Indian Journalist Speaks

On Mission Music

2011-10-31T17:39:00.000+05:30

Director-cum-chief mentor of Indo Asian News Service, KPK Kutty is on a mission to teach Carnatic music to school children of rural Kerala

While many of his contemporaries became media advisors to Prime Ministers or secured other plum positions in Delhi, veteran journalist K P K Kutty has chosen to lead a hermit’s life in his ancestral village of Kavasseri in Palakkad district of Kerala.

The 78-year-old journalist, while continuing to mentor the editorial staff of Indo Asian News Service (IANS), devotes most of his time as a music teacher to 350 school children in over a dozen village temples in a radius of 25 km around Kavasseri. He wakes up at 4 in the morning, performs pooja and off he goes to various temples to teach music to children in the age group of 5-10 years. He has fixed each day of the week for visits to different temples.

Dussehra is a special day for Kutty and the children as it is on this auspicious day that mothers and grandmothers bring their children to the main village temple to be initiated into literacy and music by the priests. Clad in Dhoti and Angavastram, with sandalwood paste smeared on his temple, Kutty blesses the children and makes them recite the complete octave –Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa.

Kutty Sir, as he is endearingly called by the children and their parents in the area, left Delhi six years ago to settle down in his ancestral village to carry on the legacy of his father Kavasseri Vaidyanathaiyer Parasurama Sastrigal, the chief priest of the village temple and a renowned music teacher.

Ironically, it was his father who had advised his teenage son Kutty to give up music and learn English instead. Kutty went ahead with his English study but did not leave his Veena, a musical instrument his blind elder sister inspired him to play.

Born in a family of musicians, Kutty started playing the Veena at the age of six. He was inspired by his blind elder sister Parvathi Ammal, who had been taken to Thiruvananthapuram by Kutty's father to learn Veena under the tutelage of Travancore Palace aasthaana vainika Mannapra Anantharama Bhagavathar.

After his matriculation in 1949, Kutty worked for nine years as a member of the non-combatant accounts staff in the Indian Air Force (IAF). During the period, with considerable free time at hand, he made considerable advance in his music study, devoting a lot of energy and time to surveying the contribution of Kerala composers such as Irayimman Thampi, his daughter Kutty Kunju Thankachi, Mahakavi K C Kesava Pillai, Kuttamathu and Thulaseevanam, besides Swati Thirunal. He had already acquainted himself with the Carnatic music trinity during his school days in Kavasseri.

Life in the air force station in Delhi was quite rewarding for him. The working hours being only from 7.30 am to 1.30 pm, he had ample time to not only practice veena but also pursue his higher education. Studying privately, he did MA in English literature in 1958.

His interest and knowledge in Carnatic music was already known to friends in Tamilian and Malayalee circles in Delhi. His first vocal concert in front of a discerning audience took place in Sarojini Nagar in 1956. Among the audience was a violinist, Gayatri Sastri, who spoke to him soon after the concert. On learning that Kutty was a Veena player, she offered him an unused Veena lying in her home. Kutty insisted he wouldn't want it gratis. She then asked for just Rs. 20 and Kutty paid her Rs.30 in a liberal deal. Kutty has been playing the same Veena past 55 years.

While pursuing his passion for music, Kutty was also fond of writing short articles, a hobby which changed the course of his life and made him leave an accountant’s job to become a journalist. One such piece that he wrote was on the metamorphosis of a girl student of Kavasseri who he ran into on a Delhi road in 1958 while still in the IAF. The one-time shy, orthodox village girl, his senior by about four years, was attired in modern city clothes, wearing goggles and riding a cycle. Kutty interviewed her and wrote a piece which he sent to D.R.Mankekar, then editor-in-chief of The Indian Express. Though the piece was not published, the editor offered him the job of a trainee subeditor.

After working with The Indian Express till April 1961, Kutty joined the United News of India (UNI) and became a chief subeditor in just two years. He served UNI for 32 years and retired in 1993 after he had headed the news agency as chief editor and general manager for more than five years.

The first 40 years of Kutty's Delhi stay was marked by journalistic assignments to more than 40 countries. Even while he worked as a journalist in a national news agency, accompanying Prime Ministers on their foreign visits, Kutty kept live contact with his village folks, visiting them once a year on his annual leave. On such annual visits, Kutty would spend time with the village children, teaching them the rudimentary of classical Carnatic music.

After his retirement from UNI, Kutty joined Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), a news agency set up in 1994 as director and chief mentor, a position he holds even today. “Essentially, I monitor the news feeds and features issued by IANS every night and carry out the necessary changes and pass on instructions to the editorial staff. This does not take more than two hours,” says Kutty who, though a director of the company, takes Rs. 20,000 as a monthly honorarium, “Just enough to take care of my daily needs and transport cost to visit the temples around Kavasseri.”

Between 1960 and 1995 Kutty participated in scores of music programmes and held concerts in Delhi. He used to have regular interactive sessions with eminent classical music singers on compositions of Kerala vaggeyakaras.

A 200-minute cultural programme titled "A Day in Kerala", conceived by Omchery's Delhi Experimental Theatre and featuring more than 200 singers and theatre artistes, including Mrs. Leela Omchery and Kutty's wife Rajalakshmi, captured the imagination of Delhiites, especially Malayalees who account for about 1.4 million in Delhi's population of 18 million.

In 2005, Kutty survived cancer, a variety known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). “It was Veena which helped me recover from the trauma that I went through because of chemotherapy which had caused the loss of my hair. I used to remain confined to my home to avoid embarrassment due to loss of hair. I utilized the time to play Veena,” he recalls. Today, Kutty’s hair is like a lion’s mane, a distinctive feature by which he is known along with his walrus moustaches.

A music concert by Kutty in Kavasseri's Parakkattu Sree Bhagavathi temple in August 2006 along with his US-based cousin, K. Balasubramaniam, led to his being pressured by friends in the Ottupura agraharam to return to the village since there has been no music teacher there after his father's death in 1966.

Kutty began his latest music lessons in Kavasseri on November 15, 2006, with 54 children attending the inaugural class at the Parakkattu Sree Bhagawathi temple.

Kutty used to teach a dozen-odd children music whenever he used to come to the village on two months' leave while in the IAF. Today Kutty's students number around 350 spread over a dozen villages covering an area of over 250 sq km.

Besides music, Kutty also had a tryst with the film industry. Film producer Joy Thomas' 1987 Malayalam feature film "New Delhi" saw Kutty playing the role of chief editor of a newspaper with hero Mammootty working under him as a reporter. The film, which was a hit, was then made in Hindi, Kannada and Telugu, with Kutty doing the same role in all the three versions.

However, Kutty was not enamored by the glitz and power of both the tinsel world and the national capital and has chosen to lead a hermit’s life in his ancestral village, spreading love and music among school children.

NACHIKETA DESAI

मोदी की निगाह में है दिल्ली

2011-09-28T11:45:00.000+05:30

लोक सभा के आम चुनाव में अभी तीन साल और बाकी हैं. लेकिन गुजरात के मुख्यमंत्री नरेन्द्र मोदी ने अभी से इसकी तैयारियां शुरू कर दी हैं. बिहार के विधान सभा चुनाव में सहयोगी जनता दल (यू) के नेता और मुख्यमंत्री नितीश कुमार ने उन्हें चुनाव प्रचार से दूर रखा था. वजह थी मोदी की मुसलमान विरोधी कुप्रतिष्ठा. मोदी यह भली भांति जानते हैं कि केवल रतन टाटा, मुकेश और अनिल अंबाणी बंधु जैसे उद्योगपतियों के समर्थन प्रस्ताव से उन्हें दिल्ली की राज गद्दी नहीं मिलेगी. इसके लिए उन्हें अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी की तरह धर्मनिरपेक्षता का मुखौटा पहनना होगा.

गुजरात के २००२ में हुए नरसंहार में उनकी भूमिका के कारण विश्व हिन्दु परिषद के नेतृत्त्व ने मोदी को ’हिन्दु हृदय सम्राट’ की पदवी से विभूषित किया था. उनकी प्रखर हिन्दुत्त्ववादी छवि तथा गुजरात मतदाताओं के सांप्रदायिक ध्रुवीकरण के कारण ही मोदी दो दफ़ा मुख्यमंत्री चुने गए. विधान सभा चुनावों में मोदी ने पाकिस्तान के तत्कालीन राष्ट्रपति ’मियां मुशर्रफ़’ के भारत विरोधी रवैये तथा सोनिया गांधी के नेतृत्त्व में कांग्रेस की मुसलमानों को खुश करने वाली नीतियों को ललकारा और ऐसा माहौल खड़ा किया कि जैसे यह एक भारत-पाक युद्ध हो, न कि राज्य विधान सभा के चुनाव. पिछले दस साल से लगातार ’हिन्दु हृदय सम्राट’ का मुकुट पहन कर चलने वाले मोदी के लिए अब रातों रात धर्मनिरपेक्ष एवं सर्वमान्य नेता के रूप में अपनी पहचान बना पाना थोड़ा मुश्किल ही नजर आता है.

उच्चतम न्यायालय ने अब जब २००२ के नरसंहार में उनकी भूमिका की जांच अहमदाबाद के मेजिस्ट्रेट की अदालत को सुपुर्द करने का आदेश दिया है तब मोदी के लिए अपनी मुसलमान विरोधी छवि को मिटा कर एक धर्मनिरपेक्ष नेता के रूप में प्रतिस्थापित करना बहुत बड़ी चुनौती है. हिटलर के प्रचार मंत्री गोबेल्स से बोध पाठ सीखे मोदी ने एक झूठ को सौ बार सच के रूप में दोहरा कर सफ़ेद झूठ को सच के रूप में प्रस्थापित करने का प्रयास शुरू कर दिया है. इसका सबसे पहला कदम उठाया उन्होंने अपने जन्म दिवस से शुरू किए गए तीन दिवसीय ’सद्भाव’ उपवास से. गुजरात विश्व विद्यालय के वातानुकूलित विशाल सभागृह में आयोजित उपवास समारोह में राज्य भर से हजारों की संख्या में ट्रक, बस तथा ट्रैक्टर से लोग लाए गए. उपवास के पहले दिन विशेष कर भारी संख्या में मुसलमान स्त्री-पुरुषों को लाया गया. इन्हें बुर्का तथा नमाज़ी टोपी पहन कर आने को कहा गया और मंच के सामने पहली कतारों में बैठाया गया ताकि टीवी कैमेरा इसका देश-विदेश में सीधा प्रसारण कर सकें.

इसी प्रकार, दक्षिण गुजरात से आदिवासी युवकों को इसाई पादरियों का चोगा तथा क्रोस पहना कर मंच पर बिठाया गया. इन तथा कथित इसाई पादरियों से जब एक अंग्रेज़ी अखबार के पत्रकार ने अंग्रेज़ी में सवाल पूछे तब जा कर इस बात का पर्दाफ़ाश हुआ कि उन्हें भारतीय जनता पार्टी के आयोजकों ने सिर्फ़ मंच पर दिखावे के लिए ये वेशभूषा पहनाई थी. सद्बावना उपवास एक नाटक मात्र था यह तथ्य इसी प्रकार की एक और हास्यास्पद किस्से से जाहिर हो गई जब दर्शकों ने मंच पर विराजमान एक शक्स को, जो अरब शेख के कफ़्तान और कैफ़िए पहने था, अहमदाबाद के पूर्व उपायुक्त के रूप में पहचान लिया.

जहां एक ओर इस प्रकार के नाटकीय प्रदर्शन से मोदी यह बात साबित करने की नाकाम कोशिश करते नजर आए कि उन्हें सभी धर्म के लोगों का समर्थन प्राप्त है, वहीं मंच पर विराजमान भारतीय जनता पार्टी के पूर्व अध्यक्ष लाल कृष्ण आडवाणी, राजनाथ सिंह, राज्य सभा में विपक्ष के नेता अरुण जेटली, लोक सभा में विपक्ष की नेता सुष्मा स्वराज, पंजाब के अकाली दल के मुख्यमंत्री प्रकाश सिंह बादल तथा हिमाचल प्रदेश के मुख्यमंत्री प्रेमकुमार धूमल द्वारा अपनी भूरी-भूरी प्रशंसा करा कर यह संदेश दिया कि उन्हें न केवल भाजपा के नेतृत्त्व का बल्कि राष्ट्रीय जनतांत्रिक गठबंधन के घटक दलों का भी समर्थन प्राप्त है. तामिल नाडु की मुख्यमंत्री जयललिता ने भी अपने दल के दो सांसदों को मोदी के सद्भावना उपवास कार्यक्रम में शामिल होने भेजा था.

उपवास के अंतिम दिन के भाषण ने मोदी ने भारत के प्रधानमंत्री पद के दावेदार होने की अपनी बृहद आकांक्षा को यह कह कर जग जाहिर कर ही दिया कि वे अब अपना सर्वस्व देश की सेवा में अर्पित करना चाहते हैं. उन्होंने यह भी कहा कि देश को यदि बड़े सपने देखने और उन्हें साकार होते हुए देखना है तो गुजरात के नक्शे कदम पर चलना होगा. उन्होंने दावा किया कि गुजरात ने देश के सामने सद्भावना, सुलह-शांति तथा सर्वांगी विकास की बेहतरीन मिसाल पेश की है.

लेकिन मोदी का यह दावा भी २००२ की हिंसा में मारे गए लोगों के परिजनों ने खोखला साबित कर दिया. "बिना न्याय के सद्भाव संभव नहीं" का नारा देकर इन पीडित लोगों ने मोदी के उपवास के दूसरे दिन अहमदाबाद के नरोड़ा पाटिया और गुलबर्ग सोसायटी में विरोध प्रदर्शन आयोजित किए जिनको पुलिस ने लाठी चला कर और गिरफ़्तार कर प्रदर्शन स्थल से हटा दिया. प्रदर्शन में शामिल होने जा रहे दंगा पीड़ितों के वकील मुकुल सिंहा तथा सुप्रसिद्ध नृत्यांगना एवं कर्मशील सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता मल्लिका साराभाई को भी पुलिस ने गिरफ़्तार कर लिया.

प्रधानमंत्री पद के लिए विपक्ष के सर्वमान्य उम्मीदवार होने का उनका दावा भी न केवल राजग के नेता नितीश कुमार ने बल्कि भाजपा के आला कमान ने भी यह कह कर झूठा साबित कर दिया कि अब तक इस बारे में किसी भी व्यक्ति का नाम तय नहीं किया गया है. हालांकि लाल कृष्ण आडवाणी ने मोदी के प्रधानमंत्री पद की उम्मीदवारी के समर्थन में यह कह कर कि वे एक सक्षम नेता हैं पुष्टि अवश्य की, मगर लोक सभा में विपक्ष की नेता सुषमा स्वराज ने उपवास मंच से मोदी को अपनी कार्यक्षमता का लाभ केवल गुजरात तक सीमित रखने की सलाह दी.

सर्वांगी विकास का मोदी द्वारा प्रसारित तथा प्रचारित गुजरात मोडल को न केवल विपक्षी कांग्रेस के नेताओं ने चुनौती दी है बल्कि उन्हीं के दल भाजपा के विधायक कनुभाई कलसारिया तथा मोदी मंत्रीमंडल में रह चुके गोर्धनभाई झडफिया ने भी दी है. सद्बावना उपवास को झूठा तथा मोदी सरकार के भ्रष्टाचार को उजागर करने राज्य कांग्रेस के अध्यक्ष अर्जुन मोढवाडिया, पूर्व अध्यक्ष शंकरसिंह वाघेला तथा विधान सभा में विपक्ष के नेता शक्तिसिंह गोहिल ने साबरमती आश्रम के सामने फुटपाथ पर तीन दिन के समानान्तर उपवास पर बैठे. इससे पहले गुजरात से कांग्रेस के सांसदों के एक प्रतिनिधि मन्डल ने राष्ट्रपति को एक ज्ञापन पत्र देकर मोदी सरकार द्वारा कुछ गिने चुने औद्योगिक घरानों को पानी के मोल करोड़ों की जमीन देने में हुए भ्रष्टाचार के आरोपों की लोकपाल द्वारा जांच करने की मांग उठाई.

खेती की जमीन को औद्योगिक घरानों को सस्ते में बांटे जाने के सवाल पर भाजपा के विधायक कनुभाई कलसारिया ने हाल ही में भावनगर से जामनगर तक की सायकल यात्रा की जिसमें समुद्र किनारे बसे सैंकड़ों किसानों ने भाग लिया. सरकार द्वारा उपजाऊ जमीन को औद्योगिकरण के लिए दिए जाने के सवाल पर दक्षिण गुजरात से लेकर कच्छ तक के १६०० किलो मीटर समुद्री तट के गांवों में जगह-जगह आंदोलन चल रहे हैं जिसमें भाजपा के विधायक के अलावा ९४ वर्षीय गांधीवादी चुनीभाई वैद्य सक्रीय रूप से जुड़े हैं. दिल्ली में जन लोकपाल की मांग को लेकर अनशन करने से पहले, अन्ना हजारे ने भी अपनी गुजरात यात्रा के दौरान यह घोषणा की थी कि वे खेती योग्य जमीन को उद्योगों को सौंपने के मसले पर अपना अगला आन्दोलन करेंगे. अन्ना हजारे की गुजरात दौरे के समय चुनीभाई वैद्य ही उनके स्थानिक यजमान थे. आगामी १ अक्तूबर से अन्ना हजारे और उनके सहयोगी फिर से गुजरात का दौरा करने वाले हैं जिस समय जमीन का मुद्दा एवं गुजरात में लोकायुक्त की नियुक्ति का मामला उछलेगा.

गुजरात के राज्यपाल कमला बेनीवाल द्वारा उच्च न्यायालय के अवकाशप्राप्त न्यायाधीश आर ए मेहता की नियुक्ति को मोदी सरकार ने उच्च न्यायालय में चुनौती दी है. साथ ही अपने सद्बावना उपवास के तुरंत बाद अहमदाबाद में एक विशाल रैली का आयोजन कर मोदी ने राज्यपाल की वापसी की मांग भी उठाई. अब वे राज्य के सभी जिला मुख्यालयों में राज्यपाल हटाओ मांग को लेकर रैलियों का आयोजन करेंगे. याद रहे, राज्यपाल द्वारा लोकायुक्त की नियुक्ति को लेकर भाजपा ने संसद के दोनों सदनों की कार्रवाही को भी तीन दिन तक स्थगित किया था.

जहां एक ओर लोकायुक्त और उनकी सरकार के खिलाफ़ भ्रष्टाचार के मामले में मोदी घिरते हुए नज़र आ रहे हैं, वहीं दूसरी ओर फ़र्ज़ी मुठभेड़ों की जांच कर रही उच्च न्यायालय द्वारा नियुक्त विशेष जांच दल की रपट में मोदी के निकटस्थ पूर्व गृहमंत्री अमित शाह सहित ३० से अधिक पुलिस अधिकारियों की संदिग्ध भूमिका का मामला भी गंभीर स्वरूप धारण कर सकता है जिससे मोदी सरकार चिंताजनक परिस्थिति में फ़ंस सकती है.

इस प्रकार दिल्ली की गद्दी पर नजर टिकाने से पहले मोदी को अपने ही राज्य गुजरात में उनकी बिगड़ती परिस्थिति को संभालना होगा.

सौ चूहे खा के चले हज करने

2011-09-20T16:38:00.000+05:30

अपने दस साल के कार्यकाल में पहली बार गुजरात के मुख्यमंत्री नरेन्द्र मोदी राज्य में सद्बभावना का वातावरण बनाने के घोषित उद्देश्य से अपने ६१ वें जन्म दिवस, १७ सितम्बर, से तीन दिन का अनशन करने जा रहे हैं. यदि ऐसा अनशन उन्होंने गोधरा में साबरमती एक्सप्रेस पर २७ फ़रवरी २००२ को हुए हमले के बाद किया होता कि जिसमें अयोध्या से लौट रहे ५९ कार सेवक आग में जल कर मर गए थे तो उसके बाद हुई जघन्य हिंसा में २,००० से ऊपर निर्दोष मुसलमान न मारे गए होते. उस समय तो उन्होंने पुलिस प्रशासन से कहा कि हिन्दुओं के गुस्से को प्रकट हो जाने दो, उन्हें मत रोको. राज्य की खूफ़िया पुलिस अधिकारियों के मना करने पर भी उन्होंने जली हुई लाशों को गोधरा से अहमदाबाद लाने से नहीं रोका. लाशों का जुलूस निकाला गया और साथ ही शहर की मुसलमान बस्तियों पर उन्मत्त दंगाइयों ने कहर बरपाना शुरू कर दिया.

तत्कालीन प्रधान मंत्री अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी ने कहा, "मोदी अपना राजधर्म" भूल गए. मोदी सरकार में गृह मंत्री हरेन पंड्या ने नागरिक अधिकार संगठनों द्वारा नियुक्त जांच कमिशन के सामने कबूला कि सरकार ने जानबूझकर मुसलमानों पर हुई हिंसा को रोकने के कोई भी प्रयास नहीं किए. विधान सभा चुनाव घोषित हुए. हरेन पंड्याने मोदी के लिए एलिस ब्रिज विधान सभा सीट खाली करने से मना कर दिया. कुछ ही दिन बाद कुछ लोगों ने गोली मार कर हरेन पंड्या की दिन दहाडे हत्या कर दी. उन की लाश को देखने जब मोदी और तत्कालीन केन्द्रीय गृह मंत्री लाल कृष्ण आडवाणी अस्पताल पहुंचे तो पंड्या समर्थकों ने नारे बाजी से उनका विरोध किया. मोदी ने तब भी उपवास नहीं किया.

