stand on their own feet. It is one thing to lament the suicides of weavers in Andhra Pradesh, but the solution does not lie in giving speeches exhorting weavers to remain strongly embedded to dalit-bahujan fold, but the solution has to be searched through a variety of methods including technology modernisation, job diversification, improvements in marketing methods, stepping up pressure on the state to provide effective and realistic market support and protecting the interests of artisans in the context of WTO etc.. 3. Ilaiah makes no reference to the fact of urbanisation. Because of urbanisation, people travel together and people reside together, with no reference to caste. I agree that he has an approach of ‘fighting caste, using caste’. But it does not mean that should be the only approach for fighting caste. Caste can be fought by other means also, like, for example, ensuring that a right candidate gets the right job or contract or finance from a credit institution strictly based on transparent criteria in an open manner. May be internet can be used to provide greater transparency both in government and private sectors. Some youths are setting examples by inter-caste marriages. The modern structures of establishments like offices are providing avenues like common dining or all families, irrespective of caste, in a workplace going together for a picnic etc., which did not exist before. 4. Ilaiah makes no mention of the general moral decline of the dominant political system and the increasing role of money and muscle power in contesting elections. The solutions have to be found in lobbying for greater transparency in political party donations and speedier functioning of criminal justice system. The solutions cannot be found in opportunistic or cult-based alliances, as we have seen from the examples of Kanshiram or Mayawati, who remained vacillating in their political behaviour. 5. Ilaiah makes no mention of efforts made by dalit-bahujans in spreading their stories, songs and culture. I am definitely interested in learning more about the story of potharaju or the story behind ‘bonalu panduga’, but where do I get it? More books need to be published on these aspects and only people like Ilaiah can take initiative in this direction. 6. In recent years, even those communities, whom Ilaiah brands as ‘naya-kshatriyas’ are losing actual contact with agricultural lands. More and more cultivation is being done by tenants who belong to so-called lower castes and not intermediate castes like kammas, velamas or reddys in andhra pradesh, as the youngsters in the ‘naya-kshatriya’ families are going into totally different areas like films, hotel industry, or even migrating to USA. The naya-kshatriyas are emerging as absentee-landlords. It is not true to say that they maintain day-to-day interaction with the dalit-bahujans, to any degree higher than that of brahmins or vyshyas in the village. 7. Ilaiah has no answer to the question of whether it is possible for anybody born in a so-called higher caste to ‘decaste’ himself or herself. When I make no distinction of caste with anybody with whom I interact in my day-to-day life, and like to treat everybody as a human being to the best of my ability, why should I be treated as an enemy, merely based on the accident of my birth?

I have my admiration for Ilaiah for his brilliant and passionate work and I agree with him on the importance of the role of caste in India. His book was criticised by some people, saying that he created a non-existent contradiction between dalit-bahujanism and brahminism. I do not agree with such notion, as I feel that his description is reasonably accurate, though passionate. But I hope that his predictions for future will be proven wrong by a more mature functioning of our political and social system, which can act in a more just and democratic manner, upholding the rule of law and extending effective interventions in addressing issues like abject poverty, illiteracy and disease. I am sure the Constitution of India provides ample space for people to act. I conclude by saying that Ilaiah and those like him who do not want to be hindus, need not be hindus and nobody can force them to be hindus.

8th November 2002
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Left extremists and the State