विधान सभा चुनाव में सद्भावना और भाईचारे की बात के बदले मोदी ने पाकिस्तान-प्रेरित मुस्लिम आतंकवाद पर हिंदुओं को उत्तेजित करने वाले भाषण दिए. भाषणों मे पाकिस्तान के तानाशाह राष्ट्रपति परवेज़ मुशर्रफ़ और तुष्टिकरण की नीति अपनाने वाली कांग्रेस पर तीखे प्रहार करके मोदी ने ऐसा माहौल खड़ा कर दिया मानों ये विधान सभा चुनाव नहीं बल्कि हिंदुस्तान बनाम पाकिस्तान का युद्ध हो रहा हो. सांप्रदायिक ध्रुवीकरण के बल पर मोदी भारी बहुमत से चुनाव जीत गए. सांप्रदायिक सद्भाव के लिए उपवास की बात तो दूर, मोदी ने सांप्रदायिक तनाव बढाने के ही प्रयास किए.

मोदी की चाटुकारिता कर अपना उल्लू सीधा करने वाले पुलिस अधिकारी इस कोशिश में लग गए कि कैसे भी मोदी की हिन्दु हृदय सम्राट प्रतिमा को मंडित किया जाए. इसी प्रयास के भागरूप शोहराबुद्दिन शेख, उसकी पत्नी कौसर बी तथा मुम्बई की इशरत जहान की फ़र्जी मुठभेड़ में हत्या कर दी गई. इन चाटुकार और आपराधिक मनोवृत्ति वाले पुलिस अधिकारियों को मलाईदार पदों पर नियुक्त किया गया.

पाप के घडे को एक दिन फूटना ही होता है. निष्पक्ष और कानून एवं संवैधानिक तरीके में विश्वास रखने वाले पुलिस अधिकारी रजनीश राय ने फ़र्ज़ी मुठभेड करने वाले भ्रष्ट और आपराधिक मानस वाले पुलिस अधिकारियों को गिरफ़्तार किया जो चार साल से ज्यादा समय से आज भी जेल के सीखचों के पीछे हैं. नगर मेजिस्ट्रेट एस पी तमांग ने, कि जिन्हें इशरत जहान की पुलिस मुठभेड की जांच की, पाया कि यह एक फ़र्जी मुठभेड़ थी. गुजरात उच्च न्यायालय ने इस की जांच के लिए एक विशेष अन्वेषण दल का गठन किया. इस विशेष दल के एक सदस्य सतीष वर्मा ने भी अपनी जांच में मेजिस्ट्रेट तमांग के नतीजे की पुष्टि ही की. फ़र्जी मुठभेड़ के मामले ने अब और एक नया मोड़ लिया जब शोहराबुद्दीन के भाई रुबाबुद्दीन ने केन्द्रीय अन्वेशन ब्यूरो (सीबीआई) से गुजरात के दो पूर्व राज्य पुलिस महानिदेशक, पीसी पान्डे तथा ओपी माथुर की गिरफ़्तारी की मांग की इस बिना पर कि वे जांच में बाधा पहुंचा रहे हैं. शोहराबुद्दीन शेख और उसकी पत्नी की फ़र्जी मुठभेड़ की जांच सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने सीबीआई को सौंपी है. इसी मामले में गुजरात के गृहमंत्री अमित शाह को गिरफ़्तार किया गया था जिन्हे अदालत ने जमानत पर रिहा तो कर दिया लेकिन जिन्हें सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने गुजरात में प्रवेश करने पर रोक लगा दी है.

इस बीच भारतीय पुलिस सेवा के वरिष्ट अधिकारी संजीव भट्ट ने उच्चतम न्यायालय में एक हलफ़नामा दिया जिसमें उन्होंने कहा कि २००२ गोधरा कांड की रात को मोदी ने मुख्य मंत्री आवास पर अधिकारियों की मीटिंग में हिन्दुओं को अपना आक्रोष प्रकट करने से न रोका जाए ऐसा निर्देश दिया. मोदी सरकार ने संजीव भट्ट को अपने ऊपरी अधिकारी की बात न मानने के आरोप में निलम्बित कर दिया. इसी प्रकार सरकार ने एक अन्य भारतीय पुलिस सेवा अधिकारी राहुल शर्मा के खिलाफ़ गुप्त जानकारी को जाहिर करने के आरोप में कारण बताओ नोटिस दी. राहुल शर्मा ने सरकार द्वारा नियुक्त जांच कमिशन को एक सीडी सुपुर्द की थी जिसमें दंगो के समय पुलिस अधिकारियों, मोदी और उनके कई मंत्रियों के बीच हुई मोबाईल फोन पर बात के रेकोर्ड हैं.

अब जब सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने २००२ के नरसंहार में मोदी के खिलाफ़ लगे आरोपों की सुनवाई मेट्रोपोलिटन मेजिस्ट्रेट की अदालत को करने के आदेश दिए हैं तो भारतीय जनता पार्टी के नेता इसे मोदी की जीत बतला रहे हैं और यह झूठा प्रचार कर रहे हैं कि उच्चतम न्यायालय ने मोदी को निर्दोष ठहराया है. उच्चतम न्यायालय का निर्देश फ़ौजदारी कानून प्रक्रिया के अनुरूप है जिसमें किसी भी आपराधिक मुकदमें की सुनवाई पहले सबसे निचली अदालत में ही की जाने का प्रावधान है. उच्च न्यायालय और सर्वोच्च न्यायालय सिर्फ़ निचली अदालतों के फ़ैसले पर पुनर्विचार करते हैं.

सर्वोच्च अदालत ने यह स्पष्ट रूप से कहा है कि मेट्रोपोलिटन मेजिस्ट्रेट २००२ के दंगे में मारे गए कांग्रेस के पूर्व सांसद एहसान जाफ़री की बेवा से उन सभी सबूतों और गवाहियों की जांच करे जो उनके पास हैं. सर्वोच्च अदालत ने उसके द्वारा नियुक्त स्पेशल इन्वेस्टिगेटिंग टीम तथा एमिकस क्यूरी की रपट को भी मेजिस्ट्रेट की अदालत में पेश करने के आदेश दिए हैं. इस के अलावा भारतीय पुलिस सेवा के संजीव भट्ट, राहुल शर्मा एवं रजनीश राय के हलफ़नामा को भी मेजिस्ट्रेट की अदालत जांच करेगी.

जहां एक ओर उनकी २००२ दंगों में भूमिका को लेकर मोदी पर कानून का शिकंजा कसता दिखाई दे रहा है, वहीं दूसरी ओर उनके खिलाफ़ भ्रष्टाचार के गंभीर आरोप सामने आ रहे हैं. गुजरात में टाटा सहित कई औद्योगिक घरानों को मिट्टी के मोल खेती की जमीन बांटने में एक लाख करोड़ रुपए का घोटाला हुआ है यह आरोप विपक्ष के नेता लगा रहे हैं. भाजपा के ही विधायक कनुभाई कलसारिया भावनगर से जामनगर एक सायकल यात्रा पर केवल इस मुद्दे को आगे बढाने के लिए निकले हैं. कलसारिया के नेतृत्व में हुए जन आन्दोलन के कारण हाल ही में उद्योग घराने ’निरमा’ द्वारा खडे किए जा रहे सीमेन्ट प्लान्ट पर हो रहे निर्माण को बंद करना पड़ा. कलसारिया ने भी लोकायुक्त द्वारा मोदी सरकार के खिलाफ़ भ्रष्टाचार की जांच कि मांग की है.

गुजरात में २००३ से लोकायुक्त पद खाली है. मोदी ने उच्च न्यायालय और राज्यपाल द्वारा लोकायुक्त के लिए सुझाए हर नाम का लगातार विरोध किया है. जब मोदी सरकार लोकायुक्त की नियुक्ती में मुख्यमंत्री का अधिकार हो इस उद्देश्य अध्यादेश लाना चाहती थी तो राज्यपाल ने उसपर हस्ताक्षर करने से मना कर दिया और तत्काल उच्चन्यायालय के सेवा निवृत्त न्यायाधीश आर ए मेहता को लोकायुक्त नियुक्त कर दिया. दूसरे ही दिन मोदी सरकार ने लोकायुक्त के कार्यालय पर ताला लगा दिया और उनकी नियुक्ती को उच्च न्यायालय में चुनौती दे दी. उच्च न्यायालय ने इस मामले में राज्यपाल को प्रतिवादी बनाने से इनकार कर दिया. लोकायुक्ति की नियुक्ती के मुद्दे को लेकर भाजपा ने संसद के दोनों सदनों की कार्रवाही तीन दिन तक ठप्प कर दी थी. जहां भाजपा नेताओं ने राज्यपाल पर तीखे प्रहार किए, वहीं मोदी ने प्रधानमंत्री को एक पत्र लिख कर न्यायाधीश मेहता के खिलाफ़ सरकार के प्रति द्वेषपूर्ण भावना रखने का आरोप लगाया. उच्च न्यायालय ने इस पर मोदी सरकार से यह खुलासा मांगा कि मुख्य मंत्री का प्रधान मंत्री के नाम पत्र की नकल अखबारों तक कैसे पहुंची.

लोकायुक्त की नियुक्ती को लेकर जहां मोदी को न्यायालय से कोई राहत नहीं मिली, वहीं सर्वोच्च अदालत ने भी मोदी के खिलाफ़ आरोपों पर मेजिस्ट्रेट की अदालत में कानूनी कार्रवाही करने की प्रक्रिया को गतिमान कर दिया. अपने फ़ैसले में सर्वोच्च अदालत ने कहीं भी यह नहीं कहा कि ये आरोप झूठे हैं. लेकिन सर्वोच्च न्यायालय का फ़ैसला आने के मिनटों में ही भाजपा के नेताओं ने मोदी निर्दोष हैं इस उद्देश्य के एसएमएस मोबाईल ग्राहकों को भेजने शुरू कर दिए. फ़ैसले पर तीन दिन चुप्पी साधने के बाद मोदी ने अचानक घोषणा कर दी कि वे राज्य में सद्भावना का वातावरण बनाने हेतु १७ सितम्बर से तीन दिन का अनशन करेंगे. इस अनशन के लिए गुजरात विश्वविद्यालय का कन्वेन्शन हॊल खाली करवा दिया गया, उसमें क्लोस सर्किट टेलिविज़न कैमेरा लगा दिए गए और २,००० सुरक्षा कर्मी नियुक्त कर दिए गए.

मोदी ने अनशन की घोषणा गुजरात की जनता के नाम एक खुले पत्र में की जिसमें उन्होंने कहा कि सर्वोच्च अदालत ने अब तक चल रहे विवादों का अंत ला दिया और उन सभी लोगों को झूठा साबित कर दिया जो गुजरात की छह करोड़ जनता को बदनाम करने की कोशिश कर रहे हैं. इस पत्र की भाषा कि जिसमें मोदी ने अपने आप पर लगे आरोपों को गुजरात की जनता पर आरोप के रूप में जतलाने की कोशिश की है, आपातकाल में तत्कालीन कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष देव कान्त बरुआ के इस बहु चर्चित बयान की बू आती है जिसमें उन्होंने कहा था कि "इन्दीरा ही भारत है और भारत ही इन्दीरा है".

मोदी के अनशन को एक ढोंग बता कर और उनके झूठ तथा भ्रष्टाचार का ’पर्दाफाश’ करने के लिए राज्य कांग्रेस के नेता शंकर सिंह वाघेला, शक्तिसिंह गोहिल तथा अर्जुन मोढवाडीया १७ सितम्बर से ही साबरमती आश्रम प्रांगण में तीन दिन का अनशन कर रहे हैं. हाल ही में मुसलमानों ने रमज़ान के लिए और जैन ने पर्यूषण के पर्व पर उपवास रखे थे जिससे समाज में सद्बावना बढी थी. अब देखना है कि दो राजनैतिक विरोधियों के इन उपवास से क्या होता है.

उपवास की नौटंकी: दिल्ली अभी दूर है

2011-09-20T16:33:00.000+05:30

गुजरात के मुख्यमंत्री नरेन्द्र मोदी बचपन में नौटंकी में अभिनय किया करते थे. वे न केवल अभिनय करने में माहीर हैं बल्कि उन्हें दर्शकों का मनोरंजन कैसे किया जाए इस बात का भी बखूबी अंदाज़ है. उन्हें किस मौके पर कैसी पटकथा लिखी जाए और कौन से डायलोग पर दर्शक तालियां बजाएंगे इस बात का भी सटीक पता है. गुजरात का राजनैतिक रंगमंच इस बात का गवाह है.

भारतीय राजनीति में कई अभिनेता नेता तो बन गए मगर आन्ध्र प्रदेश के एनटी रामाराव और तमिल नाडु के एमजी रामचंद्रन तथा जयललिता को छोड़ कर कोई भी मुख्यमंत्री नहीं बन पाया. अब यदि नरेन्द्र मोदी का त्रिअंकीय नाटक ’सद्बाव उपवास’ - समभाव के साथ-साथ सर्वांगी विकास - २०१४ के आम चुनाव में ’हिट’ हो जाता है तो गांव की रामलीला से अपने अभिनय की शुरुआत करने वाले नेता का दिल्ली के सिंहासन पर बैठने का सपना साकार हो सकता है. हालांकि, इस महानाटक में खलनायक की भूमिका उनकी ही भारतीय जनता पार्टी तथा सहयोगी दलों के कई दिग्गज नेता निभा सकते हैं.

अपने इकसठवें जन्म दिवस, १७ सितम्बर, से तीन दिन का उपवास कर मोदी ने यह साबित करने का प्रयास किया कि देश में उनके अलावा कोई और राजनेता ऐसा नहीं है जो सर्वधर्म समभाव के साथ-साथ सर्वांगी विकास का रास्ता दिखा सके. इस प्रचार प्रयास के पीछे उन्होंने सरकारी तिजोरी से करोड़ों रुपए खर्च किए. बसों, ट्रकों, ट्रैक्टर, टेम्पो से लाद कर गुजरात के कोने-कोने से लोग जुटाए गए. गोधरा कांड के बाद हुए नरसंहार के बाद ’हिन्दु हृदय सम्राट’ का खिताब पाने वाले मोदी ने टोपी पहने नमाज़ियों और बुर्का पहनी औरतों को अनशन स्थल पर भारी संख्या में लाने का इंतजाम किया. उन्हें गुजरात विश्वविद्यालय के वातानुकूलित सभागृह में अगली कतारों में बिठाया. मंच पर सभी समुदायों के धर्मगुरुओं को स्थान दिया गया. अपने साथ की कुर्सियों पर भारतीय जनता पार्टी के पूर्व अध्यक्ष लाल कृष्ण आडवाणी तथा राजनाथ सिंह के अलावा राज्य सभा में विपक्ष के नेता अरुण जेटली और भाजपा के प्रवक्ता रविशंकर प्रसाद को बिठाया. पंजाब और हिमाचल प्रदेश के मुख्यमंत्री परकाश सिंह बादल तथा प्रेम कुमार धूमल को भी मंच पर स्थान दिया गया.

भारतीय दर्शकों के लिए सद्भाव उपवास का संदेश था - मोदी केवल गुजरात की छह करोड़ जनता के ही नहीं, पूरे देश के सर्वमान्य नेता हैं और देश को यदि प्रगति करनी है तो ’गुजरात मोडल’ पर चलना होगा. सद्भाव उपवास में जहां मोदी ने अपने हिन्दुत्ववादी चेहरे पर धर्मनिरपेक्ष नेता का मुखौटा पहना, वहीं हर दो साल में एक बार आयोजित ’वाइब्रन्ट गुजरात’ महामेले में उन्होंने एक मंच पर रतन टाटा, मुकेश और अनिल अंबानी बंधु, शशी और रवि रुइआ बंधु तथा एक दर्जन से अधिक उद्योगपतियों को इकठ्ठा कर ’मोदी ही प्रधानमंत्री बनने योग्य नेता हैं’ का नारा लगवाया था.

महानाटक में जब एक साथ सैंकडों पात्र अभिनय करते हों तो पटकथा तथा संवाद बोलने में गलतियों का हो जाना सामान्य बात है. जिस तरह छोटे कस्बों में दर्शकों को रामलीला में हनुमान का अभिनय करने वाले बीड़ी सुलगाते हुए दिख जाते हैं उसी तरह सद्भाव उपवास में मंच पर अरब शेख की वेश भूषा में एक व्यक्ति नज़र आए जिन्हें दर्शकों ने तुरन्त पहचान लिया कि वे कोई अरब देश से आए मेहमान नहीं बल्कि अहमदाबाद महानगर पालिका के पूर्व उप आयुक्त ज़ेड ए साचा हैं. स्वयं को अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय के बीच लोकप्रिय साबित करने के लिए मोदी ने राज्य भर से सैंकड़ों की संख्या में मुसलमान नर, नारी बुलाए थे जिन्हें नमाज़ी टोपी और बुर्का पहन कर आने को कहा गया था. जहां हिन्दु संप्रदाय के कई धर्मगुरुओं ने मोदी को अलग-अलग प्रकार की पगडियां पहना कर नवाज़ा, वहीं पीराना बाबा के नाम से प्रख्यात मौलाना हुसैन ने जब उन्हें टोपी पहनानी चाही तो मोदी ने उन्हें ऐसा करने से रोक दिया. इसे पीराना बाबा ने अपनी नहीं बल्कि इस्लाम की बेइज्जती कहा.

सद्भावना उपवास सिर्फ़ एक नाटक है यह बात २००२ में हुए नरसंहार में जो मारे गए उनके परिवार के सदस्यों ने नरोड़ा पाटिया तथा गुलमर्ग सोसायटी में ’न्याय के बगैर सद्भाव कैसा’ के नारे के साथ किए गए प्रदर्शन द्वारा उठाई. नरोडा पाटिया में एक ही दिन में एक सौ से अधिक लोगों को काट कर या जला कर मार दिया गया और गुलबर्ग सोसायटी में कांग्रेस के पूर्व सांसद एहसान जाफ़री सहित साठ लोगों को मार दिया गया था. नरोड़ा पाटिया में दंगा पीड़ित महिलाओं द्वारा आयोजित प्रदर्शन में शामिल होने जा रही प्रसिद्ध समाज कर्मी मल्लिका साराभाई तथा वरिष्ट अभिवक्ता मुकुल सिंहा को पुलिस ने गिरफ़्तार कर लिया.

मुसलमानों को भारी संख्या में उपवास स्थल पर प्रमुख स्थान दिए जाने से राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ तथा विश्व हिन्दु परिषद के नेता भी मोदी की ’मुस्लिम तुष्टीकरण’ राजनीति से नाराज़ हैं. शिवसेना अध्यक्ष बाला साहेब ठाकरे ने भी मोदी के उपवास स्थल पर ’अल्लाह ओ अकबर’ के नारे लगने पर आपत्ति प्रकट कर चेतावनी दी है कि कहीं इस कारण ’हर हर महादेव’ की गूंज दब न जाए. शिवसेना के मुखपत्र ’सामना’ में लिखे संपादकीय में ठाकरे ने मोदी को याद दिलाया कि तीव्र हिन्दुत्व की नीति के कारण ही उन्हें गुजरात में बहुमत प्राप्त हुआ था.

राष्ट्रीय जनतांत्रिक गठबंधन के सहभागी अकाली दल तथा जयललिता की एआईएडीएमके ने जहां मोदी की सद्भावना उपवास का समर्थन किया, वहीं जनता दल (य़ू) ने इस कार्यक्रम में शामिल न हो कर इसका परोक्ष रूप से विरोध किया. बिहार के मुख्यमंत्री नितीश कुमार ने मोदी को प्रधानमंत्री पद के लिए राजग का सर्व मान्य उम्मीदवार मानने से इनकार कर दिया.

सद्भाव उपवास की समाप्ति पर मोदी ने ऐलान किया कि वे अब गुजरात के सभी जिलों में ’सद्भाव के साथ सर्वांगी विकास’ के लिए एक-एक दिन का उपवास करेंगे. महानाटक का रूपांतरण नुक्कड़ नाटक में होगा. इस बीच, त्रिदिवसीय उपवास में हुए सरकारी खर्च, जो लगभग एक सौ करोड़ रुपया आंका जा रहा है, की वसूली मोदी या राज्य भाजपा से की जाए ऐसी मांग गुजरात उच्च न्यायालय में एक जन हित याचिका के द्वारा की गई है.

गुजरात नरसंहार: बकरे की मां कब तक खैर मनाएगी

2011-09-20T16:30:00.000+05:30

उच्चतम न्यायालय ने २००२ के गुजरात में हुए नरसंहार के लिए मुख्यमंत्री नरेन्द्र मोदी जिम्मेदार हैं कि नहीं इस बात की जांच अहमदाबाद के मेजिस्ट्रेट की अदालत को सुपुर्द कर दी है. उच्चतम न्यायालय ने यह भी निर्देश दिए कि इस जांच में उसके द्वारा नियुक्त स्पेशियल इन्वेस्टिगेशन टीम एवं एमिकस क्यूरी (वरिष्ट अधिवक्ता) की रपट को ध्यान में रखा जाए. साथ ही नरसंहार में जिन लोगों ने अपने परिजनों को खोया है उनके द्वारा अतिरिक्त गवाही एवं सबूतों को भी सुना और देखा जाए.

भारतीय जनता पार्टी ने उच्चतम न्यायालय के इस निर्देश को मोदी को निर्दोष घोषित किए जाना बतलाया है, जो कि अर्ध सत्य ही नहीं बल्कि सरासर झूठ है. उच्चतम न्यायालय ने मोदी के खिलाफ़ लगाए गए आरोपों का कोई खंडन नहीं किया है. बल्कि, २००२ में हुए दंगों में उनकी भूमिका की मेजिस्ट्रेट की अदालत में जांच करने के आदेश ही दिए हैं. अब यह मामला निचली अदालत में चलेगा, और शायद यह एक लंबी प्रक्रिया होगी. गौर तलब है कि उच्चतम न्यायालय में किसी भी फ़ौजदारी केस की सुनवाई नहीं होती, वहां सिर्फ़ निचली अदालतों के फ़ैसलों पर सुनवाई होती है और उन पर अंतिम फ़ैसला सुनाया जाता है.

लेकिन इस तथ्य को छुपा कर, भाजपा नेता इस भ्रामक प्रचार में जुट गए हैं कि उच्च अदालत ने मोदी को तमाम आरोपों से बरी कर दिया है और यह कि विपक्ष तथा नागरिक अधिकार संगठन पिछले ११ सालों से मोदी को बदनाम करने की कोशिश में लगे हैं. स्वयं मोदी ने उच्चतम न्यायालय के निर्देश को ’विवादों का अंत’ बतलाया है और अपने खिलाफ़ लगे आरोपों को गुजरात की ६ करोड़ जनता को बदनाम करने की साजिश कहा है. मोदी ने २००२ के नरसंहार को ’एक क्रिया की प्रतिक्रिया’ कहा था, जब कि तत्कालीन प्रधान मंत्री अटल बिहारी वाजपेई ने गोआ के भाजपा अधिवेशन में मोदी सरकार की आलोचना यह कह कर की थी कि मोदी अपना राजधर्म भूल गए हैं.

जो मोदी करण थापर के टीवी चैट शो के बीच से तब भाग खडे हो गए जब उन्हें २००२ के नरसंहार के कारण धूमिल हुई उनकी छवि को सुधार ने लिए सार्वजनिक तौर पर माफ़ी मांगने को कहा गया था, अब उच्चतम न्यायालय के निर्देश के बाद १७ सितम्बर से तीन दिन का उपवास कर रहे हैं इस घोषित उद्देश्य के साथ की गुजरात में सद्भाव का वातावरण बने. अपने दस वर्ष के कार्यकाल में पहली बार मोदी ने जनता के नाम एक खुला पत्र भी लिखा जिसमें उन्होंने कहा कि सर्वोच्च अदालत ने अब तक उठाए सभी विवादों का अंत ला दिया है और इस लिए वे अब समाज में सद्भावना अभियान चलाना चाहते हैं.

उनकी मुसलमान विरोधी छवि के कारण बिहार के मुख्य मंत्री नितीश कुमार ने मोदी को विधान सभा चुनाव प्रचार से दूर रखा था. राष्ट्रीय लोकतांत्रिक गठबंधन के कई घटक दल मोदी के अतिवादी सांप्रदायिक तेवर के कारण उनसे कतराते रहे हैं. दूसरी ओर, भाजपा कई युवा नेता मोदी को भावी प्रधान मंत्री के रूप में प्रचारित कर रहे हैं. अब जब २००२ के नरसंहार में उनकी भूमिका का मामला निचली अदालत में चलाए जाने में एक लंबा समय लगने की संभावना है तब मोदी अपने आप को एक सेक्यूलर राष्ट्रीय नेता के रूप में साबित करना चाह रहे हैं. जब तक उन पर लगाए आरोप साबित या खारिज नहीं होते, साबरमती नदी में बहुत पानी बह चुका होगा और राष्ट्रीय राजनीति भी किसी अनिश्चित मोड़ पर पहुंच चुकी होगी.

भाजपा के वरिष्ट नेता लाल कृष्ण आडवाणी ने भी मोदी की राष्ट्रीय राजनीति में संभावित भूमिका के बारे में अटकलों को यह कह कर बढावा दिया कि देश को मोदी जैसे बहु प्रतिभावान एवं प्रभावी नेता की आवश्यकता है. लेकिन गुजरात में मोदी की मौजूदा हालत नाजुक प्रतीत हो रही है. एक ओर जहां उनकी २००२ के नरसंहार में भूमिका को लेकर वरिष्ट पुलिस अधिकारी जैसे संजीव भट्ट, राहुल शर्मा और रजनीश राय ने हलफ़नामा देकर सवालिया निशान खड़े कर रखे हैं, जिसको निचली अदालत अनदेखा नहीं कर सकती, वहीं दूसरी ओर राज्यपाल श्रीमती कमला बेनीवाल द्वारा गुजरात उच्च न्यायालय के पूर्व न्यायाधीश आर ए मेहता की लोकपाल के पद पर की गई नियुक्ती को राज्य सरकार द्वार चुनौती देने से मोदी पेंचीदी परिस्थिती में फ़ंस गए हैं.

लोकपाल के लिए पूर्व न्यायाधीश मेहता के नाम का सुझाव गुजरात उच्च न्यायालय के मुख्य न्यायाधीश ने स्वयं दिया था. तदुपरांत, वर्तमान कानून में लोकपाल की नियुक्ती का अधिकार राज्यपाल को ही है, न कि राज्य के मुख्यमंत्री को. लोकपाल का पद पिछले सात साल से खाली पडा था जिसे मोदी सरकार ने अपनी आपत्ती जता कर भरने नहीं दिया था. इस पर उच्च न्यायालय में एक जनहित याचिका के दाखिल करने पर, राज्य सरकार ने एक अध्यादेश जारी करने के प्रयास किए जिसमें लोकपाल की नियुक्ती का अधिकार मुख्यमंत्री को दिए जाने का प्रावधान था. इस अध्यादेश पर राज्यपाल ने हस्ताक्षर करने से इनकार कर दिया और ततकाल न्यायाधीश मेहता की नियुक्ती की घोषणा कर दी.

राज्यपाल द्वारा मेहता की नियुक्ति की घोषणा के दूसरे ही दिन मोदी सरकार ने लोकपाल कार्यालय पर ताला लगा दिया और उनकी नियुक्ती को उच्च न्यायालय में चुनौती दे दी. उच्च न्यायालय ने इस मामले में राज्यपाल को प्रतिवादी बनाने से इनकार कर दिया और मोदी सरकार को एक नोटिस भेजी कि वह इस बात की सफ़ाई दे कि कैसे मोदी द्वारा प्रधान मंत्री को लिखा गया पत्र अखबारों तक पहुंच गया जिसमें मोदी ने न्यायाधीश मेहता के खिलाफ़ सरकार के प्रति द्वेषपूर्ण भावना रखने का आरोप लगाया गया था.

इस से पूर्व राज्य कोंग्रेस के एक प्रतिनिधी दल ने राष्ट्रपति को मिल कर मोदी सरकार के खिलाफ़ एक प्रतिवेदन दिया गया था जिसमें गंभीर भ्रष्टाचार के आरोप थे. कोंग्रेस का आरोप है कि मोदी सरकार ने कई औद्योगिक घरानों को करोडों रुपए की जमीन माटी के मोल बेच दी है जिसमे सरकार को एक लाख करोड रुपए से अधिक का नुकसान पहुंचा है.

इन आरोपों की जांच लोकपाल न कर सके इस उद्देश्य से मोदी सरकार ने एक जांच आयोग की घोषणा कर दी. जब कोई जांच आयोग किसी मामले में जांच कर रहा हो उस परिस्थिती में लोकपाल उस पर कोई कार्रवाही नहीं कर सकता ऐसा लोकपाल कानून में प्रावधान है.

Curious case of pregnancy

2011-05-24T14:07:00.000+05:30

Ujwal Singh Verma and Radhe Shyam Sharma were walking hand in hand on the deck of the luxury liner, MNS Godavari, on a languorous Sunday evening. There was romance in the air with seagulls making intimate calls hovering above their head. Unable to conceive any legitimate excuse for their leave of absence from their busy work schedule, Ujwal and Radhe had SMSed to their boss an identical message : “Test confirm Pregnancy, need rest”.

The boss was stunned. Sweating from top to toe, Mr. Jaal Daruwala paced up and down his cabin. “God, are they going to hold me responsible? Surely, a memo does not cause pregnancy,” he muttered. In the past six months Mr Daruwala had fired Mohini, Sohini, Julie and Rita for having emailed him similar excuse.

“But, their case was different. They all were truly expecting babies. How can Verma and Sharma give such an impossible reason in their SMSed leave application? This is preposterous. No doubt I had been screwing their happiness in office and denying them bonus. They were poignant but surely this cannot make them pregnant,” he reasoned.

Mr. Daruwala nursed an illusion that at 69 he still looked debonair and gave appreciative smile to the office peons who gossiped within his earshot how the boss resembled Dev Anand in looks as well as in the way he walked and talked. Though he giggled and occasionally broke into a peel of laughter at slightest provocation, Mr. Daruwala could at best be described as a jovial person and not happy and gay.

Verma and Sharma knew well that Mr. Daruwala did often ask Mohini, Sohini, Julie and Rita to stay back after office hours to take dictation from him. This was their biggest grudge against Mr. Daruwala. “We too have many marketing collaterals to draft and email. But never have we asked the secretarial staff to stay back and work overtime,” Verma had complained to Sharma one day.

“Let us teach the boss a lesson of his life,” Sharma told Verma. “Let’s give pregnancy as the reason to go on leave. This will be an ultimate insult to Mr. Daruwala who is often heard boasting before all and sundry that he has climbed the Kutub Minar without going to Delhi via Agra,” Sharma said in a conspiratorial tone.

Verma jumped at the idea. “Mr. Daruwala will turn red faced and closet himself in his cabin on receiving our SMS. He cannot tell the HR that both of us have proceeded on maternity leave. The HR manager knows very well that Mohini, Sohini, Julie and Rita too had taken maternity leave after doing overtime every alternate Saturday. He is bound to spread the word through the canteen grapevine that this time Sharma and Verma too are pregnant,” Verma chuckled.

Bull, Bear & Bullshit

2011-05-24T14:01:00.000+05:30

He felt orphaned when Harshad Mehta died and, went into deep depression when Ketan Parekh was arrested by the CBI for his involvement in multi million rupee stock exchange scam. His dream of making it big by following the Big Bull and KP appeared to have been shattered. They were the only God figures he looked up to since he learned to play with marbles.

While other children of his age dreamt of becoming an engine driver, a pilot or an engineer, a doctor or a writer, Hardshell Shylock (HS) told his granny he wanted to become a wealth manager, so focused was he on his life goal. “I don’t mind going to jail or fleeing to Andorra or Costa Rica if only I can make Moolah,” he would tell his close confidantes, who included his female classmates and his loyal maid servant.

To HS, Money, Moolah and Mammon mattered most, not even matrimony. He lived in Moneynagar, which later became the constituency of his hero, Modi the Nero, popularly known as Nemo. Noticing that all the children of petty shopkeepers in his mohalla attended the local Shakha, HS too followed them to the common municipal ground usurped for the purpose by the pracharak whose side business was booking betting numbers (Worli Matka) on the Ratan Khatri network.

At the shakha, HS learned among other things the importance of Marxism. “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” Karl Marx had said in Das Kapital. The local shakha pramukh used to quote this in his daily sermon while propagating Guru Golmalkar’s preachings. “All swayamsevak’s of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your khaki knickers,” he would proclaim before the gathering of school kids.

HS didn’t mind losing his knickers if he could get a Raymond’s suit in exchange. He saw how his hero, Nemo the Nero, too had discarded the knickers for Armani’s and GAP after his election to the highest executive post in the state. Nemo had executed the Marxist theory by dividing the people of Gujarat on religious lines and intoxicating them with the opiate and driving them into a state of frenzy.

Once elected to the throne, Nemo helped his money launderer KP escape from the long arms of the law. Nemo mastered the art of twisting the law and using corrupt police officers like Bon Zara to perfect the craft of extortion. No wonder, HS was dazzled by Nemo’s super duper strategy of making money. He started imagining and projecting himself as ‘THE KING OF BULL TIMES’.

“If Nemo can bullshit his way to power, why can’t I do the same as a wealth manager giving the unsuspecting clients bullshit tips in collusion with the stock market operators of the Dalal Street?” he would tell his confidants.

Of Grasshopper & BBWs

2011-05-24T13:58:00.000+05:30

While the world sleeps, Rudy, the grasshopper, hops up and down. He has been hopping mad ever since he was separated from the flock he had carefully brought together comprising a dozen or so other creatures of the night. There were ants he called BBW, beetle bugs he had picked up from rock bands, bumble bees who had strayed their way to his rave party and a few rare insects he had rescued from the tangled hair of melancholic maidens.

Rudy had migrated to Cyberabad eons ago after he got bored of staring at the miniature sculptures of Konark’s sun temple and imagining himself as an inseparable part of the mosaic of murals there. “Lemme explore the Nizam’s kingdom. I have heard a lot how Charminar, the great erection that it is, transforms rudimentary morons into prince charming,” muttered Rudy to himself, one lazy afternoon upon waking up from his stupor.

Rudy took to wings on a hopping flight from Bhubaneswar to Cyberabad. For any other, the shifting of base would have resulted in a culture shock. Nothing of that sort happened to Rudy because as soon as he landed at the Begumpet airport, he gravitated to the lush green campus of the Central University known for its lakes and rocks. Rudy felt immediately at home in the university campus rich in flora, fauna and birds.

The grass that grew on the periphery of rocks and lakes was not just green but heady too. Rudy started rolling on the grass and saw the rocks transforming into babes and butterflies. To him, the girls in the campus all looked like sitting ducks who would drop dead the moment Rudy trained his beady eyes on them.

On his arrival, he had filed an affidavit in the court discarding his archaic name given by his father for the hep and short Rudy because the university authorities had refused to enroll him by the new name unless he fulfilled the legal formality. This was understandable as the university administrative staff comprised mostly of Telugu and Mallu clerks who consulted the rule book even before they entertained the thought of engaging in intimate moments of romance.

The rule of nature got to work instantly on Rudy and his surroundings. Mars and Venus came together in a compromising constellation which the campus had never witnessed before. The boys and girls, who used to hum Telugu bhajans they had picked up from cassettes distributed free in their village by the followers of Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, suddenly started strumming their guitars and singing Bob Dylan songs.

Rudy rocked and so did the campus.

However, the university authorities did not take this kindly because Rudy had dramatically altered the age-old power equations that helped maintain their hegemony over the faculty and their understudy. One rocking day while a jam packed auditorium was moving and shaking to a raunchy number he was singing to the accompaniment of an equally raunchy and scintillating dance, the university proctor hauled Rudy out and serve him with a rustication order.

Rudy’s rustication became the cause célèbre for the faculty and students who went on a flash strike in his support. The scene reminded one of the students’ uprising in Tiananmen Square and the French Revolution.

Ever since he was thrown out of the campus, Rudy has been championing the cause of the night creatures, bugs and beetles on the social networking sites, occasionally espousing the cause of BBWs (beetles, bugs and weasels).

Malice in Hinterland

2011-05-23T15:19:00.000+05:30

The Regina was fretting and fuming. Her fancy skull-headed hairpin had been missing since she woke up from her dream world. The Mad Hatter was playing croquette in the backyard with the handmaiden, taking advantage of the queen’s slumber. The little black bird was doing a waltz on the rooftop with her new-found male mate, Raven, to the sizzling hot tune of ‘Radhe Shyam, Pretty Pam’, which was the rage of the day after 'Munni Badnaam Huyi' and 'Sheila ki Jawaani'.

Unable to find anyone in her vicinity, the queen took out her anger on a lazy lizard posted on her Facebook wall by the court jester, Kronje Bray. She deleted the post using a swipe stick and posted back a black cobra on Bray’s wall. Her anger refused to subside. She started pulling the rope that rang the alarm bell mounted atop the castle.

The alarm bell sounded like a death knell. All hell broke loose. Everyone in the royal household sprang to attention and started scampering. The chef, Debbie the dabbler, two dozen members of his kitchen harem, the housekeeper, Hardshell Shylock, and his two dozen girlish looking lads snoring in the corner of the store-room after a night-long revelry, the chief security officer, Subisvell along with two dozen of guards of a private detective agency, all left whatever they were doing or not doing and headed towards the main durbar hall.

“All is well,” shouted Subedar Subisvel. “Good morning all, have a mast, mast Monday,” chimed the housekeeper, who gave free stock market tip offs to gullible members of the royal entourage to make a quick buck on the side. “Good morning your highness,” squeaked Kronje Bray who had quickly logged out on receiving the black cobra pix on his Facebook wall from the queen.

“Has anyone seen my skull-headed hairpin”, thundered the queen, “I can’t find it since morning.” A hush fell on the assemblage. There was a pin drop silence. Everyone was afraid that if a pin happens to drop at the moment, the person next to it would certainly face the gallows. “Your highness, I had seen Debbie needling the petite little maiden the other day. But, surely it didn’t have a skull-head, it had a heart-shaped ruby at the end,” squealed Kronje.

The queen turned her killer looks towards Debbie who cringed and involuntarily winked with a sheepish expression on his face. “I know Debbie has this compulsive inclination of gifting his girls all kinds of trinkets. But, I also know he buys these from the nearby dollar shop. He dare not risk presenting any of these girls with the royal pin,” said Shylock coming to Debbie’s help.

The Mad Hatter was silently watching the inquest from behind the queen. “The missing pin is stuck at the bottom of the Royal gown,” whispered the handmaiden, pressing the hand of Mad Hatter. “Keep quiet, let her highness discover this when she sits on the throne,” said he.

Groundswell of protest

2011-03-17T10:19:00.000+05:30

Farmers and fishermen in Gujarat are up in arms against six mega projects proposed to be set up along the 1600-km-long coast. The projects include a nuclear thermal plant, two thermal power stations, a cement plant, a coal jetty and a multi-product Special Economic Zone.

The protesting farmers tasted a victory of sorts when the union ministry of environment and forests ( MoEF) issued a show-cause notice to Nirma for permanent suspension of work and revocation of environment clearance for the company's upcoming cement plant near Mahuva in Bhavnagar district.

Union minister of state for environment and forest Jairam Ramesh, during a visit to Jamnagar earlier this month, had called upon the people to “build pressure from the ground” on the government to take necessary action for the protection of their environment.

While inaugurating the National Centre of Marine Bio-diversity at Jamnagar, the minister also expressed concern at the threat to the fragile ecology of coastal region of Gujarat and other wetland from large ports and cement plants.

The minister’s statement provided a boost to the ongoing protests by farmers of the coastal Bhavnagar district against the proposed cement plant of Nirma and by fishermen of Kutch against the country’s largest private port at Mundra operated by the Adani Group.

Over 5,000 farmers of Mahuva taluka of Bhavnagar, led by BJP MLA Kanubhai Kalsaria began a 350-kilometre protest march to Gandhinagar, the state capital, in support of their demand for the scrapping of the Nirma cement plant.

Reacting sharply to the MoEF’s notice, Nirma Limited spokesman V N Desai described it as “Illegal” which, he said, the company would challenge in the Supreme Court.

The MoEF, in its notice, has asked Nirma to stop work on the site permanently, alleging that the company had provided ‘half-truths’ in the environment impact assessment report it had submitted to obtain environment clearance.

Rubbishing this charge, Nirma said the MoEF itself had stated before both the Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court that the environment clearance to the project was legal. The agitating farmers of Mahuva had alleged that the cement plant would adversely impact the artificial water body built by them in 2000 to check salinity ingress and irrigate their farm land.

The ministry has allowed a personal hearing for Nirma on March 16 or 17 before making the stoppage of work permanent.The cement plant is under construction at Samadhiyala Bandhara near Padhiyarka village in Mahuva Taluka of Bhavnagar.

Nirma was given environment clearance for the project in December 2008. Following this, farmers from the village, led by BJP MLA from Mahuva Dr Kanubhai Kalsariya, launched an agitation against the plant.

The protesting farmers said that the land, which was shown as 'wasteland' by Nirma and the state government to get environmental clearance, is actually a special freshwater body constructed to control salinity ingress from the sea.

This freshwater body supplies water to their farms for irrigation and their livelihood would be ruined if the plant and the subsequent mining in the area were allowed, the farmers claimed.

A report submitted last month after a detailed site visit by the expert committee constituted by the MoEF to look into the farmers' charges, has supported their argument. Based on this, MoEF has directed Nirma to “stop the implementation, including construction work, of the project with immediate effect” and, until further orders, to avoid any further damage to the wetland.

Former finance minister Sanat Mehta who has also lent his support to the cause says the work on the factory at Mahuva has stopped since the last four days.

Farmers are also opposing the Rs. 50,000 crore 6,000 MW nuclear power station at Mithi Virdi in Bhavnagar district. Villagers of Jasapara and about five nearby villages prevented surveyors to carry out survey of the land for proposed Mithi Virdi nuclear power project.

Jasapara’s lady Sarpanch said, “we would give our life, but not allow nuclear plant here.” About 30 odd villages have signed a petition and informed the authorities about their stand.

Anti-nuclear activists led by local Arun Dave, Damayantiben Modi of Lok Bharati Sanstha have formed a group called the Atomic Energy Study Group and have been distributing pamphlets and showing films about the accidents of nuclear plants in places like Chernobyl.