2009-11-30T20:27:00.004+05:30

Some points to be posed to the Maoists

Where is your mass base? If you are so much dependent only on the barrel of the gun, what would be the difference between you and any criminal? Since you claim that you are working to bring in a better, more egalitarian and just society, you have the obligation to take the people along.
I understand there is repression. But, how can killing ordinary tribals in the name of police informers bring in revolution?
Human rights are indivisible. Everybody has human rights. Nobody can be killed or injured without following some acceptable procedure and without affording an opportunity to the person to defend himself or herself.
There is a need to revisit the story of elephant and five blind men. Each person touches one part of the body and thinks the elephant is like that body part. The present socio-political-economic factors determining the world situation as well as the local situation have to be studied with care and open mind. And as per this story, the five blind men did not rely on the 'party line' to describe the elephant !
Why do you have so many splinter groups, if you believe in scientific and materialist dialectics ?
There are many ways in which you are similar to the capitalist forces in trying to destroy this planet. There are many issues on which you need to work with the communities and bring in social change through dialogue, like organic farming, local decentralised self-governing-institutions, gender issues, watershed development, working against social evils like child marriage, violence within the family, excessive expenditure on liquor by menfolk at the cost of the families' health and education.
You have no vision for building a post-revolutionary society. If you have, may be it is possible that one can start working for it from right now by utilising the political and legal space available in a democracy like India, despite its imperfections.
Development of 'entrepreneurship' among the poor may help them to get whatever little is possible from the 'market'. If you don't want to do it, at least don't oppose others who try it.

Some points to be posed to the State

There is something called Constitution of India. You are committed to it, whether you acknowledge it or not. Democracy does not mean merely conducting elections every five years. It does not mean taking up populist schemes without monitoring. Democracy basically means community participation at grasss roots level.
CPI (Maoist) is a political party. 'Maoism' is a political and philosophical ideology. Everybody who believes in Maoism does not automatically become a member of CPI (Maoist).
Whomever you do not like does not become a Maoist. Whomever you think are frontal organisations of CPI (Maoist) do not become so merely because you think so.
India's freedom was won by massive participation of people in the struggle. If large number of people are now dissatisfied with the system and express their dissent on issues like displacement, loss of livelihoods, loss of common property resources, growing unemployment, the solution cannot be in branding all of them as Maoists and taking up repressive measures. You have to find solutions by changing your laws, improving your implementation machinery, using Information Technology to monitor outcomes of developmental programmes and by attempting constant dialogue with the communities. All this can be possible only by withdrawing paramilitary forces and strengthening normal policing systems at the police station level. Police wing should be accessible and accountable to the common people. Police should help the weak and take action against the oppressors.
Elections are to be conducted without use of money and muscle power.
Before entering into an MOU with a prospective investor, you should make a profit-loss analysis from the local people's point of view. If the investment is not people-friendly and environment-friendly, do not sign the MOU.
Scrap the SEZ proposals, as they do not help the people.
People who fight against injustice are assets of a Nation. Police officers involved in cold blooded murder of such people should be prosecuted criminally.
Human rights are indivisible. Everybody has human rights. Nobody can be killed or injured without following the legal procedure and without affording an opportunity to the person to defend himself or herself.
There are some issues which cannot be resolved within the existing system of laws. One can understand them only by constant dialogue and attempting to see from the other's perspective. There is a need to revisit the story of elephant and five blind men. Each person touches one part of the body and thinks the elephant is like that body part. The present socio-political-economic factors determining the world situation as well as the local situation have to be studied with care and open mind.
Your emblem has an inscription, “Satyameva Jayate”. You are ethically bound to follow the Truth. You may have political power in the Assembly or Parliament. But you cannot govern as you wish. There are Directive Principles of State Policy dictating how Governments should function.

2007-06-29T11:06:00.000+05:30

Naxalites, Terrorists and Patriots

When it comes to the issue of naxalism, the mainstream media somehow cannot resist the temptation of describing reality through labels. It makes their job easy, as simplistic explanations are convenient. It has been reported, for example, that the Home Secretary of Government of India was asked after a recent meeting in Bhubaneswar on whether he would describe ‘naxalites’ as ‘terrorists’. When he declined to do so, it became news for the media. This article proposes to look at the common clichés created by the mainstream media with reference to the naxalite issue. We shall then see some of the images that are prevalent among the left intellectual circles. In the first part of this article, we assume that Constitution of India has some significance and that all Government Institutions are meant to work for achieving the Directive Principles of State Policy while upholding the fundamental rights.