The MoEF has also issued a show cause notice to the Mundra Port SEZ of the Adani group for alleged violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 1991 following a decade long agitation by fishermen.

The proposed thermal power project of thye Shapporji Pallanji group at Kodinar and the Essar coal jetty near Salaya too have been facing protest from local farmers. The farmers have also filed a public interest litigation in the Gujarat High Court against these projects.

NACHIKETA DESAI

King of fishers

2011-01-22T17:27:00.000+05:30

The great spiritual patriot that he is, Vijay Mallya was having sleepless nights over the morass in which the Indian democracy had sunk in after the Radiagate became the hot topic of discussion in the cocktail circles. “I had told Ratan not to lean so heavily on one lobbyist. Ratan should have had a retinue of them on his payroll, instead of one single Radia,” Mallya thought to himself, glowing over the first sip of the single malt he had smuggled into India from a local brewery of Scotland.

Mallya had realized the importance of hiring the red hot services of nymphets much before he had conceived the idea of launching the Kingfisher airlines. In fact, he had handpicked over a dozen hot and petite Pomeranian nymphs during the course of weekly parties that he organized in uninhabited beaches in the name of promoting heady brew of various potency that his distilleries produced in giga litres.

Mallya surely was far-sighted. Soon after the launch of the airlines he found his political clout growing manifold. His red hot retinue of airlines staff ensured for each of them a place in the heart of frequent flyer MPs of all color and hue. Then one frothy morning, he got a call from an unlisted satellite phone to his unlisted landline which connects to the bedroom of one of his safe houses located in a remote corner of Karnataka bordering Goa where rave parties are held once every alternate moonless night.

“Hi, Veejay. Sorry to wake you up so early. I am sure, you don’t drink one of those heady stuff from your distillery which give terrible hangovers to all the Bacchus. I have good news. The high command of all political parties have decided to support your nomination to the Rajya Sabha. Cheer up buddy. Your investment in the fleet of red hotties did finally pay results. That particular chick you had sent me was yummy. I had her half grilled,” chirped a familiar voice.

The caller was Mallya’s close chum who had wormed his way up the party ladder to become the head of the all-India anti-liquor committee which ensured that prohibition never got lifted from Gujarat so that Mallya could continue the supply of millions of cases of unaccounted, duty-free whiskey to his baron bootlegger shareholders who now formed the ruling clique under Narendra Modi’s dispensation.

Parallel to his retinue of red hottie fleet, Mallya also lubricated the throats of ever-thirsty journos by replenishing the bars of all the affiliated clubs of the Press Club of India. By an ingenious barter system, his Kingfisher airlines issued air tickets to leading business magazines in return for free insertion of advertisements. This win-win deal enabled some cash-starved publishers frequently fly down to London and Dubai.

“Ratan should not have relied only on Radia to clinch the 2 G spectrum deal when the option of 3 G is known to work wonders – Gimlet, Girls and Greed of politicians for both.

2010-11-12T10:34:00.000+05:30

Autumn 2010

Gandhi's Invisible Hands

by Ian Desai

Behind the rise of Mahatma Gandhi was a little-recognized team of followers he carefully recruited including his secretary, Mahadev Desai, pictured at his desk in 1940.

On September 4, 1915, in the sticky heat of late summer, Mahadev Desai and Narahari Parikh walked without speaking along the Sabarmati River, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, a city in northwestern India. Desai and Parikh were best friends who shared everything, so the silence between them was uncharacteristic. Their day, however, had been highly unusual, and they were both lost in reflection on what had transpired. When they reached the Ellis Bridge, which spanned the surging waters of the Sabarmati and supported a steady flow of carriage, mule, foot, and, occasionally, car traffic from the bustling city, they stopped and faced each other. They were both thinking about a meeting they had had a few hours earlier with a 46-year-old lawyer who had recently returned to India after living for two decades in South Africa.

Desai finally broke their prolonged silence: “Narahari, I have half a mind to go and sit at the feet of this man.” This statement, in which Desai contemplated abandoning his nascent legal career in order to devote himself to the service of someone he had met for the first time that day, changed the course of his life. It also helped change the course of history for a colonized nation seeking freedom and its entrenched imperial rulers. With these words, the 23-year-old Desai began a journey that would produce one of the most important partnerships the modern world has known. The lawyer they had met had extraordinary ambitions that were growing by the day, and he had started to assemble a team of gifted individuals to help him achieve his visions. That lawyer’s name was Mohandas Gandhi, and in Mahadev Desai the future Mahatma had found a crucial partner for his historic cause.

In March 2005 I was in Ahmedabad, now a major industrial metropolis. It had not rained for nine months, and the temperature hovered above 100 degrees. Although the room I was in felt like an oven, it happened to be a library housed in a museum on the site of Gandhi’s former residence, the Satyagraha Ashram. Wiping my hands clean, I reached for a book from the rusting metal case in front of me. Gently brushing off dust, cobwebs, and an insect from the surface of the volume, I opened it and examined the elegant signature on the inside cover identifying its owner as “Mahadev Desai.” What the signature didn’t tell me was that this book, along with several thousand others, was read, used, and shared jointly by Desai (no relation to me) and his boss, Mahatma Gandhi.

As I explored the old, dust-caked books in this startling collection over the following weeks, months, and years, a story of Gandhi’s life and work unfolded before me that diverged from the accounts I knew. The very presence of such a substantial collection of books in proximity to Gandhi—who famously espoused a philosophy of non-possession—suggested that the image of simplicity and detachment long associated with the Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” was misleading: There was clearly a hidden degree of complexity to Gandhi’s life.

From the heart of this library, I began to learn that the common conception of Gandhi as a solitary, saintly hero who stood up to the British Empire and led India toward independence was incomplete. Gandhi was actually an energetic and effective director of one of the 20th century’s most innovative social enterprises. He was, in essence, an exceptional entrepreneur who relied on a tight-knit community of coworkers—and an extensive store of intellectual resources—to support him and his work.

The origins of Gandhi’s enterprise stretch back into the 19th century, well before he became known as the Mahatma. Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar, a city on the Kathiawar Peninsula in Gujarat Province, facing the Arabian Sea, 250 miles west of Ahmedabad. The youngest child of a successful political administrator, Gandhi grew up in a part of India shaped by a rich tradition of cross-cultural exchange. Despite being a shy and diffident student, the young Gandhi made a dramatic decision to leave his homeland and seek his future abroad by enrolling in a law program in London in 1888. Almost immediately following his return to India three years later, he accepted a job as a lawyer for a Gujarati trading firm in South Africa.

At the turn of the 20th century, South Africa was home to a sizable population of Indian immigrants, primarily indentured laborers, who were often treated as second-class citizens. Accustomed to respectful race relations from his time in London, Gandhi was startled and outraged by the racial discrimination he experienced and witnessed while living in South Africa. He resolved to fight the racial injustices around him, and by the time he finally moved back to India in 1915, two decades later, he had transformed himself from a relatively unknown provincial barrister into a political powerhouse and social reformer with an international reputation.

It was during a campaign for the rights of the Indian community in South Africa that Gandhi first came to rely on the support of a cohort of eccentric and talented men and women. Most of these collaborators—who were of both Indian and European backgrounds—were volunteers, and were housed at Gandhi’s two experimental communities in South Africa, the Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm. These institutions, loosely based on ancient Indian religious communities called ashrams, became the headquarters for Gandhi’s activism, which was based on his philosophy of Satyagraha, or “truth force,” and its attendant practice of civil disobedience.

Gandhi’s collaborators not only assisted him with the practical elements of his political campaigns and residential communities; they also served as his intellectual companions and introduced him to the writings of a variety of authors. Although he was busy juggling his legal career and increasingly high-profile political work, Gandhi took advantage of his frequent travels around South Africa to immerse himself in books on religious history, literature, politics, and other subjects of interest to him.

Though philosophically he disavowed material possessions, Gandhi became a savvy and serial collector of books and people. When he returned to India, he brought a number of his coworkers from South Africa with him as well as almost 10,000 books and pamphlets. Once in India, he chose a secluded spot outside Ahmedabad on the banks of the Sabarmati River as the site of a new ashram. The Satyagraha Ashram quickly became the focal point of Gandhi’s social and political endeavors around India and a hub for his burgeoning community of coworkers.

Gandhi’s nephew Maganlal had been a linchpin of his communities in South Africa, and he continued to serve as a foreman of sorts for Gandhi in India, leading his experiments in agriculture and other fields involving physical work that were key components of his ideal of self-sufficient living. Yet Gandhi still needed someone who could match his tremendous intellectual, social, and spiritual capacities, who would work for him and sustain his causes. He found such a person later that year, when he met Desai. Despite the rapport immediately felt on both sides, Gandhi instructed the young man to wait a year before joining his movement: The work he was about to start would be all-consuming.

Desai officially joined Gandhi in 1917, fulfilling the vision of his future he had first shared with Narahari Parikh on their walk by the Sabarmati River. From the outset, Desai’s daily routine was grueling. He woke before Gandhi arose at 4 am in order to work on the Mahatma’s schedule and make other preparations. He was by Gandhi’s side throughout the day, taking notes on his meetings and various activities and helping him draft correspondence and articles. (Desai’s son Narayan, who grew up working with Gandhi and his father, recalled a number of occasions when Gandhi had only one change to make to Desai’s articles: He replaced Desai’s authorial initials, M.D., with his own, M.K.G.) Finally, after Gandhi had retired, Desai wrote a diary account of the Mahatma’s day so that no important detail went unrecorded.

In addition to Desai, who performed his role under the title of personal secretary, and Gandhi’s family members—especially his wife, Kasturbai—the Mahatma’s inner circle in India came to include a second secretary named Pyarelal; an English admiral’s daughter who abandoned life in Britain to live in the austere environment of Gandhi’s community after reading a biography of the Mahatma; and Columbia University–trained economist J. C. Kumarappa, among others. As many as 200 people lived with Gandhi at the Satyagraha Ashram at the institution’s zenith.

Ever since reading Unto This Last, John Ruskin’s 1877 paean to the dignity of manual labor, in South Africa, Gandhi had had a credo to match his Victorian attitude of industriousness. Accordingly, he transformed his ashram into a workshop where each member engaged in substantial amounts of communal service, from working in the community’s kitchen to teaching in the ashram school to cleaning the shared latrines. The latter task was one of Gandhi’s favorite chores, both to do himself and to assign to others. He saw a person’s readiness to clean latrines, a major taboo in India, as an indication of a willingness to transgress deeply embedded social values in service of his movement’s larger ideals.

This regimen underscored Gandhi’s central philosophical tenet: For India to achieve true independence, it needed a widespread ethos of service. More than political freedom from the British, independence to Gandhi implied the ability of a society’s system of self-governance to serve the interest of its citizens completely and without corruption. Gandhi was determined to show India (and the British) exactly what he meant by such service. A demonstration of selflessness and self-sufficiency, then, was the first crucial responsibility of Gandhi’s enterprise. However, given the nature of his social and political campaigns, it was by no means the only one.

Of all the political events in Gandhi’s life, perhaps none is more famous than the Salt March of 1930. That theatrical act of defiance—in protest of the heavy tax on salt imposed by the British in India—catapulted Gandhi to new heights in his political career, as the image of this frail individual challenging a mighty empire captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of people around the world.

Yet like many popular conceptions of Gandhi, this image is incomplete. Absent are the 78 members of the Satyagraha Ashram who accompanied him on his march, as well as numerous aides, lieutenants, and volunteers who worked behind the scenes to stage the historic event. There would have been no Salt March, no iconic Gandhi images, without them.

A month before the march, Gandhi’s colleague Vallabhbhai Patel led a team that canvassed arid Gujarat Province to determine the best route. Chief among their considerations were the route’s proximity to salt deposits and to towns where local government officials would be likely to resign their posts on Gandhi’s arrival in support of the protest, as well as easy access for the news media so that it could report on the march’s progress. Gandhi had become a master of employing media coverage to make his efforts successful, and he and his team orchestrated the march so that it would be a sustained media event. They plotted a trail for a three-week trek from Gandhi’s ashram in Ahmedabad south toward the Arabian Sea, paralleling the railway line, which would be the primary means for maintaining communication—by both post and messengers—between the marchers and the ashram headquarters, as well as the conduit for the media covering the march.

Meanwhile, at the Satyagraha Ashram, Gandhi’s secretariat was busy marshaling evidence demonstrating the link between the salt tax and the degradation of Indian society, and publishing it in Gandhi’s weekly journals Young India and Navajivan, where the arguments could be picked up by mainstream media outlets. Parikh and Desai scoured the vast print resources in the ashram—not only Desai’s personal library, but the main library, which housed the thousands of books that Gandhi had brought back from South Africa—for statistics about salt and the Salt Act. Desai used these figures in articles in Young India as well as in Gandhi’s communications with the imperial government and the speeches he helped Gandhi draft. Gandhi himself contributed to the information-gathering efforts, urging associates to send him publications and other sources of information on salt and related subjects.

Gandhi’s personal accounts and other articles from the Salt March and Desai’s pieces in Young India and Navajivan detailing the narrative drama of the march, along with reports and photographs in the mainstream news media,put the Mahatma and his cause before a growing audience in India and around the world. Yet the organizational sophistication behind Gandhi’s dramatic march never got a mention in the headlines the enterprise worked so hard to produce. Its invisibility was partly by design: By effacing their own efforts, Gandhi’s associates reinforced his image as a simple and self-reliant crusader.

While most traces of Gandhi’s enterprise were indeed erased from the historical record, Mahadev Desai’s library is a notable exception. Gandhi’s team compiled and utilized an extensive variety of intellectual resources to support the Mahatma’s mission. Desai was the heart of this intellectual operation, helping Gandhi refine his philosophy over the course of his career and providing him with concrete information to use in his ideological struggle with British imperialism.

As I studied Desai’s library, it became clear to me why these books were important to Gandhi: If you were living in the first part of the 20th century and your goal was to oust the Raj from India and establish swaraj, or self-rule, on a national scale, these would be the books you would want on your shelves.

Desai’s library covers almost the full spectrum of human topics, and the books in it were used as general references on particular subjects as well as sources for specific facts. First are books that represent the collective knowledge the British had amassed about India since the beginning of their engagement with the subcontinent in the 17th century. The second category of material comprises volumes that convey Britons’ knowledge about their own society and history. Understanding how the British understood India as well as how the British understood themselves was a vital component of Gandhi’s strategy. A third category within Desai’s library embraces thousands of works that might come under the heading of “indigenous knowledge”: by Indians, for Indians, and about India. These books were especially relevant to Gandhi’s mission of building a self-sustaining and self-governing Indian nation in the wake of imperial rule.

Rounding out the collection is a dizzying assortment of books on subjects close to the heart of Gandhi’s work: imperialism and counter-imperialism, health and nutrition, education, religion, literature, philosophy, economics, and world history. Scanning the shelves of Desai’s library, I picked out works as diverse as the writings of Winston Churchill, the plays of William Shakespeare (in a beautiful miniature vellum set), the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vincent Smith’s History of India (1907), Reynold Nicholson’s Mystics of Islam (1914), and William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience (1911) alongside titles such as R. D. Ranade’s A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy: Being a Systematic Introduction to Indian Metaphysics (1926), Tulsidas’s version of The Ramayana (in an edition published in 1922), and S. R. Narayana Ayyar’s Experiments in Bee-Culture (1938).

Once I grasped the scope of the collection before me, I was puzzled by two questions: When did Desai and Gandhi have time to read all of these books, and how did they get them in the first place?

The answers to both questions were, in fact, inside the books themselves. A variety of dedications from friends and admirers in India and around the world, stamps of Indian and British booksellers, and other notations revealed a staggering number of sources. These books were the fruits of the transnational intellectual network in which Gandhi and company were active participants.

Still, what good is a great library if its contents are never consulted? Given how little free time Desai and Gandhi had, it is hard to imagine when they found the opportunity to read in this vast collection.

Two important types of evidence shed light on not only when but how these books were read. On the inside covers of hundreds of the volumes are small indigo stamps surrounded by a series of dates and signatures. These are Indian prison stamps, recording when each volume entered and exited the penitentiary. Here was the missing time needed to read so many books: when Gandhi, Desai, and their coworkers were locked in jail for acts of civil disobedience. As Gandhi himself noted, “In this world good books make up for the absence of good companions, so that all Indians, if they want to live happily in jail, should accustom themselves to reading good books.”

Because Desai, in particular, was an active reader, we can follow his progress through many of the books in his library and see how he mined these intellectual resources for material useful to Gandhi’s movement. Furthermore, writing in the margins and other parts of the books indicates that many of them were read by more than one person within Gandhi’s circle, including the Mahatma himself. Indeed, Gandhi’s political colleagues, including Vallabhbhai Patel (who became independent India’s first home minister) and Jawaharlal Nehru (India’s first prime minister), sent books to Desai while he was in one prison and they were each in another. Far from stymieing the work of Gandhi’s enterprise, by repeatedly arresting Gandhi and his coworkers the British unwittingly supported it.

In his lifetime, Gandhi was arrested 14 times on two continents. By the time of his final incarceration, in August 1942, at the start of the Quit India movement to force the British out of the subcontinent once and for all, his enterprise and stature had grown to such an extent that the British had to take special care to keep him and his assistants confined without further agitating the public. Gandhi was imprisoned along with his wife, Mahadev Desai, and several other aides in the Aga Khan Palace in the city of Pune.

The strain of organizing Quit India agitation had taken a toll on the entire group, as the demand for complete and immediate independence had brought a swift and heavy response from the British around India. Desai particularly worked himself into a frenzy of concern about the 73-year-old Gandhi’s fragile health. Nevertheless, after settling into the palace prison, Desai and Gandhi got back to their regular work routine of reading and writing. Eight days after their arrest, following a morning spent taking Gandhi’s dictation, Desai began to feel lightheaded. Within minutes he suffered a massive heart attack, and died shortly thereafter in Gandhi’s arms. Just 50 years old, he had spent half of his life serving Gandhi and his mission.

By the time Gandhi was released, in 1944, Kasturbai—his life partner and wife of 64 years—had also died. Without Kasturbai and Desai, Gandhi’s enterprise lost its twin engines, and sputtered as it tried to support the Mahatma during the dramatic run-up to independence in 1947 and the accompanying chaotic partition of the subcontinent into two countries, India and Pakistan. As tensions increased over the issue of dividing the subcontinent, Gandhi assumed the responsibility of mediating between the vying political factions while also trying to calm an increasingly anxious and aggravated citizenry. While the first part of Gandhi’s vision of swaraj was fulfilled with the peaceful transfer of power and the departure of the British, India’s political freedom did not free it from religious strife. Violent episodes of communal antagonism erupted as millions of people migrated in both directions across the new borders separating the eastern and western halves of the Muslim state of Pakistan from Hindu-majority India.

Gandhi spent most of the last part of his life—both before and after independence—traveling from one fractious part of India to the next, attempting to halt outbreaks of violence, particularly between Hindus and Muslims (and often succeeding, in ways the government could not, leading the last viceroy of British India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, to call him a “one-man boundary force”). As he walked through devastated villages, he was often physically assisted by his two grandnieces, who supported him on either side and whom he called his “two walking sticks.” Although they helped him stand until the end, his grandnieces and the other remaining members of his entourage could not replace the likes of Kasturbai and Desai, and the Mahatma’s power was accordingly diminished. The girls, Abha and Manu, were at his side when he was shot and killed in New Delhi in 1948 by a Hindu extremist who believed that Gandhi was being too conciliatory toward Muslims.

Despite the contributions of Gandhi’s enterprise to his life and work, it continues to be overlooked in both popular and academic studies of the Mahatma. Consequently, we often draw the wrong lessons from Gandhi’s story. The real magic of the Mahatma was not a trick of popular charisma, but in fact a deft ability to recruit, manage, and inspire a team of talented individuals who worked tirelessly in his service. Gandhi himself was one of the few people to recognize how this phenomenon worked. “With each day I realize more and more that my mahatmaship, which is a mere adornment, depends on others. I have shone with the glory borrowed from my innumerable co-workers,” he wrote in 1928 in Navajivan.

Recognizing this fact does not diminish the rare and valuable qualities Gandhi himself possessed. Rather, it acknowledges that great work is the product of collaborative processes, and that many hands working together toward a common purpose can achieve monumental results. In Gandhi’s case, it was the relationship between a visionary leader and the team supporting him—and their collective use of the right resources, such as the books in Mahadev Desai’s library—that paved the way for extraordinary and lasting accomplishments.

Ian Desai is a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in South Asian studies and history at Yale. He received his doctorate from Oxford, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.

Conspiracy of the State

2010-05-16T20:04:00.001+05:30

A macabre drama is unfolding in the poverty-stricken Indian state of Orissa where a democratically-elected government has begun to crush over a dozen people’s peaceful resistance movements against their forceful eviction from their forest, farm, water bodies and source of livelihood to help giant multi-national corporations usurp mineral-rich forest and fertile agricultural land.

The recent police atrocities on the people of Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur may turn out to be a turning point in the state's people's non-violent agitations which have a long and distinguished history of successfully thwarting two nationally important mega projects - the national missile testing range of the defense ministry at Baliapal and the bauxite mining from the Gandhamardan hill by the public sector National Aluminum Corporation (NALCO).

People of Kalinganagar, touted as the steel hub of India, and Jagatsinghpur have been carrying out a non-violent agitation against their displacement to make way for Tata's six-million-ton integrated steel plant and Korean giant Posco's 12-million-ton steel plant respectively. In both the places, the Orissa government, with active collusion of armed goons hired by companies, has launched massive attacks indulging in firing, baton-charge and arson. The government had tried to forcibly evict the people from their villages in 2006 and 2007 too resulting in the death of 14 tribals in Kalinganagar and injuries to many in Jagatsinghpur.