The first cliché to be examined is ‘naxalite problem’. The media keeps talking about the problem all the time. Is it a problem? For whom is it a problem? Are there some people who think, rightly or wrongly, that it is a solution to their problems? Well, perhaps it is a problem to the police personnel involved in anti-naxal operations. It is a problem to the corrupt contractors or landed gentry who may have to shell out more money than they like. It is no doubt a problem to those who want the unjust social structure to remain as it is. But, is it a problem to the ‘Nation’ as a whole? Those who want to think about the Nation as a whole some times tend to forget how votes are polled in this democracy. You have electoral parties, driven by money and muscle power, without any sincere ideology, who can have seat adjustments with any other party that is seen to be winning. You have political parties based on personality cult, obtained by invoking real or imaginary memories and claiming legacy of charismatic personalities of the past like MGR, NTR, Indira Gandhi or Biju Patnaik. The most classic case is that of Chandrababu Naidu, who backstabbed NTR when he was at the fag end of life, but nevertheless claims to continue the legacy after NTR is no more. A slightly less ridiculous case is that of Naveen Patanik, who was not allowed anywhere near the scene when Biju Patnaik was alive and who is now said to be the torch bearer of the so-called Biju legacy. You have political parties which need to keep collecting funds for being able to contest the next time. If a political party that contests elections, asks a corporate house or the liquor mafia for donations to the party, it is not called ‘extortion’. The scope for an honest independent candidate to get elected without the support of one or the other electoral political parties, even at the Gram Panchayat level, is extremely limited. As against this, an ML group raising party funds is said to be indulging in ‘extortion’.

The second point that needs to be seen is the media image that the naxalites are like an armed band of dacoits, who indulge in senseless violence. The media tends to report and highlight only when there is some act of violence perpetrated by the naxalites or some armed action of the State on them. The point often missed with reference to naxalites is that they comprise of a group of political parties. They propagate their political views and they do not believe in parliamentary democracy of the type that we have in India. Surely there may be distortions and not everybody in these parties may have a theoretical understanding of Maoism or the practical commitment to some ideology. They do take resort to armed force at times, but it is not logical to think that they have sustained for so many decades only by sheer force, without any popular support. There is a naïve notion that they are violent, as if all the electoral political parties consist of saints. Violence is the hallmark of modern mainstream political life. What the mainstream parties are afraid of is not violence per se, but the ideology of social change that would influence the minds of the people politically by the presence and growth of the ML parties. It is not the gun that is fearsome to the people interested in perpetuating power; it is the politics behind that gun, which really causes fear. Therefore, we need to look at things happening on the ground. One needs to scrutinise the political work that is happening in the villages and small towns. Are the notions, value systems and political ideology of the people in the naxalite areas undergoing any changes? Is there a shift in the manner in which the people are responding to the issues of equity and production relations?

The third point that needs to be examined is the notion that after collapse of Soviet Union and changes in economic polices of China, communism has lost its relevance globally and that the strength of naxalism as a popular movement in India is on the decline. This view holds that globalisation is good for the millions of Indians, as new employment opportunities are within their access. Certainly, the opportunities for a small section of IT and other professionals have increased. But considering the massive extent of poverty and present literacy levels, such number of people who could gain from globalisation is still a small fraction of the total population. There is no doubt that some urban Indians having surplus income are now having many more opportunities to spend than a decade ago. But, the point to be examined is the proportion of such people in the whole population. It is true that right now we have one super power controlling the globe. But there is no evidence to think that all other ideologies have failed and that free market ideology has emerged victorious as the sole ideology for the whole world. A look at the statistics shows that the economic disparities throughout the world are increasing. More than a billion people entered the 21^st Century without the ability to read or write. About 30,000 children die every day due to conditions attributable to poverty. The slice of the cake taken by 1% of the world’s richest is the same as that handed over to poorest 57%. 12% of the world’s population uses 85% of its water. ^¹ Thus it is clear that what was claimed to be communism, with its record of human rights violations, has ended. But it has not established that the free market model is the remedy.