In both Kalinganagar and Jagatsingpur, the government and the companies used agent provocateurs to give a violent-twist to the peaceful sit-in dharnas by the people so as to portray the police action as ‘legitimate’. Stories were planted by the government in a section of the media describing the police action as an inevitable measure to put down violence initiated by the non-violent satyagrahis.

In Kalinganagar, where the police and the hired goons of the company had opened fire injuring over 10 people, including women and, subsequently plundered the houses of non-violent resisters, the government put up a poster purportedly issued by Maoists in support of the people’s movement, a day before the police action on March 30.

The attempt to dub the non-violent resistance movement in Kalinganagar as ‘Maoist inspired’ is a sinister design of the government which follows the popular dictum – ‘To kill the dog, give it a bad name first.’

The government’s exasperation is understandable because the people of Orissa have so far succeeded in stalling not just Tata’s and Posco’s attempt to take possession of the allotted to them for setting up massive steel plants, but have also thwarted London-based Vedanta Resources Plc from carrying out mining from the Niyamgiri hills at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district.

The 8,000-strong Dongaria tribe residing in the foothills of the Niyamgiri hill in Kalahandi district have been carrying out a resistance movement against the mining of bauxite from the hill top on the ground that their tribal diety Niyamraja resides there and any mining activities would destroy the ecology of the region and deprive them of the their main source of livelihood, which is the forest. The ministry of environment is yet to give its clearance to Orissa Mining Corporation for carrying out mining of bauxite from the hill top. This has adversely impacted the alumina refinery of Vedanta at Lanjigarh.

Vedanta is also facing stiff resistance from the villagers to their proposed ‘world-class’ university on the Konarka-Puri coast on a massive 6,000 acres of land allotted to the company by the state government. The protesting villagers have not allowed Vedanta to take possession of the land. Lok Pal has ordered an inquiry into the alleged corruption in allocation of land from out of the land owned by the Jagannath Temple trust.

Arcelor Mittal’s proposed steel plant in Keonjhar district too has not been able to take off due to stiff opposition from the people who are likely to be displaced by the project. Though the Orissa government had committed to 8,000 acres in Keonjhar district for the proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant at the time of signing the MoU in 2006, it has not yet been able to provide any land. The process has been delayed due to agitation by displaced families under the banner of Mittal Pratirodh Manch as most of the land is fertile agricultural land.

Agitations have also stalled allotment of land for setting up of a couple of thermal power plants, not on the grounds of displacement, but because these power plants would consume great amount of water at the cost of irrigation to cultivable land.

Police Atrocity Against Villagers In Orissa

2010-05-16T07:13:00.001+05:30

Countercurrents.org

By Nachiketa Desai

In a massive armed assault using crude bombs, bullets and batons, the Orissa police cracked down on over 1,500 villagers staging a peaceful sit-in dharna since January last against their imminent displacement to make way for South Korean mega corp Posco’s 12 million ton Greenfield steel plant in the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur, Orissa state, India.

More than 100 people, five of them seriously, including women and children were injured in police action which began since the crack of the dawn on Saturday (May 15) with the arrest of CPI MP from Jagatsinghpur Bibhu Prasad Tarai while he was on his way to the core area of the proposed steel plant site to express solidarity with the agitating people of six villages whose 4004 acres of land has been acquired by the government for the Korean steel major.

Tension in the area has been mounting since yesterday with the arrival of 25 platoons of armed police to Balitutha, the entrance point to these villages where over 1500 villagers had set up a blockade and were on a sit-in dharna. That the police had arrived to launch an offensive was anticipated by all because only two days ago it had opened fire in Kalinganagar, killing one person and injuring many, to evacuate agitating villagers for Tata’s proposed steel plant there.

In both Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur, the villagers have been carrying out peaceful agitation against their displacement for the last five years. In order to create a division among the agitating people, the government and the companies had bought over a section of the local population to their side and shifted them to rehabilitation colonies.

It was with the help of these pro-project villagers that the police had carried out a raid in Kalinganagar on March 30 last, pillaging houses and burning stocks of foodgrain. Using a similar tactic, the police made the pro-Posco villagers to lob crude bombs made of kerosene and petrol to create panic and use it as a ruse to launch a massive offensive against the protesters sitting on dharna.

People of six villages, who have organized under the banner of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, had blocked the road at Balitutha, the key entrance point to these villages since January. On Saturday morning the district magistrate of Jagatsinghpur started issuing warning from a hand-held loudspeaker that the police would use force if the villagers did not lift the blockade and disperse.

According to the leaders of the Posco Pratiodh Sangram Samiti, police first fired teargas shells and set on fire the tent under which the protestors were sitting on dharna and then chased the people away from the dharna site at Balitutha. “More than 100 villagers were injured by the police who used batons fired rubber bullets. We shall continue our democratic mass resistance, come what may,” said Prasahant Paikray, spokesperson of PPSS.

The district administration has imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC to facilitate the government undertake survey of the land in these villages with a view to finally handing over these to the Posco. Police has also arrested Congress leaders Umesh Swain and Jayanta Biswal along with the CPI MP Bibhu Prasad Tarai. CPI has planned a protest rally to be addressed by senior party leader A B Bardhan on May 19.

Lessons from Chhattisgarh Peace March

2010-05-15T09:24:00.003+05:30

A bunch of hooligans belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress representing the traders and contractors of Bastar succeeded in creating confusion among the newspaper reading, TV- watching urban middle class about a unique initiative of over 50 concerned citizens who took out a three-day peace march from Raipur to Dantewada in Chhattisgarh from May 6 to 8.

The peace march, whose participants included leading scientist Yash Pal, veteran Gandhian Narayan Desai, social activist Swami Agnivesh and academics Banwarilal Sharma and Ramji Singh, besides scores of social activists and independent journalists, was meant to convey the

message to the nation that 'dialogue and not gun' was needed to defuse the crisis caused by the civil war between the state and the Maoists in the mineral-rich forest areas of the tribal-dominated region of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Despite elaborate explanation by Prof Yash Pal, Agnivesh and other eminent citizens about the purpose of their peace march, the Raman Singh government of Chhattisgarh and Union home minister P Chidambaram managed to propagate through the media that the peace march was meant to thwart the 'Green Hunt' and to buy time for the Maoists to regroup themselves.

The media, controlled by the corporate world and the government through their patronage and threat, did their bit by conveying an impression that the peace march met with stiff opposition from the people of chhattisgarh though the vulgar and orchestrated demonstration against the march was only by a handful of hooligans who were seen back-slapping the state police officials.

Unwittingly, the peace marchers too fell into the trap laid by the government and the protesters by confining themselves to addressing a series of press conferences instead of holding one-to-one talk with the people of the towns they passed through. There was also a lack of preparation for the march which should have got placards, banners and pamphlets printed to convey the message of the marchers.

"It was futile to take out the peace march through cities and towns which fall into the 'black-market corridor'. The marchers should have crossed over to the 'red corridor' to establish communication with the adivasis who are caught in the crossfire between the state forces and the Maoists," says Rabi Das, a founder member of the CPI-ML. "The marchers would not have faced any violence, not even a whimper of protest from the Maoists and the adivasis in the 'red corridor' on the other side of the Indravati river," he adds.

Incidentally, Rabi Das and his comrade Nagbhushan Patnaik had renounced violence in the late 1970s after they had come in contact with Gandhian social worker, Malatidevi Choudhury and her husband Nabakrushna Choudhury, the former chief minister of Orissa. Rabi Das has been working in the starvation-prone Kalahandi district of Orissa for over two decades now.

Having met with nasty protest from traders of Jagdalpur and Dantewada, the peace marchers held a review meeting in which several participants stressed the need for crossing the Indravati river into the 'Red Corridor' to express solidarity with the Maoists' cause of giving the ownership rights to the adivasis over land, forest and water bodies, with the rider that taking up guns was not the solution.

Prominent among the peace marchers such as Prof Yash Pal, Thomas Kochery, Dr. Banwarilal Sharma had made it amply clear during their interaction with the press that the faulty development paradigm of the country was responsible for the widening schism between the rich and the poor and that the government was hand-in-glove with the mega corporations and multinational corporations in the plunder of the country's natural resources to the peril of the poor adivasis and the environment.

Given such a stand, the peace marchers could have easily established rapport with the adivasis in the 'Red Corridor' as well as the Maoists fighting for their rights. They could have also tried to convince the Maoists of the efficacy of non-violent direct action by pointing out the success of the people's movements in Baliapal and Gadhamardan in Orissa which were able to stop the proposed national missile testing range and the bauxite mining respectively.

In fact, it is because the people's movement in Orissa has remained peaceful and non-violent that it has been difficult for the government and the mega corporation to push ahead several mega projects in the state. Local villagers in Orissa have been resisting setting up of mega steel plants by the Tatas and the Korean gian Posco for more than five years now as a result of which these companies have not been able to take possession of the land.

The government and the companies, on the other hand, have tried many times to provoke the people by resorting to violence as in Kalinganagar. There have also been attempts by the government to brand these peaceful movements as Naxalite movements so that the state repression can be justified.

Battle for Bastar

2010-05-11T13:25:00.002+05:30

Bastar (Chhattisgarh): A fierce battle is raging along the Indrawati river in Central India. On one side of the river are deployed the para military forces of the Indian state. On the other side, in dense forest, are the Maoist guerrillas.

The Indian militia calls the battle, operation ‘Green Hunt’, which is aimed at flushing out the Maoists from the mineral rich forest land so that Indian and multinational corporations can fatten their bottom line by exploiting iron ore, coal and bauxite. The Maoists are fighting to protect the 40,000 square kilometers of dense forest land known as Dandakaranya from these marauding companies.

The Indian militia has deployed at the front a private army of teenaged adivasis raised under the banner of ‘Salwa Judum’ to provide local support to the Central Reserve Police force (CRPF). The police of Chhattisgarh operate from the safety of police stations, far away from the battle field. In the battle for the control of Dandakaranya, mostly the adivasis and the CRPF men drawn largely from the poor and socially backward class families from across the country die. Rarely do the senior officers of the police, the bureaucracy or the top executives of the MNCs get killed.

Maoists have ‘liberated’ the mineral-rich region where governments have existed only in the form of greedy contractors and corrupt policemen and forest officials, leaving the mass of tribals to suffer in poverty, disease and illiteracy while outsiders strip away Bastar's minerals.

“The country is on a boil. In the last 60 years, we have made the rich more rich and the poor more poor. The condition of over 60 crore people of our country is deteriorating day by day. If such a scenario continues, there would be great trouble, what kind of trouble is unpredictable,” says Professor Yash Pal, leading space scientist and former chairman of University Grants commission.

“Today, millions of people, mostly tribals, are migrating from their ancestral land to far off places like Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat to toil as labourers. There must be something terribly wrong with our development policy which is making this happen,” points out Prof. Yash Pal. “In the name of development, we are mining for minerals which we export to China, Japan and other countries. We dig land, we dig forest, we uproot people living in this land for the so-called development and progress,” he adds.

“Having uprooted the adivasis, we set up highly polluting industries and destroy the most-beautiful and green forest land of our country. We are destroying the soil of India, we are destroying the people of India.”

Prof. Yash Pal was addressing a press conference in Raipur, the state capital of Chhattisgarh, on the eve of a peace march to Dantewada calling for talks and national debate to find an end to the civil war in the tribal-dominated mineral-rich forest-covered areas of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Prof. Yash Pal was among the group of over 50 concerned citizens who participated in the peace march from Raipur to Dantewada from May 6 to 8. Among the other participants were Swami Agnivesh of Bandhua Mazdoor Mukti Sangathan, Prof. Banwarilal Sharma of Azadi Bachao Andolan, veteran Gandhian Narayan Desai, chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith, Thomas Kochery of World Fisherfolk Forum and Radha Bhatt, chairperson of Gandhi Peace Foundation.

There was a consensus among the participants of the peace march that faulty development model of the country, which marginalized the vast majority of rural poor, the indigenous dwellers of the forest, was responsible for the civil war-like situation in not just the forested areas of central India but also in the North-eastern states and Kashmir.

There was also a consensus among them over the means of restoring peace in the country. “Gun versus gun is not the solution. Violence only would breed more violence. If the government thinks that it would be able to eliminate the Maoists by bullets, it is greatly mistaken. Look, what happened in Vietnam,” points out Prof Yash Pal.

“Are we going to annihilate the entire population of Adivasis, just like the Americans did with the Red Indians, to push forward development and progress?” asked Radha Bhatt of the Gandhi Peace Foundation.

“In the name of dam construction and mining, millions of people are getting displaced,” points out Thomas Kochery. “They are getting displaced from their land, forest and water”, he adds. This is the first kind of violence the poor people are facing, this is the first form of terrorism in the country.
“The second form of violence is by Naxalites who take up arms to retaliate the first form of violence. And the third form of violence is when the army and the para military forces use guns to put down the second form of violence,” he points out. “We are here to say that peace can be achieved by removing all the three kinds of violence from the country.”

“A long-lasting peace can be achieved only by holding talks amongst all concerned to find out a sustainable people-centric development paradigm,” says veteran Gandhian Narayan Desai.

Despite having spelled out the objective of their peace march from Raipur to Dantewada, the marchers faced ugly demonstration from a handful of supporters of both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress as well as from some representatives of trade, commerce and industry bodies.

The first to react was Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh who ridiculed the peace initiative by mocking at them and obliquely referring to them as the sympathizers of the Maoists. “Why do these intellectuals wake up only when the government starts operations against the Maoists and keep quiet when the members of our security forces get killed,” he said.

Taking a cue from the chief minister’s statement, a handful of workers of the BJP, the Congress and the local chamber of commerce and industry held demonstrations in Raipur, Jagdalpur and Dantewada, shouting, “Naxal supporters go back, go back.”

None of these demonstrators was local adivasi and only represented the trading community of the district towns of Jagdalpur and Dantewada which has been exploiting the adivasis over the last several centuries and which thrives on the ongoing war against the Maoists.

“The traders of Jagdalpur and Dantewada are the main suppliers of foodgrain, grocery and other essential commodities to the security forces. Their total turnover of supplies to the security forces is in the range of Rs2000 crore yearly,” points out a resident of Jagdalpur who was a student union leader of the local college about a decade ago.

The state government and members of both the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, with active participation of the police and local goons have been preventing independent journalists, lawyers and human rights activists from visiting Dantewada by organizing violent attacks against them.

Anyone trying to find out what is happening in Bastar on both sides of the Indrawati river is promptly branded by the Establishment as ‘Supporter of Maoists’.

A Gandhian worker, Himanshu Kumar, who has been running ‘Vanvasi Chetana Ashram’ for the last 17 years, was dubbed as ‘Maoist sympathiser’ and his Ashram razed to the ground by the authorities after he raised the issue of mindless killing of innocent adivasis by the police-backed Salwa Judum private militia.

A couple of journalists have been detained by the police after they tried to cross the Indrawati river to find out what was happing in the deep forest.

Fascism in Bastar

2010-05-11T13:14:00.002+05:30

A mob of about 100 slogan shouting supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party barged into the public meeting of eminent citizens, including space scientist Yash Pal, veteran Gandhian Narayan Desai and former UGC chairman Ramji Singh, a day before they embarked upon a peace march from Raipur to Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.

A group of over 50 leading citizens had converged in Raipur on May 5 to take out what they call 'March for dialogue on peace and justice', calling for end to a civil-war like situation in the predominantly tribal state of Chhattisgarh. These citizens comprising academics, scientists, social activists and Gandhian workers, want a 'ceasefire' between the state forces and Maoists to begin a nation-wide discussion on model of development that the country should follow to ensure a sustainable, just and people-oriented economy and polity.

At a press conference, held before the public meeting, Prof Yash Pal said he was greatly pained at the plight of the tribals, farmers and the indigenous people in the last 60 years of Independence for which the powers that be and the middle-class in general were responsible. "Do we want to annihilate the entire race of aboriginal people, like America had done in the name of development?" he asked.

Interestingly, the Press Club of Raipur allowed to hold the press conference of the leading citizens as an exception to their earlier resolution not to allow any press conference of human rights activists. The press conference lasted for more than an hour during which journalists asked leading questions like 'How can you advocate ceasefire when Naxalites are out to wage a war against the constitutionally-formed government?"

Swami Agnivesh, Prof Yash Pal and Narayan Desai explained the limited scope of the peace march saying the foremost thing was to stop violence from both the sides - from the state and the Left extremists - to facilitate a nation-wide dialogue on ways and means to have a sustainable and just development of the country in which people were at the centre.

Later, while the marchers held a public meeting at the town hall, near the district collector's office, a mob of over 100 people, stormed into the hall shouting slogans, "Naxal sympathisers go back", "Naxal sympathisers, shame, shame." The trouble-makers disrupted the meeting several times during which the speakers stopped addressing the gathering.

State director general of police Vishwa Ranjan said the trouble-makers belonged to both the BJP and the Congress party. "Tempers are running high in Chhattisgarh over the wanton killings of tribals by the Maoists. Anyone advocating dialogue with them is perceived as the sympathiser of the Maoists," he added. The top cop directed concerned police offers of Jagdalpur and Dantewada to provide adequate security to the peace marchers.

Trouble Spots

2010-04-17T10:59:00.002+05:30

Two major steel projects envisaging combined capacity of 18 million tons of steel production a year have not been able to make any progress for the last five years because of serious problems related to land acquisition from tribals and farmers. These are Korean steel major Posco’s 12 MTPA integrated steel plant and Tata Steel’s 6 MTPA plant.

Posco’s was the first major foreign direct investment proposal after the Orissa government invited big industrial groups to set up the state’s second steel plant after the public sector Rourkela steel plant. Though the state government earmarked 4004 acres of land, of which 2900 acres was forest land, Posco has not yet got the possession of the land. This, despite the fact that the Union ministry of environment and forest has given final clearance for acquiring forest land in Orissa for its steel plant project and the company has already deposited Rs 105 crore with the state government towards compensatory afforestation.

Posco has sought the state government’s help in acquiring land from the villagers after the people cultivating the land for betel leaf and prawns rejected a rehabilitation package announced by the company. The company has announced a compensation of Rs.75,000 per acre for the loss of land meant for betel vines, Rs.1 lakh per acre for prawn farms and Rs.75,000 per acre for cultivable land. But the package has failed to enthuse the locals.

“It is a dream compensation package. Yet, the villagers are adamant to vacate the land. This is nothing but bargaining for more compensation,” says Priyabrata Patnaik, the chairman and managing director of Industrial and Investment Development Corporation (IDCO), the nodal agency empowered to acquire land in the state.

A Posco spokesman, expressing concern at the delay in getting the possession of the land, said, “The company has already made substantial investment on the project in the last five years since the signing of the memorandum of understanding with the government; how long can we afford to wait for the land.”

The other project, which has still failed to take off is that of the Tata Steel which has proposed to set up a 6 MTPA integrated steel plant in Kalinganagar, an industrial estate being described by the state government as the ‘Steel Hub of India’, about 150 km from the state capital in Jajpur district.

The government has agreed to provide 3,471 acres of land, which it had acquired in 1992, to Tata Steel for setting up the plant. Of the allotted land, private ownership accounted for 2,755 acres impacting 562 core families which comprise of 1,195 nuclear families belonging to six revenue villages. While compensation under the land acquisition act was paid to them in 1992, the villagers were allowed to retain the possession and continue cultivation of land.

While as many as 791 families out of 1,195 families have relocated voluntarily, the remaining 404 families have refused to move out of the core area. It is these 404 families who have been opposing the project demanding land for land as part of the compensation, rather than the cash component. There have been violent clashes between anti and pro project as also between the protesting villagers and the police.

The proposed ‘world-class’ university of Vedanta on the Konarka-Puri coast is also facing protest from the villagers around the 6,000 acres of land allotted to Vedanta by the state government. The protesting villagers have not allowed Vedanta to take possession of the land. In the meantime, Lok Ayukta has ordered an inquiry into the alleged corruption in allocation of land from out of the land owned by the Jagannath Temple trust.

The 8,000-strong Dongaria tribe residing in the foothills of the Niyamgiri hill in Kalahandi district too have been carrying out a resistance movement against the mining of bauxite from the hill top on the ground that their tribal diety Niyamraja resides there and any mining activities would destroy the ecology of the region and deprive them of the their main source of livelihood, which is the forest. The ministry of environment is yet to give its clearance to Orissa Mining Corporation for carrying out mining of bauxite from the hill top. This has adversely impacted the alumina refinery of Vedanta at Lanjigarh.

Arcelor Mittal’s proposed steel plant in Keonjhar district too has not been able to take off due to stiff opposition from the people who are likely to displaced by the project. Though the Orissa government had committed to 8,000 acres in Keonjhar district for the proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant at the time of signing the MoU in 2006, it has not yet been able to provide any land. The process has been delayed due to agitation by displaced families under the banner of Mittal Pratirodh Manch as most of the land is fertile agricultural land.

Orissa : Miners' Paradise

2010-04-17T10:34:00.003+05:30

Miners’ Paradise

Orissa is experiencing the pangs of an unfolding industrial revolution that seeks to transform this poorest of the states of India into a power house of electricity, steel and aluminum

The slogan - ‘Mining Happiness’ - on the giant-sized bill board greets the alighting passengers at the Biju Patnaik Airport of Bhubaneswar. The same slogan, below the smiling faces of tribal children, runs on the signages posted on the electric poles that stand at regular intervals along the divider of the main four-lane road from the airport to the state secretariat and beyond to the swanky info city.

‘Mining Happiness’ is the catch-line of the recent multi-million-rupee multi-media advertisement campaign of the Vedanta Aluminum Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange listed mining giant Vedanta Resources PLC. Vedanta’s advertisement campaign claims the company’s one million ton alumina refinery to be scaled up to five million tons at Lanjigarh in the state’s Kalahandi district, ill-famed for recurring droughts and starvation deaths, will wipe off poverty and bring about all-round development of the region.

Vedanta’s chief operating officer Mukesh Kumar says the refinery at Lanjigarh and the aluminum smelter at Jharsugda together would provide employment to over 20,000 people. Vedanta also plans to set up a university on 6,000 acres of land along the Konarka-Puri sea shore at an investment of Rs.15,000 crore. “We have committed to invest over Rs.60,000 crore in Orissa of which we have so far spent Rs.30,000 crore,” he adds.

The other eye-catching advertisement bill boards in the state capital are those of Tata Steel. These too are on similar lines, carrying the photographs of some tribal boys and girls who, the company says, are the future engineers, doctors and IT professionals, a dream that would be fulfilled once the company’s proposed 6 million ton integrated steel plant comes up in Kalinganagar of Jajpur district, 120 kms North-East of the state capital.

“Global as well as domestic companies started making a beeline to Orissa after 2003, evincing keen interest in setting up heavy industries in the field of steel, aluminum and thermal power all of which need minerals which are found in abundance in the state,” says Priyabrata Patnaik, chairman and managing director of Industrial Investment Development Corporation of Orissa (IDCO).

After the Naveen Patnaik government passed the Orissa Industries Facilitation Act of 2004 which envisaged a single window system for investors wishing to set up industries in the state, there was a rush of companies, both multi-national as well as domestic, for signing memorandum of understanding (MoUs) with the state government.

“Till 2003, there were only small-scale units for making pig iron, sponge iron and steel to the tune of 250,000 tons besides the 50-year-old public sector Rourkela Steel Plant. The new industrial policy brought about a drastic change. Today, as many as 49 companies have expressed their intent of setting up plants in Orissa, envisaging an investment of Rs. 198,149.40 crore to produce 75.66 million tons of steel per year,” says the IDCO CMD.

Korean steel giant POSCO, with a proposed investment of USD 12 billion (Rs 52,000 crore), was among the first major players with plans to construct a world-class, fully integrated steel plant in Orissa with annual production capacity of 12 million tons. Among the domestic players, Tata Steel signed an MoU with the state government in 2004 to set up a 6 MTPA plant.

“By 2015, Orissa would become an industrial power house, producing over 35-40 million tons of steel, 3 million tons of alumina and 1 million tons of aluminum annually while also generating over 30,000 MW of electricity through coal-based thermal power plants,” says Ashok Dalvai, state’s steel and mines secretary. “Of the 49 steel projects for which MoUs have been signed, five are operating fully while 24 have become partially operational,” he adds.

Besides sectors like steel, power, cement and aluminum, investment has also been proposed on ports, universities, hospitals and several SEZs. While Rs.20,000 crore of investment is planned for creating SEZs in 1,077 hectares, Rs. 15,000 is proposed to be invested in setting up the Vedanta university along the Konarka-Puri coast.

Several private ports are proposed to be set up along the state’s 480-km-long coast. The state government has identified as many as 14 sites where ports can be developed. Already, several companies have expressed interest in developing some of these ports. These include Gujarat’s Adani group near the Paradip port, Aditya Birla group’s S.L. Mining at the Chudamani port in Bhadrak district, Navajuga engineering of Hyderabad at Astaranga port in Puri district, Puri Ports Limited at Baliharchandi port also in Puri district and Good earth maritime of Madras at Bahuda muhana in Ganjam district. Already work on three private ports has started. These include the Gopalpur port by the Orissa Stevedores, Dhamra port jointly by TISCO and L&T and Jatadhari port by POSCO.

“The government, through IDCO has already acquired 121,000 acres of land and is in process of acquiring almost equal acreage more for the setting up of these industrial projects,” says the IDCO CMD. IDCO is the nodal agency for identifying and acquiring land both from the government and private parties at strategic locations. The acquired land is then allotted for setting up industries. IDCO extends help in identification of project site and collection of plan and schedule of land from the revenue authorities.

Despite a single-window system in place for getting clearance from revenue, forest, environment, water and electricity supply departments, and IDCO having been empowered for land acquisition, some of the major industrial projects including the proposed steel plants of the POSCO, the 12 – million-ton greenfield steel plant of Arcelor Mittal and Tata Steel and Vedanta’s existing alumina and aluminum plants and proposed world-class university are facing stiff resistance from the local residents, environmentalists and social activists.

As a result, Posco and Tata Steel have not been able to start work on their integrated steel plants, which together would have produced 18 MTPA. Both these steel giants had signed MoUs in 2004 and planned to start production by 2010. The civil construction of the Rs 5000-crore 1.5 million ton alumina refinery project of Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL), a subsidiary of the Aditya Birla Group (ABG), near Kasipur in Rayagada district too is facing opposition from the displaced and affected people of the project.

Though the Orissa government had committed to 8,000 acres in Keonjhar district for the proposed Arcelor Mittal steel plant at the time of signing the MoU in 2006, it has not yet been able to provide any land. The process has been delayed due to agitation by displaced families under the banner of Mittal Pratirodh Manch as most of the land is fertile agricultural land.

Though private companies have the option to negotiate land price directly with the farmers and buy it, the process is not always feasible because in most cases where the industries want to set up their units the land owners belong to the scheduled tribe or scheduled caste from whom land cannot be bought. So, the prospective investor has to be dependent on the state government which acquires land and then gives it out on lease to the industry.

This is in sharp contrast to the process of land acquisition in Gujarat where the prospective investors by land from the farmers directly while the state government’s role is that of only a facilitator. Private industries are also allotted land in the industrial estates already created by the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation, the equivalent of Orissa’s IDCO.

It is the inability of IDCO to get the acquired land vacated by the occupant farmers which is proving to be the main stumbling block in the way of starting work on the proposed industrial projects. “We have been awaiting possession of the 4004 acres of land for more than five years now without any progress. The government has been telling us that an amicable solution to the impasse created because of people’s refusal to vacate the land would be found out soon. However, till date there is no sign of any solution,” says Simanta Mohanty, general manager, external relations, Posco.

“The protests by people against displacement are a part of democratic process. People are resorting to agitation and protests to extract as much compensation from the government and the industry as possible. Another reason behind these agitations is the prevailing inertia among the people who do not want any change in their lifestyle,” says mines and steel secretary Dalvai.

This reason may hold true for the farmers, fisher folk, weavers and other artisans engaged in various kinds of handicraft who perceive heavy industries as being the main cause of deprivation of their means of livelihood. The only industrial activity of the state so far has been related to mining of minerals. The employment in the mining sector, however, has been declining over the years due to mechanization. While there were 52,937 workers employed in the mining sector in 2000-01, their number declined to 49,176 by 2008, points out the State’s Economic Surveys presented to the Orissa Legislative Assembly.

Widening rich-poor divide

However, for the educated urban middle class the process of industrialization in the state has ushered in a new era of prosperity and ever increasing opportunities. The mushrooming of engineering colleges, numbering 53 in the state capital Bhubaneswar, and 50 in other main towns of the state, enrolling 52,000 students every year, is a pointer to the growing aspiration of the educated youth to make it to a comfortable career path. Private business schools and medical colleges, as well as institutions imparting other professional education too have come up in large number.

The schism between the urban rich and the rural poor has widened sharply in Orissa. According the Planning Commission, 46.60% of Orissa’s people lived below the poverty line in 2004-05, much higher than Bihar (32.50%), Madhya Pradesh (32.40%) and Uttar Pradesh (25.50%).
Millions of marginal farmers, landless labourers and craftsmen from the poverty-stricken districts of Ganjam, Bolangir, Koraput and Kalahandi of Western Orissa, bordering Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh migrate as far as to Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Punjab every year in search of employment. Reports of starvation deaths, suicides of weavers and farmers and selling of children as bonded labourers appear at regular intervals in regional and national newspapers.

Farmers of Jharsuguda, Bolangir, Angul, Dhenkanal and Kendrapada districts have been carrying on prolonged agitations against the state government’s decision to prioritize allocation of water to industries from major irrigation dams on the rivers Mahanadi and Brahmani.

“The Hirakud dam over river Mahanadi, one of independent India’s early multipurpose river valley projects, used to prevent floods in the coastal areas, provide electricity to factories and homes and supplied ample water in the canals to grow a second crop every year. Not anymore,” says Professor Rajkishor Meher of Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies in Bhubaneswar. “The dam has almost lost its principal objective of irrigation promotion and agricultural development in the region,” Meher says.

Quoting government records, he points out that as many as 3,509 farmers committed suicide in Orissa in the last 11 years. The opposition Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party have alleged that at least 53 farmers committed suicide in the state in the past one year. “The multipurpose dam now hardly generates 30 per cent of its installed hydro power capacity because of lack of adequate storage of water in the reservoir, obsolete technology and worn out machinery,” he adds.

Due to silting of the reservoir and canals the tail end areas do not get adequate irrigation water for the second crop. The area deprived of a second crop is almost one-third of the created irrigated potential in the command area. Availability of water for agriculture shall be reduced in future, as the area surrounding the reservoir is now witnessing fast industrial growth and mining of coal. Meher points out that before 1997 the total allocation of water to the industries of the region from the reservoir was 3,191,200 gallons per year. This has increased by 27 times in the past nine years and this is obviously at the cost of water for irrigation.

While farmers of villages in the command area of the Hirakud dam are facing acute shortage of water, in Bhubaneswar and elsewhere in the state, consumption of liquor and ganja (hemp) has increased manifold. State’s excise department figures reveal a three-fold jump in revenue from the sale Indian Made Foreign Liquor and country liquor between 2001-02 (Rs. 197.35 crore) and 2007-08 (Rs.524.83 crore). There were 1021 IMFL shops, 13 clubs and 37 beer bars and 152 shops selling country liquor in 2008.

In a situation reminiscent of the popular anti-liquor movement of the 1990s in Andhra Pradesh, women in several villages of Orissa have launched agitation against the opening of liquor shops in their area. The left-extremist Maoists too have made liquor shops their target in the pre-dominantly tribal districts of Kandhamal, Gajapati and Koraput, Balangir, and Kalahandi.

Drug and illegal mining

Along with increase in the consumption of liquor, the state has also witnessed an alarming rise in the cultivation of illegal ganja (hemp). In raids conducted by the excise department in 13 districts of Orissa during 2007-08, 3.12 million hemp plants worth over Rs. 312 crore were detected and destroyed.

A commission of inquiring headed by Justice P K Mohanty found the involvement of Maoists in the multi-crore-rupee ganja cultivation in Orissa specially in the hilly and inaccessible areas of the state. In March this year, Dambaru Bagha, the district president of the youth wing of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Maoist-bastion Malkangiri, was arrested from Lucknow with 3,000 kg of ganja in a truck. This was just the tip of the illegal drugs ice-berg.

Equally nefarious racket, which came to light recently, is that of illegal mining of iron, chromite and manganese ores running into over Rs.14,000 crore. The racket came to light following sinking of an iron-ore laden ship from Mongolia named ‘Black Rose’ off the Paradip port. It was laden with 23,847 tons of iron ore. The ship had forged documents of another ship named ‘Toros Pearl’. The owner of the ship operated two ships under the name of ‘Black Rose’ for shipping out iron ore from Orissa illegally.

Investigations by the state vigilance department and documents brought under the RTI Act showed that over last 6-7 years more than half a dozen leading mining and steel companies dug out iron, chromite and manganese ores than the amount they were allowed thanks to lax supervision of officials of the Orissa Pollution Control Board, Indian Bureau of Mines, state mines department, forest department, district collector and Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Documents obtained from the Orissa Pollution Control Board show that the biggest violator could be one of the country’s leading industrial group. The company mined 206 lakh tons of iron ore in excess of its permitted limit of 25.86 lakh ton from two mines (Kasia and Jiling-Longalata) of Keonjhar district between 2001-02 and 2005-06. By conservative estimates, the total market value of the excess iron ore mined was Rs 4269 crores. The permissible limit for mining of minerals in a year varies from mine to mine, based on the reserves it has, and is fixed by the Indian Bureau of Mines.

“Illegal mining is rampant in Orissa. Of the 595 mining lease issued by the state government, only 245 are valid, the rest 351 are continuing to carry out mining even after their lease period has expired. They are doing so in collusion with the concerned officials,” alleges Rabi Das, president of Orissa Jana Sammilani (Orissa People’s Conference), who has filed a public interest petition in the Supreme Court demanding a CBI probe into the illegal mining scam. “The delay in renewing the mining leases by the state officials is the standard tactic adopted by them to extract grease money from the lessee companies,” alleges Das.

City of neo rich

The staggering amount of slush money in the hands of government officials, politicians and touts collected from private miners is getting reflected in their ostentatious spending on such luxury goods as jewelry, real estate and automobiles. Jewelry shops are doing roaring business in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Imported luxury cars on the roads are a common sight in the state capital.

The state capital, which did not even have a three-star hotel a decade ago, today boasts of five five-star hotels and over a dozen four-star hotels. The city also has a 9-hole golf course spread across 33 acres of land leased out to the club by IDCO. “The golf club has over 500 members of which about 80 participate in the game regularly”, says Srimoy Kar, an active golfer.

“The land prices in Bhubaneswar have sky rocketed in the last ten years, competing with the prices of prime property in metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. I had sold an apartment in Bhubaneswar at Rs. 1.50 lakh when I started my business here 20 years ago. Recently, I concluded a deal of a luxury apartment at Rs. 1.15 crore at Rs4,000 a square feet,” says Subhash Bhura, the Orissa chapter president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI), who is the managing director of Utkal Builders.

Most land in Bhubaneswar belong to the government as the city was planned and developed as the capital city of Orissa only after the formation of the state in 1948. “The government’s near total monopoly over the land and absence of any town planning has resulted in scarcity of land for the middle class and the poor. Nearly one-fourth of the city’s population lives in 108 slums,” points out Bhura.

With new building bylaws enacted a few months ago, the skyline of the city is expected to change within a few years as several multi-storeyed buildings have been proposed. Real estate developers from outside Orissa such as DLF, Cosmopolis and Vipul have proposed mega housing projects in the state capital.

Recent times have seen large scale retail chains such as Reliance, Vishal Mega Mart, Big Bazaar, Pantaloon, Spencer's opening their outlets in Bhubaneswar. Large corporations like DLF Universal and Reliance Industries have entered the real estate market in the city. DLF Limited is developing an Infopark spread over an area of 54 acres in the city. Expanding its business portfolio, the Kolkata-based Saraf Group, promoters of Forum Mart shopping malls is constructing another Shopping mall named Forum Lifestyle mall on a 550,000-sq ft plot of land in Bhubaneswar with 1,200 car parks.

IT and education hub

Bhubaneswar is home to several educational and research institutions of state and national importance including the Utkal University , Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, the Institute of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Institute of Mathematics and Applications (IMA), as well as over 30 other private colleges geared towards engineering, biotechnology, information technology and management.

Mining major Vedanta too has proposed to set up a ‘world-class’ University on a staggering 6,000 acres of land along the Konarka-Puri sea shore. The university got mired in controversy after the Lok Ayukta ordered an inquiry into the legality of allotment of a part of the land belonging to the Jagannath temple trust. People of neighbouring villages too have been protesting against the proposed university.

Bhubaneswar is emerging as a national education hub that is also being promoted as an Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) by the government. A total of 40 square kilometer of land has been allocated for the purpose, out of which about 60% will be devoted to research and development. Two institutions of national importance, the IIT and NISER, Bhubaneswar will be located within this investment region.

The Info City was conceived as a five star park, under the Export Promotion Industrial Parks (EPIP) Scheme to create high quality infrastructure facilities for setting up Information Technology related industries. Infosys and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. have been present in Bhubaneswar since 1996-97. Its current head count stands at around 6000.

Infosys is a planning a second IT park near Khandagiri which will accommodate another 5000 IT professionals. Wipro's software development centre started operation in the city during February 2008. The Finland telecommunication company, Nethawk, has its India R&D center at Bhubaneswar. The Canadian giant, Gennum Corporation too has its India development centre at Bhubaneswar.

The new STP, christened as JSS software Technology park is located at Infocity to provide incubation and infrastructure facilities to new and young entrepreneurs in the MSME sector. The intelligent building of the JSS STP is spread across three acres and houses state-of-art technology to fulfill the growing demands of IT professionals. Infocity is considered as the biggest IT park in eastern India spread over an area of 350 acres.

Critique’s views

Leading academics, economists, environmentalists, wildlife experts, social activists and leaders of political parties – the opposition as well as a few dissidents of the ruling Biju Janata Dal – have expressed grave concern at what they describe as ‘lopsided’ and ‘skewed’ development of the poverty-stricken Orissa.

“Orissa’s mineral reserves may exhaust too soon due to fast exploitation. Orissa is exploiting bauxite at a much faster rate than it should be doing. The focus of policy makers has been on maximizing the revenues in the short run than maximizing the present value of all expected future revenues,” avers Banikant Mishra, professor of finance at the Xavier’s Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.

“The widening gap between the urban rich and the rural poor, lack of development activities in poverty-stricken regions of Western and Northern Orissa leading to large-scale migration of marginal farmers and farm labourers to other states, starvation deaths, displacement of tribals from their homestead and land on account of land acquisition for heavy industries and depriving them of their means of livelihood, state violence against people protesting peacefully against their displacement are all contributing to the rising influence of left-extremist Maoists in the state,” Mishra warns.

“Inspite of abundant stock of natural and human resources, the state portrays a hopeless image of stark poverty - child sale and starvation deaths hitting the national headlines regularly. This is mainly because of the state’s lopsided policies. Though there has been a growth in the number of factories operating in the state, employment had registered a steady decline,” points out Biswajit Mohanty, a chartered accountant who heads the Wildlife Society of Orissa.

“Orissa has missed the opportunity of taking advantage of its rich mineral resources. Instead of giving out mining leases indiscriminately, the state should have first come out with a mining policy. The government should have constituted an expert committee comprising geologists, metallurgists, industry experts and elected representatives of people of the mineral rich areas which would have recommended a judicious strategy for the exploitation of minerals,” says former Union Steel and Mines minister Brajkishore Tripathy.

“I won’t be surprised if the industrial houses which have signed MoUs over the last 10 years to set up industries in the state start legal proceedings against the state government for not having been able to fulfill its promise of land, water and power to them,” he said, pointing out that the total requirement of power and water for these industries far exceeds the supply.

“The Naveen Patnaik government has traded with the industries, ignoring the law of the land and ignoring the problems of the people. Even in a single-window system, the government should have ensured that the proposed projects get all the required statutory clearances from the revenue, forest, environment, water supply and electricity departments,” says Bhakta Charan Das, the Congress Member of Parliament from the Kalahandi Lok Sabha constituency.

“The government should have also made mandatory for the investor companies to give guarantee for the inclusive growth of the region in which they set up their industries. Since the government has allowed heavy industries to draw water and electricity at the cost of the needs of the local population, people are up in arms against industrialization,” he says.

Labour pains

“These are just the normal pangs of industrialization which is yet to take off fully. The fruits of industrialization are yet to bear. Let the heavy industries in the areas of steel, aluminum and electricity be established first, downstream industries would follow automatically. Only then will the people of Orissa start benefitting from an industrially sound economy,” says Ashok Dalvai, the steel and mine secretary.

True, Orissa is witnessing the pangs of industrialization. For the first time after Independence, the poorest of the country’s state is experiencing the trials and tribulations of an agrarian economy moving on the fast track of industrial growth.

2010-01-29T10:10:00.003+05:30

Malatidevi Choudhury: My Grandmother

2010-01-18T09:10:00.019+05:30

Malati Choudhury (née Sen) was born in 1904 in an aristocratic Brahmo family. She had lost her father, Barrister Kumud Nath Sen, when she was only two and a half years old, and was brought up by her mother Snehalata Sen.

Malati’s family originally belonged to Kamarakhanda in Bikrampur, Dhaka, (now in Bangladesh), but her family members had settled in Simultala, Bihar. Snehalata Sen’s father was Beharilal Gupta, ICS. Ranjit Gupta, ICS, former Chief Secretary of West Bengal was Malati’s first cousin. His brother, the famous parliamentarian and former Home Minister, Indrajit Gupta is also her first cousin. Malati’s eldest brother, P. K. Sen Gupta,former Income Tax Commissioner, belonged to the Indian Revenue Service, and another brother, K. P. Sen, former Postmaster General, was from the Indian Postal Service.

(Photo on the left: On the cover of The Illustratred Weekly of India)

Being the youngest child of her parents, she was a darling of all her brothers and sister. Her mother Snehalata was a writer in her own right, and had translated some works of Tagore, as is seen from her book Jugalanjali. It is hard to believe that coming from a highly westernized and aristocratic family, Malati Choudhury could adopt a completely different life style.