The fourth point to be examined is the notion that independent India has made spectacular strides in reducing poverty and therefore, that the extreme left wing parties are opposed to ‘development’, merely for perpetuating their ideological hold. No doubt some progress has been made in certain aspects like access to drinking water, construction of physical school buildings etc. But a lot remains to be done in making the development process participatory and empowering. Rather than attempting an evaluation of the entire gamut of developmental programmes cutting across different sectors, we may see three broad elements. As access to land has been one of the most important aspects of production relations, we can examine the achievements in land reforms. It is important to note that the talk of land reforms started in India in the 1930’s, since Congress Party came to power in majority of provinces. Mahatma Gandhi, in an interview with Louis Fischer in 1942 had said that land held by the zamindars would be forcibly distributed among the landless, once India became independent. When the reporter asked, ‘will any compensation be given to the landlords?, Gandhi replied, ‘No question. The landlords may cooperate by fleeing from the villages!’ ^² In comparison to these intentions, the five decades of land reforms witnessed ^³13 amendments to the Constitution, 277 progressive laws and innumerable court cases. The governments spent about Rs 600 crore from the state exchequer to the erstwhile landlords and made redistribution of only 1.5 % total agricultural land, as against 43% achieved in China, 33 % achieved in Japan, 32% in Korea and 37% in Republic of Taiwan^⁴. Despite distribution of agricultural land to about 18.5 lakh landless families over the years, the percentage of landless households among SCs has increased from 12.62% in 1981 to 13.34 % in 1991^⁵. It is to be seen that tenancy has been pushed under the carpet in several states, with the result that the tenant or sharecropper is required to put in all the costs for agriculture, without assured credit support and without security of tenure. About 1.5 crore tenants and share croppers are tilling the soil season after season, with no recorded rights.^⁶ Similarly, a huge gap exists between delivery of paper documents to ceiling surplus land allottees and their physical occupation of the land. It is increasingly recognised that in India’s land reforms measures, there was no effort to enhance the holding capacity of the poor on land. The poor had no means to develop the land by bringing in necessary inputs. Land was understood more as an independent means of production, rather than it being intricately linked to other markets and social institutions like caste.^⁷ By and large, land reforms have succeeded in doing away with very large land holdings and bringing some benefits to some of the other backward castes. Though some progress has taken place by abolition of intermediaries, the benefits have not percolated to the poor, primarily because of the legal framework within which land reforms operated. As PS Appu has put it, “It was a policy of inchoate policy, imperfect legislation and inefficient implementation”

Let us now have a look at the implementation of poverty reduction programmes. In terms of the amount spent, no doubt India’s poverty reduction efforts are unparalleled, with the Ministry of Rural Development having a budget outlay over 28,000 crore rupees. Adding to this 25% contribution from the State Governments, the money available for poverty reduction is no doubt substantial. Broadly the moneys are spent on wage employment programmes, self-employment programmes with bank support and some area development programmes like watershed management. The wage employment programmes are supposed to be linked with creation of assets. They are now by law guaranteed under NREGA. However, in practice the common features of these wage employment programmes are (a) Choice, location, usefulness and maintenance of the assets being generally improper or inadequate. Gram Sabhas are mostly non-functional. (b) People did not get job cards in several districts and those who got the cards did not know that second application for actual job is required. (c) Quality of execution generally poor, due to the fact that the contractor is pushed down the carpet and it is pretended that he does not exit, rather than deciding the contractor in a transparent and accountable manner, with clearly defined profit margins and maintenance responsibilities (d) The technical estimates preparation is shrouded in mystery and the elected Gram Panchayats or intermediate panchayat members are yet to be exposed to a demystified manner of executing civil works (e) High incidence of corruption, among officials as well as elected representatives (f) Lack of transparency in posting key officials like Block Development Officers to particular locations and their stability of tenure (g) Very little emphasis on availability and quality of personnel required for quality execution of programmes. Government of India spends substantive amounts on the programme but very small but critical components like payment of remuneration for key additional personnel have to be handled by the State Governments. Regarding the self-employment programmes, the merger of six schemes and renaming them as SGSY has ensured downward credit flow into these programmes. Aspects by which groups of the poor can play a more assertive role in the market through skill development, training, change of product mix and design, ability to meet delivery schedules, quality control, packaging etc have all taken a back seat. Regarding watershed development programmes, the participatory aspects are being stressed in training programmes. But in actual practice, the element of participation seems to be lacking, as witnessed by collapse of the programmes after the project period is over. Apart from the basic limitation that these programmes primarily help those who have land, the implementation is also witnessed by the failure of the user groups, self-help-groups to take up so-called watershed-plus activities. The limitations of land reforms and poverty reduction programmes indicate that the success in reducing poverty has not been all that spectacular. It is also to be noted that the extreme left groups have by and large not opposed the implementation of these programmes, though definitely they have not been enthusiastic to participate in them. Perhaps one reason could be that the poverty reduction programmes are seen to be helping the middlemen and other influential persons more than they help the poor.