(L-R P K Sen Gupta (her brother), Nabakrushna Choudhury, Surekha Sen Gupta nee Tagore (her sister-in-law and grand niece of Rabindranath Tagore), and Malatidevi Choudhury)

In an article entitled ‘Reminiscences of Santiniketan’, her mother had written: “Malati was very happy and benefited much from her residence at Viswa-Bharati as a student. The personal influence of Gurudev and his teachings, his patriotism and idealism, have influenced and guided Malati throughout her life.”

She had been fortunate enough to have been deeply influenced by both Tagore and Gandhi. It was the former at whose feet she learnt and acquired some rare values and principles of education, development, art and culture, which had been the guiding principles in her life; and it was the latter who had a magic spell on her and at whose instance she plunged herself in the freedom struggle. Malati came to Santiniketan in 1921, when she was sixteen, and lived there for a little more than six years. In those days Santiniketan was small and beautiful.

There were nine girls of her age living in the hostel called Notun Bari (new house) – Manjushree, Surekha (who later on became her sister-in-law), Eva, Satyabati, Latika, Saraju, Tapasi, Amita (mother of Professor Amartya Sen) and herself. They were attending classes in the open under the trees, learning embroidery, handicrafts, music, dancing, painting and gardening. Leonard Knight Elmhirst, an Englishman, was in charge of the Agricultural Institute at Surul in Sriniketan, and he used to encourage them in gardening.

Mr. Pearson, another Englishman, was also teaching them. It was from him that Malati got the inspiration to work for the tribals. Gurudev used to take classes on Balaka, when he was reading his poems from his book ‘Balaka’, and was explaining the same to them. Miss Stella Kramisch, who came to India at Gurudev’s invitation, taught them the principles of Indian Art and dancing. They were really happy in those days at Santiniketan.

During her stay at Santiniketan as a student, a young man from a well known family of Orissa, Nabakrushna Choudhuri, came there as a student. He came from Sabarmati Ashram at the instance of Gandhiji, to study at Santiniketan. There was also G. Ramachandran, B. Gopala Reddy, and Syed Mujtaba Ali. They are no more.

She got engaged to be married to Nabakrushna Choudhuri, and left Santiniketan in 1927. This was a turning point in her life. After her marriage, Orissa became her home and her area of activities. They settled in a small village named Anakhia, now in the Jagatsinghpur District of Orissa, where her husband started improved sugarcane cultivation. Apart from agriculture, establishing rapport with the surrounding villages was their main concern. In their concept and scheme of rural reconstruction, it is the people who were at the center of activities. Their development depended on their empowerment, which was again the result of education. They had started adult education work in the neighbouring villages.

Soon came the Salt Satyagraha, and they jumped at that. It was the greatest movement of mobilization and motivation, which were the dynamic components of adult education. During the freedom struggle they were activists using the principles of education and communication in creating a conducive environment for Satyagraha. Even as prisoners in the respective jails, they continued the educational activities like teaching fellow prisoners, organizing choral singing and disseminating Gandhiji’s teachings.

(House that Nabakrushna's father Gokulanand Choudhury built in Cuttack on the bank of Kathjodi river)

Malati Choudhury and Nabakrushna Choudhuri, in February 1933, organized the Utkal Congress Samajvadi Karmi Sangh, which later became the Orissa Provincial Branch of the All India Congress Socialist Party. After independence, Malati Choudhury got opportunities of translating her ideas into practice. As a member of the Constituent Assembly of India, and as the President of the Utkal Pradesh Congress Committee, she tried her best to emphasize the role of education and adult education in rural reconstruction.

When Nabakrushna Choudhuri became the Chief Minister of Orissa in 1951, she was assertive enough to focus the plight of the have-nots, particularly those belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Eventually she decided not to join politics, because Gandhiji had advised that all Congress activists need not join politics, but should work for and with the people with service as their goal.

(Chief minister Nabakrushna Choudhury with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru)

Gandhiji used to call her \"Tofanee\" She was Tagore's favourite \"Minu\" As a young student at Santiniketan, she was quite famous for her outgoing personality, taking active part in Gurudev’s dance dramas and music sessions, as well as initiating innocent mischiefs in the community. Proverbial courage, sheer dynamism and a strong zeal to fight for the rights of the oppressed and have-nots were the dominant features of her character. She was frank and outspoken, and was never afraid of calling a spade a spade.

In 1934, she had accompanied Gandhiji in his “padayatra” in Orissa. After a daylong walk, he was obviously too tired to visit a Harijan village which was in his itinerary. The villagers, who had waited long, were disappointed, but were prepared to forgive Gandhiji for the minor lapse. Malati Choudhury did not spare Gandhiji, and told him point blank, “Bapu, you have not done the right thing.” Gandhiji apologized, and cooled her down with his disarming smile.

Even before Independence, she had established the Bajiraut Chhatravas at Angul in Orissa in 1946, and the Utkal Navajeevan Mandal, also at Angul, in 1948. The Bajiraut Chhatravas had its genesis in the Prajamandal Movement ( the resistance movement organized and sustained by the people ) and its initial activities were geared towards providing residential facilities and educational opportuinities to the children of Freedom Fighters.

(Malatidevi with Mahatma Gandhi in Noakhali, East Bengal)

Over the passage of time, there was a societal demand on the Bajiraut Chhatravas to provide educational facilities to the children belonging to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes and under-privileged sections of society coming from all over Orissa. Established in the memory of the twelve-year old boy Bajiraut, who sacrificed his life by disallowing the British forces to cross the river Brahmani by boat, the Bajiraut Chhatravas has become an institution of national importance. The Utkal Navajeevan Mandal is a voluntary organization of repute, engaged in rural development and tribal welfare in the rural and tribal areas of Orissa.

The State Resource Centre for Adult Education, which was established by the Government of India, under the auspices of the Utkal Navajeevan Mandal, at Angul in 1978, had done pioneering work in Adult Education.

Honours and Awards came to Malati Choudhury in quick succession: National Award for Child Welfare (1987), Jamnalal Bajaj Award (1988), Utkal Seva Sammaan (1994), Tagore

Literacy Award (1995), Honour by the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly (1997), Honour by the State Social Welfare Advisory Board (1997), Honour by the Rajya Mahila Commission (1997), and last but not the least, the ‘Deshikottama (D.Litt. Honoris Causa) from her Alma Mater, Viswa-Bharati.

(Malatidevi's home in the campus of Bajiraut Chhatravas, Angul)

In 1988, she refused to receive the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Award from the hands of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, because, according to her, Rajiv Gandhi had not done anything to promote Gandhian values.

On receiving the Tagore Literacy Award given by the Indian Adult Education Association, she had said: “I feel doubly honoured to receive the Award, which is named after Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore, to commemorate his memorable achievements in bringing a synthesis among culture, music and aesthetics in evolving and practising his unique philosophy and principles of education. Like Rousseau, Gurudev did not want purposefulness, belonging to the adult mind, to be forced upon the children in school. He believed that once purposefulness was introduced, it brought torture to the child, as it went against the purpose of nature.

"According to Tagore, nature was the greatest of all teachers for the child. He had tremendous faith in the educational value of natural objects. Natural events like the beautiful sunrise and sunset, blossoming of flowers and singing of birds are the learning resources for children possessing the natural gift of learning things very easily."

"He had a great faith in the children’s natural way of learning. He did not insist on forced mental feeding as a result of which lessons become a form of torture. Gurudev considered artificial feeding of the mind to be of man’s most cruel and wasteful mistakes. According to him, the greatest possible gift for children was their own freedom to grow. Tagore also wanted the children to have another kind of freedom – the freedom of sympathy with all humanity, a freedom from all national and racial prejudices. Thus, his philosophy ofeducation is based on the ideal of the spiritual unity of all races.”

She had also said, “ Rabindranath was always following the ideal to realize, in and through education, the essential unity of man. The way in which he achieved that unity gave him a deep insight into the object of education and its problems.”

Malati Choudhury had organized the ‘Krusaka Andolana’ (Farmers Movement) as a part of the freedom struggle against the Zamindars, Landowners and Moneylenders, who were exploiting the poor. She had seen and experienced the untold sufferings of the people while walking through many villages in Orissa. She had also realized that women were victims of many superstitious beliefs, and they alone were to fight against the same for their own empowerment.

As a member of the Constituent Assembly of India, she used to feel restless, because she was not in tune with the wavelength of other members; and when Gandhiji’s famous Noakhali yatra began, she joined the same at the instance of Thakkarbappa. A dynamic person like her did not slow down her efforts after the Bajiraut Chhatravas, Utkal Navajeevan Mandal and the Postbasic School at Champatimunda, near Angul, were established. She had joined the Bhoodan Movement of Acharya Vinoba Bhave.

During the Emergency she raised her voice against the anti-people policy and oppressive measures adopted by the Government and was imprisoned. Malati Choudhury was a legendary figure. She had lived an eventful life of ninety-three years.

(Malatidevi with Naxalite leader Nagabhushan Patnaik whose death sentence she got commuted by President N Sanjeeva Reddy, who had served as office secretary of Orissa Congress when she was the state party president)

alice in fadderland

2009-11-09T08:40:00.000+05:30

nubile alice was wandering one sunday morning when she suddenly fell into a gorge. she fell, fell, fell and just fell and hit the bottom with a thud. she found herself confronting a rabbit at the bottom of the gorge. the rabbit had a familiar ring about him. she wondered who the rabbit reminded her of. after much brain wracking, she remembered that the rabbit had striking resemblance with the logo of the playboy magazine her fadder kept hidden behind the pot in the toilet.

alice didnt particularly like the fadder after she observed him looking at her in that peculiar fashion which made all girls suspect elderly men. however, she tolerated him because her school headmistress had drilled into all the girls the slogan - fadder can never be wrong, and must be loved.

a staunch loyalist of the headmistress that she was, alice decided to give da fadder a chance. may be, da fadder was a nice old man and all the tales about him were just rumour. so, she meekly followed the rabbit.

rabbit, playfully, lead alice to a corner where the fadder was seated on a chair with the sticker on it which said, 'moderator'. on reaching the place, alice was aghast seeing the fadder looking at her lasciviously. 'hi, sexy babe,' da fadder said. alice was speechless. 'how can the fadder be so outrageously obvious,' she asked herself.

alice caught hold of the rabbit's tail and pleaded with him to take him out of the gorge.

Teacher who became a watchman

2009-01-22T19:38:00.002+05:30

susheel pundit suddenly felt an urge to migrate and change his profession. similar to the spiderman story, susheel pundit was smitten by luvbug while on his daily morning ablutionary visit to the field on the outskirts of his village in the cowdung land. since he was carrying just one lota of water, he could not 'purify' the spot where the bug had bitten him.

the poison of the bug spread slowly upward in his body - from sri lanka to the foothill of himalaya. he felt a tingling effect in his head.

in keeping with the tradition ordained in the manu smriti, susheel had taken up teaching in his village school set up specially for the children of cowherds and shepherds.

the children all liked him so much that they made it their sport to tie up his pony tail to the rickety chair on which he sat cross-legged, making them learn by rote the basic principles of earth-shastra.

learning by rote was the only pedagogy he knew. making the students repeat one-liners like 'king is dead, long live the king', 'boss is always right', 'never question your teacher', 'report to the teacher of any suspicious activities', was his singular method of teaching. however ever since that bug bit him where it hurt the most, susheel pundit was not able to enjoy children's harmless pranks and had become extremely irritable.

even an innocuous 'good morning, punditji' on the blackboard scribbled by the back-bencher natthu dubey, was enough to make susheel pundit jump at the very first student who happened to be near him at that particular inauspicious moment.

the change in susheel pundit's behaviour had not gone unnoticed by the head masterni. susheel pundit had not given up his habitual ritualistic practice of paying obeisance to the masterni. and, yet, she noticed the change in him. the change was very subtle, which only she could notice as it was she who had given him his first and only job in the school, favouring him over the rest of the candidates.

susheel pundit was very fond of playing gulli dunda earlier. he would play this game, considered the most happening thing to do by the village damsels, on the sprawling mango orchard, every day after the school. he had stopped doing so last two weeks and switched over to playing ikkad dukkad with the highschool girls. since, no boy was around at this particular time the change in susheel pundit's habit did not become talk of the village.

however, the news was promptly conveyed to the masterni by kankuben punjabhai who, like the hariram nai of the film sholay fame, had become the official informer ever since she had failed in the eighth standard for the first time four years ago. the reason why the matter was promptly reported to masterni was that kanku punju had a glad eye on susheel pundit and didnt like the idea of his playing ikkad dukkad with the bright and smart school girls.

the masterni, though aware of kanku punju's motive, took serious note of susheel pundit's behaviorial change and called him in her chamber for a one-to-one discussion.

"SP are you aware what you have been doing of late?"

"what, your excellency?"

"you have stopped playing gulli danda and have switched over to ikkad dukkad. don't you pretend that i am cooking up a story," the masterni said fixing her gaze on susheel pundit. the masterni had mastered the art and craft of interrogation. her moon-shaped 'third eye' achieved what a spiral did for a hypnotist.

susheel pundit soon started singing like a canary.

"madam, please pardon me. i cant reveal where, how, and who bit me while i was offering my morning prayers. but ever since, i find it painful to teach the children. can you not make me the school watchman, please madam."

"alright. but, make sure you give me an intelligence report every morning and evening on the law and order situation in the campus," the masterni thundered.

"goes without saying, madam. you will get a report from me even on a holiday," said susheel pundit, his smile spread from ear to ear.

susheel gladly accepted the demotion and the accompanying salary cut to merrily blow the whistle on anyone he suspected of flouting the school rules.

epilogue: the children are missing their punditji whose pony tail they used to tie up with the rickety chair.

Jigetty Jig

2008-07-13T23:54:00.002+05:30

All the boys and girls were tired of moving their legs and shaking their hind part in this mundane world.

"Why do we work so hard and to what end?" asked lady Videbottom.

"To earn our living, madam," squeaked Timothy Tomatowala.

"Shut up you imbecile" snubbed the lady, "Is that why your dumb parents have paid a fortune to send you to this unrecognized Ivy League B-school?"

"No madam. Then, I guess they sent us here to ensure that we learn how to jig. Shake, shake, move, move. Rock, rock, jump, jump," butted in Bigbelly Bajpaii.

"Smart boii," said the lady with a smile of a tom cat, smacking her lips only to hurriedly paint her lips with a crimson red lipstick.

"Come on boys and girls, let's all do something exciting. Let's form a community, a community of jiggers and jumpers," the lady proclaimed, pulling her turtle shell spectacles over her head, a practice she had copied from her school headmistress she looked upon during her fifth standard while sitting on the back bench.

"Brilliant madam, really super idea. No wonder, the director is so fond of you," chimed Spoony Sharma.

The lady's eyes lit up like the headlights of a 10-ton truck on the Agra-Jullundar highway.

She ordered the boys and girls to form a circle on the campus lawn and made them count their number. "Now all the odd numbers step forward and the even numbers stay with me," commanded the lady.

The odd numbered boys and girls were told to run to the canteen and fetch a cup of coffee each, while the even numbered ones were asked to fetch tea.

Drill and discipline were her mantra to sensitize and sanitize the students and prepare them for the rat race they were supposed to join after the graduation.

the drill done, the madam asked the august gathering to wait for her while she went to her workstation to catch up with the latest gossip doing the rounds in the cyberspace.

The madam having left, the boy's surreptiously took out the pint of beer they had hidden in the hip pockets, while the girls busied themselves applying mascara and lipstick.

"Wish the madam takes such breaks every 15 minutes to allow us to replenish our stock of beer from the canteen boy," muttered Moni Motwani. The canteen boy ran a spiritual business under the banner of 'Baba Bholenath' to earn some extra bucks.

"There comes the madam," warned Champak Chowky and the boys hurriedly disposed off the empty cans behind the hedge that lined the campus. The girls assumed their position looking all glum faced, seriousness writ large on their face.

"Good boiis and gals. here we go. Remember what I had told you in the class today? Practice your jigs and jumps to perfection. Only a good jig and a good jump will make you beat the world in the rat race," said the lady in a sombre voice, marking her speech with a baritone cough she had acquired with much practice.

These were parting words before she got into her Toyota Corolla car. She was in a hurry to to reach on time for her jiggy party at the Gymkhana Club.

Back to Music

2008-06-09T12:59:00.002+05:30

Homage and Heritage -3

2008-04-02T12:53:00.002+05:30

Overwhelmed and humiliated, the anguished Father, bent under the infirmities of age, runs once more to their succour, even like the hen covering her brood under her wings against death. He takes his abode among the sorrowing. He faces the Fiery Ordeal again and again and works miracles. He repeats to them his lasting message: "Not through hatred and ill-will ye shall seek to avenge yourselves. 'Vengeance is mine' sayeth the Lord. Grieve not; forsake your fear; work and strive for goodwill and unity. For know ye who are afflicted, that Love exalteth, Love alone triumphs."

And he gathered them around him evening after evening as was his wont, and prayed with them for the purification of their hearts, beseeching them and admonishing them and instructing them with his words of wisdom and cheer. They gathered in the ancient city under whose precincts mighty empires lay in dust and in whose neighbourhood his Great Predecessor taught Eternal Wisdom to Man from His Chariot on the battlefield.

But so that the Scriptures may be fulfilled, and that the world's Martyrdom may attain its perfection, behold! there comes on the scene, once more, the infamous Ashvathama - the perverse Assassin of Ages, the vile Brahmarakshasa with the eternal wound on his mangled head and condemned to everlasting life of a roving ghost, - the embodiment of the accumulated evil of his race. He comes unrepentant and unrelenting, aye, even with a gusto within, for his unholy design, and accomplishes his foul deed of calculated cold murder before the eyes of a staggered multitude, to the everlasting shame and humiliation of his nation.

To Thee, Father of our Nation! we pay our grateful reverent homage. We salute Thee. We rejoice in the midst of our tears and our shame. We rejoice rather than sorrow and are grateful that the mericful Providence spared Thee to us to accomplish our deliverance, however shameful and agonizing the aftermath. We glory in Thy having walked our earth. For Thou hast given to mankind new values and compelled obeisance from a recalcitrant world by challenging it once again to measure its own stature against them. Thou art indeed in the line of Thy recurring Predecessors - the Great Saviours of mankind. Thou didst come to fulfil the Scriptures and to fulfil the pledge made in the Song Celestial:

"For the protection of the Good, for the descruction of the Wicked, and for the firm establishment of righteousness on Earth, I am born again and again."

Even so through ages hast Thou lived and laboured again and again. All Thy life didst Thou wear Thy Crown of Thorns and dist bear Thy Cross, finding life's final fulfilment in surrendering it as a ransom for our own sins and shortcomings. Greater love, indeed, hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for goodwill among his fellowmen.

We salute Thee, Father of our Nation! None that hath received Thy Light shall walk in darkness.

(End)

Swami Anand

Homage and Heritage - 2

2008-04-02T11:49:00.003+05:30

They came from distant lands and from across the seven seas. They came from all parts of the earth. And he taught them all and made them good men and women. Even like one of his great predecessors, - The Guru Gobind - he would make the sparrow hunt down the hawk, but with a different weapon. With patient labours of a lifetime extending over half a century and spread over the entire land, he worked on his people to forge his weapon and to temper it.

Out of dross he made precious metal; out of earth-clods he made material to challenge and defy the might of an insolent empire; to whose people he bore the greatest friendship, and yet whose end he ordained, even as Krishna had ordained the end of the arrogant Jadavas. He called upon the foreigner to quit the land which he had bled white and in which he had worked much inequity.

And behold! For the first time in human history the world witnessed an epic struggle of a whole nation locked for three decades in non-violent combat with the alien rulers so that her chains should break. A saga of peaceful peasantries challenging the might of established authority, armed to the teeth, by refusing to submit to its unjust levies, inviting upon themselves untold sufferings and living under conditions of a siege till the privations turn them and their cattle white; of millions throughout the length and breadth of the country defying salt laws in the face of lathis, tear-gas, horse-hoofs; women refusing to part with their pinch of salt till their bones dislodge; men tying their own hands with iron wires to prevent slackening of their grip on raided salt; of gallant men who would be counted among the very peak of any army, offering to be beaten or pounded to death, by official myrmidons, without so much as raising their eyelids in protest; of statesmen, savants, tribunes of their own people - objects of world adoration, leaders of men and of an age, who would adorn the halls of any international assembly -- accepting cheerfully to surrender long indefinite years of their great lives to be wasted in cold, dark, solitary dungeons on a par with felons; of the nation's Bards pouring forth the agony of an age before sobbing magistrates in crowded court-rooms; of apostles who walked the land bare-foot, broadcasting the New Gospel carrying neither purse nor shoes nor yet staves, pleading guilty against their accusers and urging the courts to inflict on them maximum penalties; of wandering monks offering to starve themselves to death in protest against outraged whomanhood through long agonizing fasts without a trace of ill-will towards the guilty; of frail little men offering to lay down their lives denying themselves in their prison cells all food and water till death do deliver them, and in the meanwhile coasxing their captors to administer 'without blame' 'some suitable poison' when their sufferings did annoy them; of street urchins proudly mounting the gallows after being court-martialled for bold pranks; of village peasants naively facing military reprisals, with no better armour than plywood planks hung in front of their chests; of whole masses of unarmed, undrilled men and women flinging themselves in blind abandon against bayonets, bullets, guns and bombs.

Righteousness the world over wailed in oblivion. Untruth was in excelsis. Naked Fascism masquerading in the garb of aggrieved innocence stalked the land. It maligned virtue with impunity. Truth was lynched. The stars in high heavens wept over the inequities and the vileness of man.