Another common label that is bandied about is ‘naxalite sympathiser’. We need to note that the State generally has a tendency to think, “whoever is not with us is against us”. Reality is much more complicated than what mere labels can describe. There are many alternative economic and political ideologies and theories. Whoever criticises the dominant development model does not automatically become a naxalite or a Maoist. The people described as naxalite sympathiser are over ground and have definite occupations and sources of livelihood. They participate in ralleys, strikes and meetings. They may be looking at the issues in a similar manner as the naxalites do. They may be influencing public opinion and hence are an important power group in the society. But when we see try to see the ability of such groups or individuals in influencing the policies or positions of the naxalites, the evidence is seriously wanting. Therefore one needs to realise that branding somebody as a naxalite sympathiser is the easiest thing for the state to do. The state finds it convenient to blame them for a local situation, rather than looking at the other side of the problem, like displacement of people due to so-called development projects, shrinking common resources and poverty enhancement measures being adopted by the State.

Having looked at one side of the picture, we need to see some disturbing aspects of the functioning of the left extremists too. Here we assume that the extreme left parties actually work for the poor, by organising them, by means of a long armed struggle. Of course, one understands the overall atmosphere due to police repression. But still, these issues become relevant. The first and foremost point is the unaccountable display of brutality and violence. If a policeman displays violence beyond the sanction of law, there is at least a theoretical solace, however remote it may be. But in case of arbitrary exercise of brutality by the extreme leftists, there is no remedy even in theory. However insincere it may be, there is some theory in the manner of the State implementing the law. For example, there is an elaborate framework on how a trial is conducted by independent judiciary, how the advocates defend an accused etc. But, it appears that there is no method in the manner in which the left wing extremists choose to trample the human rights of those they do not like. For example, the inhuman torture in which ‘police informers’ are maimed and killed needs to be taken into account. Most of the alleged police informers are from among the poor. That is understood, as a rich and influential person will never leave any evidence. However, the left wing parties often award extreme punishments on this charge. (It is not that I recognise any extra legitimacy in killing the rich. But, when precept is applied against its practice, the reality strikes hard.) Therefore, if a political party claims that they are working for the poor, it becomes all the more relevant to see how the poor are being harmed in the name of being police informers. Secondly, there is a big element of arbitrariness in the manner of dispensing justice in the so-called ‘people’s courts’, with the naïve notion that whoever approaches the naxalites first in a dispute must be right. Influential persons observing the game do learn how to continue their activities but keep the ultras informed so as to avoid problems of ‘people’s courts’. Thirdly, we might accept the need for financial donations to run a political party. But if the party gets money from illicit liquor traders, corrupt contractors and corrupt politicians/ officials, how can it ethically function as a party of the oppressed? If a party claims that they are against social or political oppression, would they not morally be a part of the oppression if they use the money or resources of the oppressor? Fourthly, it is an important question to see the extent of people’s participation in the decision making within the extreme left parties. Leadership of ‘vanguard’ in a revolution is known in theory. But vanguard without any role for people has no meaning. One needs to see critically in actual practice as to whether people genuinely participate in the affairs of such parties. Perhaps the oppressed people residing in the areas under the influence of Maoists have as little say in the party affairs as the farmers on the policies in a water users association! One does understand that overall repressive environment is not conducive to holding open meetings and involving ordinary public. But, the fact remains that without people’s active participation, any activity cannot be sustained in the name of people’s movement. Fifthly, despite all the courage, sacrifice and extreme hardships that he or she has chosen to undergo, the career of a left extremist is still a soft path. It would be a much more challenging and daunting task to address the oppressor directly in a straightforward manner, openly and in presence of the whole community, appeal for change, utilise and expand the space available for the underprivileged and to keep on working to mobilise the people for empowerment in an open and truthful manner. Pulling a trigger is a relatively simple affair, in comparison to years of patient work with the communities that would be required for bringing in social change, whether it is in addressing issues like demanding higher wage rates, or issues like child marriages, gender inequality or superstitions like witchcraft. It is also more useful to the oppressed in the long run to sharpen their own tools of studying, analysing and responding to a situation, rather than outsourcing the job of their thinking to an armed group. Sixthly, there is an oft-repeated statement that if unemployment problem continues and if the Government’s developmental efforts are insincere, it is bound to lead to growth in left extremism. It is to be borne in mind that left extremism is not necessarily the only outcome. It is possible for the problems to cause begging, petty crime, organised crime, prostitution, religious fundamentalism, terrorism, etc. Therefore, it would not be correct to equate that extreme left activity to be the only possible response to the failure of the State in providing a reasonably egalitarian society. Finally, some serious thinking needs to be done among the naxalite parties on their vision for a post-revolutionary society. How will it function? What is the method to do some good work in basic social development like China did in the initial decades, without the horrors like that of a famine which took more than a lakh lives and the news of which was completely hushed up? What should the role of entrepreneurship? Can markets be altogether abolished? Or, would it be wiser to see that markets are more truly competitive and the State is more participatory, transparent and accountable? What can be done right from now onwards to see that it does not resemble George Orwell’s ’Animal Farm’?

The need of the hour is to increase the political space available for the poor. This cannot be done through the barrel of the gun. This can only be done by enhancing opportunities of negotiating freely and frankly with all the people together in open and habitation level meetings, by inculcating the culture of genuine ‘Palli Sabhas’ or habitation level Gram Sabhas. The task is to ‘build bridges’ and forge alliances.

1 Anup Shah, http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp

2 Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, Harper Collins

3 Sukumar Das 2000, A critical evaluation of land reforms in India , ( Ed. B K Sinha and Pushpendra), Land Reforms in India: An unfinished agenda, Sage Publications: New Delhi

4 S R Sankaran, Introduction to Land Reforms edited by PS Appu

5 Thorat Sukhdev,2000,Programmes for empowerment and reducing inequality: Long way to go for untouchables, Journal of Rural Development, Vol 19 (4), pp 653-689

6 The rough figures of concealed tenancy can be seen in the Annual report of Department of Rural Development, Government of India, 1993-94 and 1994-95 at pp144 and 136.

7 Bhagwati J and Chakravarty, 1969, Contributions to Indian Economic Analysis: A Survey. American Economic Review, 9 (4)

Comment on the 'stone-eating' news of Sinapali

2007-06-25T10:32:00.003+05:30

There is no doubt that people living in KBK region of Orissa have serious challenges in overcoming poverty, unemployment and disease. Lot of work remains to be done in protection of common property resources,land improvement and skill development. But to say that people are eating stones is simply an affront to human dignity.Firstly, it is obviously a false statement. Secondly, it is a statement made with a view to gain cheap political mileage. Thirdly, it is an irresponsible stance, as nothing can replace the hardwork of trying to work with the communities, let them understand the theoretical opportunities of NREGA and the practical ways of trying to get the maximum of it etc., just to cite one of the opportunities available for the people. For example, many job card holders do not know that they need to apply a second time, after getting the job card. It is also a challenging task to see the correspondence between the NREGA labour side and the creation of assets side. What kind of assets are being created? Are they really the right ones, as decided by the community? Another important question is the stance that contractors are not allowed. In reality, somebody is required to get all the material for a public work together, stand there and get the men and women organised for work, pull up those who are not working properly and generally taking care of quality and speed of work. You have a choice of calling that person by any name you like, ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ or ‘work executant’ or ‘field worker’ or ‘supervisor’ or whatever. Whatever name you may give him, the person exists. NREGA pretends that such person does not exist. What is important is to see that such persons are transparently selected in open meeting of the community or gram sabha, give him reasonable margin of profit and ensure that he is held responsible in case of any faulty work. Right now in NREGA works, nobody is held accountable for quality and this person gets decided through non-transparent means by way of a simple device that officially you do not recognise that he exists! This is the same mindset which pretends that sharecroppers and absentee landlords do not exist. Rather than recognise the fact that you have people who cultivate the lands recorded in favour of somebody else, give each of this category some basic rights apportionment, the State pretends that by law all the tenancy in Orissa has been abolished. This has pushed the tenancy under the carpet. This has affected the profitability of agriculture as an occupation. This has also resulted in lots of lands lying fallow and valuable agricultural land not getting adequate resources for development. Neither the absentee landlord invests because he is not present all the time. Nor would the tenant invest in land, because anyway the land does not belong to him. In NREGA also, this is the same manner in which the State does not recognise the existence of contractors and thereby the quality of work is hampered and the assets are not generated worth the money that is spent.

Our theories

2006-11-19T11:14:00.000+05:30

We all have our theories.

Someone thinks 'free market' will solve all problems. Somebody else thinks 'controlled and planned socialist economy' is the need of the hour. One thinks both communism and capitalism ask for more burden on this planet and therefore one needs a third Gandhian type alternative, based on the economics of Schumacher. There are people who believe in Jihad. There are people who believe in bringing revolution through the barrel of the gun. There are some who think a tough government with strong police will tackle all problems. There are some who think 'terrorism' has to be crushed with an iron hand. There are some others who think George Bush is the biggest terrorist.There are some who think infrastructure is the key.There are some who believe in the rights of people who will be displaced due to so-called development projects. There are some who believe in better rehabilitation deal. Some others advocate no displacement at all. We have some people who believe in reservations for SCs and STs. We have some others who believe also for OBCs. We have some others who believe in SC and ST but not for OBCs. We have some who want it for private sector. We have some others who want for private sector, but not on the basis of law............

One thing common to all people having theories is that we love our theories the most. In fact, we love the fact that it is our theory, with much stronger and deeper emotion, than the subject of our theories.

I have a theory that you are evil. Therefore, I will never share a platform with you. I will never agree with you on any matter. I will oppose you in all possible ways. If logic and the facts show that you are making sense, then I will feel miserable. I make all efforts and use all the skills at my command to show that you are wrong. But I do not use half of those skills and intellect to look inside me.

Is it possible to look inside, contemplate in the self and then act, without any theories?

'My Mission'

2006-11-12T13:47:00.000+05:30

"To laugh often and much,
to win the respect of intelligent people,
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics,
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others,
to leave the world a little better,
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier,
because you lived.
This is to have succeeded"
( as expressed by R W Emerson)

Some random thoughts

2006-11-08T06:50:00.000+05:30

1. Isn't it true that the biggest challenge facing India is poverty? (Here I mean India not as a geographical unit but basically as the people of India.)

2. While many people may agree with the above, remedies offered by each are different. You have some, who say that one needs the Government to concentrate on creating infrastructure. I know some who believe that corruption is the biggest factor fueling persistence of poverty.You have others who talk about the need to end exploitation. You have some others who talk about 'armed struggle', but who do not mind taking money from those who exploit. You have still others who say that poverty of the spirit is even more troublesome than economic poverty.

3. This is a blog to observe everything, without any bias, if that is possible.