And against it all, in his indiganation, the Father of the Nation lay crouched and twisted on his Bed of Fire for the tenth time, challenging his accusers from behind the prison. And his protest rang through the world pentrating the Iron Curtain. His Great Disciple, who was to him more than his own son, and 'with whom my Father is well pleased', lay in a handful of ashes at the prison corner. And the gentle Mother of the Nation was to meet her millions no more. Outside the prison raged Revolution. The Empire shook, and his mighty accusers trembled. They fell flat. Their chagrin knew no bounds.

And behold! The Titan collapsed under the weight of his own inequities.

And he quitted; but not without upholding the disruptionist who clamoured for rending his own Mother's garments. Freedom came, but Her face was ghastly. Brother flew at the throat of brother, and women wept. Millions were uprooted and flung on the roadside. Men lost all their sense and shame, and they burned and killed and perpetrated unmentionable abominations. Cities swelled with fleeing men and wailing women. They cursed and called aloud for retribution.

(More to follow)

Homage and Heritage: Swami Anand

2008-04-02T10:47:00.003+05:30

Two thousand years ago the Prince of Peace atoned for the sins of his fellow-men on earth by mounting the Cross with words of forgiveness and love for his persecutors. And though man felt ashamed and humiliated he did not mend his ways.

The primitive man hunted for food; in the middle ages he killed for glory. The supermen of our age stalked the globe with a technique of slaughter and enslavement in the wake of greed and exploitation. The earth was rent with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Humanity lay prostrate under the agony of unnamable outrages.

In the midst of all this clash and conflict came, once more, a Wise Man from the East. Like the Good Shepherd he shouldered the ailing sheep, the insulted indentured Indian, toiling far away from home, and comforted him and his tribe. With words soothing and life-giving, he sayeth unto them: "Come ye that grieve and are heavily laden. I bring to you good tidings, --the Gospel of Resistence."

And he shepherded his flock and ministered unto them in their afflictions with tenderness and affection. He taught the worm to turn. He taught little mothers to stand upright and resist racial arrogance and insult, marching with babes in their arms and courting prisons.

He sat among overbearing foreigners and pleaded his people's cause, disarming them with his courtesy and his integrity. He evoked their sympathy with his gentle sufferings and earned a great renown.

And behold, he returns homeward to his own people and concludes with them, once more, a new Covenant: "It has been said by those of old: 'Ye resist not evil', or 'resist evil with evil'. But I say unto you, resist evil within and without you, with the whole might of your soul; resist it with Non-violence, resist it with Truth, resist it without malice. Repent ye, and do penance for your sins, collective as well as individual. Eschew all violence, eschew all hatred, shed all fear and forge yourselves into finest weapnos of resistence. You are the salt of the earth. Ye are to establish once more, by testifying to it in and with your lives in this holy land of synthesis, the supremacy of soul over matter; of God over Mammon; of service over self-interest. And ye are to carry the Gospel of this non-violent resistance to the farthest ends of the earth. In this redeeming task, he who shall lose his life shall find it, and he who shall seek to save his life shall lose it."

And he sayeth unto them again:

"Despise no man; but believe in his innate goodness. Harbour no ill-will against him; only resist the evil that has seized him. Resist and suffer cheerfully with no thought of returning evil for evil. Shun all fear. Be brave and wield the weapon of Truth and non-violence, which is Love abounding. They are but the obverse and reverse of the same coin. To me there is no God other than this. It is my sole weapon and my refuge. And know ye, that it is not the weapon of the weak. It is for the bravest. Learn ye, therefore, to wield it against all your ills. It shall sustain you against the mightiest. For it is forged on the anvil of Love that exalteth and that abideth in God."

And behold! Great multitudes followed him.

And he covered the entire land with his journeys, plying his wheel, and with its thread linked men with men, - whole masses of them.

The toilers came from their fields and spinners from their hovels; fishermen left their nets, tradesmen their counters. Rich men, encumbered with large possessions, came too, in search of solace, and he lightened their burdens. Women came resurrected and awakened to the true dignity of their state. The untouchables came with their limbs withered and their souls crushed under the weight of age-old inequities. And he ministered unto them with all the passion of his soul and made them whole. He made them God's Chosen. Came also the publicans, the hated ones -- servants of Government -- who served the alien rulers and worked against their own country for a mess of pottage. And he called upon them to repent and turned many into humble servants of the dumb millions. Lepers came and he built them shelters and himself washed their wounds. Came also the pharisees, the learned ones, negotiators and peace-mongers. And he suffered them all and treated them with unfailing patience and tenderness.

(This is the first part of an unpublished manuscript of the writings of Swami Anand, a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi)

Ram and Rahim

2007-11-25T10:25:00.000+05:30

When in 1906, young barrister Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi launched his satyagraha in South Africa against the discriminatory treatment being meted out to people of Indian origin, his chief lieutenants included Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Dalits and Christians. Among his colleagues were also Chines, British and Germans. Indeed Gandhi was a Vishwamanav (global citizen) whose quest for truth could not be constricted by the consideration of caste, creed or colour.

When he set up the Satyagraha Ashram on the bank of the Sarbarmati river in Ahmedabad a decade later, Gandhiji nominated Imam Abdul Kadir Bawazeer, a Muslim priest who had courted jail in 1910 as a Satyagrahi in South Africa, as the vice-chairman of the ashram's managing committee. Bawazeer succeeded Gandhiji's secretary Mahadev Desai as the chairman of the ashram after the latter was arrested during the Salt Satyagraha in 1930. And, when Gandhiji was arrested, he nominated 76-year-old Justice Abbas Tayyabji to lead the Salt Satyagraha.

Gandhiji's Satyagraha ashram was a global village. Its inmates included Hindus, Jains, Muslims, Parsis and Christians. Even Miraben, the youngest daughter of an admiral of the British Royal Navy, was an ashram inmate, such broad was Gandhiji's concept of universal brotherhood.

When in 2002, a group of concerned citizens gathered at the satyagraha ashram to discuss ways to promote communal harmony, it was attacked by a mob crying 'Jai Shri Ram'. A few days back, the mob that had destroyed the mausoleum of Vali Deccani, a.k.a Vali Gujarati, the great poet credited with founding the composition of shaayari, was also shouting the same very war cry of 'Jai Shri Ram'.

Gandhiji had popularized the singing of the hymn:
"Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, Pateet Paavan Sita Ram
Eeshwar, Allah Tere Naam, Sabko Sanmati De Bhagwan"

The Muslim, Christian and Parsi inmates of the satyagraha ashram sang the hymn with equal devotion as it was a prayer to one God who was known by different names and whose blessings the hymn sought so that good sense prevailed among all human beings.

But since December 6, 1992, when fanatic Hindu mobs demolished the Babri mosque at Ayodhya as an act of revenge against the 15th Century Moghul emperor, Babar, the chant of 'Jai Shri Ram' has assumed violent connotation, striking terror among the non-Hindus, specially Muslims whom the Hindu fanatics chided as 'Babar ki Aulad' (Descendants of the Moghul emperor).

Communal Trap

2007-11-25T09:01:00.000+05:30

A cornered cat pounces at the throat of the one who has cornered it. Should the Muslims act likewise? Some of them did. The serial bomb blast in Mumbai was in retaliation to the demolition of the Babri mosque. So were several other acts of terrorism. But an act6 of terrorism triggers off state terrorism of greater maginitude. Besides, terrorism alienates the common people from a terrorist outfit.

An act of terrorism by members of the minority community helps reinforce the propaganda by Fascist forces that Muslims are anti-social elements who need to be dealt with an iron hand. It was because of the attack on the Akshardham temple complex in Gandhinagar and the assassinatioin of former home and revenue minister Haren Pandya that the police could terrorize the Muslims by subjecting a large number of youths to torture and then putting them behind bars under the provisions of the draconian POTA.

Violence breeds greater violence. Similarly, communalism of the majority community thrives on communalism of the minority community. Some religious and political leaders seek to encourage and strengthen orthodoxy among the Muslims on the plea that preserving a distinct identity is the only way to survive the onslaught by forces that seek to wipe out Islam. But by doing so, they add fuel to the fire of communalism on which Fascist forces thrive.

Another tendency seen among a few Muslim leaders is to accept the supremacy of the majority community and be rewarded with a share in power. Such Muslim leaders, who accept positions in the government or in the ruling party, play a second fiddle to the top leadership and come in handy for the Fascist regimes to tom-tom their 'secular' credentials. As happens with any fifth columnist, they become a subject of abject contempt among their own community even as their loyalty remains suspect in the eyes of the majority community.

A vast majority of Muslims are poor and illiterate, making them vulnerable to the machinations of politicians and the clergy. Politicians, irrespective of their party affiliations, view Muslims as a conglomerate of various monolithic, closely-knit clans each controlled by clerics and/or community leaders. In times of elections, politicians seek the support of these clerics and community leaders, who act as power-brokers.

Politicians, clerics and community leaders have shown little interest in the welfare and uplift of the common Muslims. On the contrary, they seem to have a vested-interest in keeping the masses illiterate and their attention diverted from such burning issues as education, poverty, unemployment, social and economic justice. The same holds true for the Hindutva forces too.

Karl Marx had described religion as the opiate of masses. The followers of Savarkar, Godse and Modi are proving Marx right in Gandhi's Gujarat.

Hate Campaign

2007-11-24T09:44:00.000+05:30

Though there appears to be a surface calm in Gujarat, the Modi government and the Sangh Parivar continue to target the Muslims. The state government is out to subverting the process of justice to ensure that no one involved in the 2002 carnage is punished. The Best Bakery case in a glaring example of this. In the Best Bakery case, the session's court has acquitted all the 21 accused of killing 14 hapless people, including women and children, after the key witnesses were coerced by the local BJP MLA and his municipal councilor brother into retracting their statement. Similar has been the fate of most of the cases of heinous crimes in which BJP, VHP and RSS activists are the accused.

While those who had committed murder, rape, loot and arson are roaming fearlessly, the police is hunting down Muslim youths, foisting trumped up charges against them and arresting them under the draconian Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA). In most of the POTA cases, the charge leveled against the detained person is the same that he had been recruited by Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, after the Godhra carnage, taken to Pakistan, trained there in terror tactics and brought back to Gujarat to attack Hindu places of worship and kill leaders of the BJP and VHP.

In times of communial violence in Gujarat, the language press sheds its yellow and dons deep saffron. The Gujarati press has proved time and again that pen is mightier than a trishul (trident). With scant regard for journalistic ethics, the Gujarati press has been adding fuel to the fire by whipping up communal passions.

The Muslims in Gujarat are a hounded lot, condemned by the ruling party politicians (BJP and its VHP-RSS allies), a partisan police force and civil administration and a belligerent press. If this is not Fascism, what is it?

Saffron Surge

2007-11-22T16:56:00.000+05:30

But it was chiefly because of some retrogressive action of the Congress government like the decision to nullify the Supreme Court's judgment on the Shah Bano case through an ordinance and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's move to throw open the Babri mosque for the devotees of Lord Ram, that gave a shot in the arm to communal elements among both the Hindus and Muslims.

It was Prime Minister V P Singh's decision to implement the recommendation of the Mandal commission on socially and economically backward classes that hastened the BJP to take up the issue of Ramjanmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya, lest the coming together of all the depressed classes - harijans, advisasis, other backward classes (OBCs) becomes a formidable obstacle to the Sangh Parivar's dream of turning India into a Hindurashtra.

The Sangh Parivar systematically went about recruiting and mobilizing harijans, adivasis and members of other backward classes for the Ramajanmabhoomi campaign. Through the campaign, the Sangh Parivar managed to 'sanskritize' and bring under the fold of Hindutva members of those communities who had been suffering the humiliation of untouchability for centuries. When the bricks meant for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya were consecrated in a Dalit colony or a slum, those who participated in the ceremony felt equal to the caste Hindus.

Simultaneously, the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign portrayed the Muslims as 'enemies' of the country who had no place in the Hindurashtra. The Indian Constitution had rejected the two-nation theory by adopting secularism. Hence, what could not be achieved through constitutional means, the Sangh Parivar sought to achieve through unconstitutional and extra-parliamentary means by driving a communal wedge in the Indian society.

Polarization of society on communal lines has vastly benefited the BJP as is evident from the increasing strength of its members in both the Parliament and the various state assemblies. The communal carnage, which triggered off the ghastly memories of Nazi concentration camps, that shattered Gujarat between February and April 2002, was translated into a mandate for chief minister Narendra Modi to rule the state for yet another five years.

The Gujarat assembly election results porten a serious threat to the secular India because the BJP and its extra-parliamentary allies, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the RSS, have made it amply clear that they will be trying out the 'Gujarat Experiment' in the elections to the assemblies of six states later this year as also in the parliamentary general elections the next year.

Hey Ram

2007-11-21T16:52:00.000+05:30

Savarkar had seeded the idea of partition by propounding the theory of 'Hindurashtra' in the 1920s, much before Mohammed Ali Jinnha came up with his two-nation theory. When the country was partitioned in 1947 and India decided to remain a secular state, the followers of Savarkar were angered that India had not become a 'Hindurashtra'. So, one of them, Nathuram Godse, killed Mahatma Gandhi who was a living symbol of universal brotherhood and secular India.

The Muslims who had opted for Pakistan were far less in number than those who had chosen to stay back in India. It was their conscious decision to opt for the citizenship of a secular and democratic nation. But for the followers of Savarkar's ideology, a secular and democratic India was neither palatable nor acceptable. They had no reasons to celebrate either the Independence Day or the Republic Day.

When the Union government banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu Mahasabha after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, there was no sympathy for the Hindutva forces. The dogmatic Hindutva was stoutly rejected by the country's diverse religious, linguistic and ethnic people, who have had coexisted peacefully for centuries, enriching their respective cultural heritage through inter-mingling and sharing.

The Hindutva forces, represented in the political arenda by the erstwhile Jan Sangh (renamed later as the Bharatiya Janata Party), were rebuffed by the Indian electorate in all the successive elections to the Parliament and various state legislative assemblies but for the elections held in 1977.

The 1977 general elections proved a turning point in the post-independence political history of India. The elections were held under the shadow of a dictatorial rule. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, indicted by a court for indulging in corruption during her election and facing a country-wide protest movement led by youths, had declared a state of emergency and suspended all the fundamental rights of the citizens, gagging the press, arresting her opponents and unleashing a reign of terror.

The Indian voters expressed their anger against the dictatorial rule through the ballot papers, routing the Congress party and electing to power the Janata Party, a newly formed coalition of opposition parties. Mainly because they had joined the Janata coalition that most of the Jan Sangh leaders got elected to the Parliament.

It was a negative vote against the dictatorial rule of Mrs. Indira Gandhi and not a positive vote for the Hindutva ideology that helped the Jan Sangh gain political legitimacy in the country. When the Janata government fell due to bickering among the constituentsand fresh elections were held, people voted Mrs. Gandhi and her Congress party back to power. The biggest loser was the Jan Sangh that had renamed itself as Bharatiya Janata Party. Only two BJP candidates managed to win their seats in the Lok Sabha.

From the subsequent events and developments, it would become clear that the BJP gained more political mileage from the follies of the Congress than from the popularity of the Hindutva ideology. It was because of fragmentation of opposition votes due to the presence of a large number of political parties in the election fray that the Congress was managing to win a majority in the Parliament and in state assemblies. Else, the popularity of the Congress party was fast depleting on account of corruption in high places, rising inflation, the culture of sycophancy and perpetuation of one family rule - that of Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

Partitioning Hearts - Part II

2007-11-21T13:58:00.000+05:30

How could the armed mobs, out on the roads to retaliate the killings of VHP activists, track down Muslim business establishments throughout the state in a matter of hours?

The VHP leader Pravin Togadia's disclosure in an interview he had given me for the Calcutta daily, The Telegraph, on January 10, 1992, flashed through my mind. Togadia had boasted that the VHP had undertaken a census and land record survey to take stock of the real estate ownership pattern among Hindus and Muslims in over 18,000 villages, towns and cities of the state.

The survey, he said, would provide the VHP leadership with the necessary data that would help formulate short-term and long-term strategies for 'protecting' the interests of the Hindu community in 'sensitive' areas.

The survey, he said, would help the VHP draw up a 'boundary' line in all the major towns and cities beyond which the Muslims would not be allowed to expand. "We will establish border check posts manned by Bajrang Dal volunteers to instill a sense of security among the Hindus," he had disclosed in the interview.

The large-scale rioting that occurred in the run up to the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 and thereafter witnessed how property owned by the Muslims were mde target by arsonists and plundering mobs.

By drawing up a boundary line, the VHP is trying to create a 'Hindustan' and a 'Pakistan' in almost all the villages and towns of Gujarat, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi who lived and died for love, peace and non-violence.

The VHP has put up signboards at the entry points of all major towns in the state welcoming visitors to 'Hindurashtra's such and such town.' The unstated message in these signboards is louder: The country belongs only to the Hindus; all others have place in it.

(Part I)

A Leaf from Mein Kampf - Part I

2007-11-20T23:15:00.000+05:30

One had only read about Fascism and Nazism in books of history and fiction. But had never experienced living under a Fascist state. One had lived under the constant fear of arrest and police torture during the 19 months of the Emergency. But what the Muslims in Gujarat experienced in 2002 must have been much more dreadful than that.

There were massacres of Muslims, gang rapes of Muslim women and looting and arson of shops and establishments belonging to them.

Armed mobs, led by known Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers, were on a killing spree, targeting Muslims to avenge the burning alive of over 50 VHP volunteers returning from Ayodhya by train on February 27 near the Godhra railway station.

Instead of providing protection to the Muslims, the police aided and abetted the killer mobs. Worse, the police refused to file First Information Reports in several cases and where it became unavoidable to register a case, the FIRs were so doctored as to help the killers, rapists, arsonists and looters escape unpunished.

Gujarat had become unsafe for Muslims. Hundreds of Muslims fled their homeland, Gujarat, after the mayhem. Many enterprising, forward-looking, well-to-do Muslims, like the members of the Chelia clan from north Gujarat, who owned over 400 restaurants, most of them serving only vegetarian food and bearing pronouncedly Hindu names, sold their establishments to move to Hyderabad and Bangalore.

These popular restaurants, other shops and business establishments doing flourishing business in Ahmedabad and elsewhere in central and north Gujarat were singled out, plundered and then set on fire by the Hindu mobs in the aftermath of the Godhra carnage.

(Introduction)

When It Rained Blood - Introduction

2007-11-20T22:57:00.000+05:30

When I returned to Gujarat after eight years, in June 2002, the muddy water of the Sabarmati River had already turned bloody. The sword of the Saffron Brigade had drawn enough blood from Muslim men, women and children to redden the azure blue water of the Narmada that had been fed into the Sabarmati.

The Sangh Parivar, comprising the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had exploded the saffron bomb successfully in Gujarat to prove before the world that Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence, can be defeated in his own home land.

The Sangh Parivar had been preparing to wage a war against the humanity since 1920 when its ideologue Savarkar propounded the theory of 'Hindurashtra' (Hindu nation). When in 1947, their dream to convert India into a Hindurashtra failed, the Sangh Parivar contracted Nathuram Godse to kill Gandhi, who symbolized universal brotherhood.

The next assault on secular India was made on December 6,1992 when a fifteenth century mosque was razed to the ground by a fanatic mob, a section of which had been trained in demolition techniques in a camp in Gujarat.

Having covered Gujarat as a journalist for over two decades, I was a witness to the Sangh Parivar's Fascist methods and its devastating effects on the life and psyche of the people. I will try here to trace the roots of fascism that culminated in the genocide of 2002.

ऐसे बिकते हैं केसरिया पेडे

2006-09-09T15:06:00.000+05:30

(यह लेख १९९९ में उस समय लिखा गया था जब पोप की भारत यात्रा पर संघ परिवार ने देश भर में भारी उहापोह मचाई थी)

नागपुर स्थित संघ मुख्यालय के फोन की घंटी सुबह तीन बजे बज उठी. गुरूजी ने झुंझलाकर फोन उठाया और भर्राई आवाज में गुर्राए, "कौन बदतमीज है?"

"क्षमा प्रार्थी हूं गुरुजी. मैं दिल्ली से गोविंद बोल रहा हूं. मामला इतना संगीन है कि इतनी देर रात को आपको कष्ट दे रहा हूं," सामने से घिघियाता हुआ जवाब मिला.

"जल्दी बको, इतना सुंदर सपना देख रहा था, सारा गुड गोबर कर दिया. कहे देता हूं कि यदि फालतू बात के लिए तुमने फोन किया है तो तुम्हें वापस नागालैंड भेज दूंगा. दिल्ली की बहुत हवा खा ली तुमने," गुरुजी गुर्राए.

"गुरुजी, आप तो मुझे तब से जानते हैं जब मुझे ठीक से निक्कर पहनना भी नहीं आता था. मुझे पागल कुत्ते ने नहीं काटा जो बेवजह आपकी नींद खराब करने की हिमाकत करूं. बात यह है कि हमारे जासूसों ने खबर दी है कि वेटिकन के धर्मगुरू ने भारत आने की टिकट कटा ली है. हमारी गीदड भभकियों का उन पर कोई असर नहीं हुआ. अब यदि यह फिरंगी गुरु यहां आता है तो अपनी दुकानदारी का क्या होगा?" गोविंद गिडगिडाते हुए बोला.

"अरे मूरख, तुम्हें भाजपा में क्या भेज दिया, तुम्हारी अकल घास चरने चली गई. शाखा में दी गई शिक्षा भूल गए? हमारी दुकानदारी की सबसे बडी खूबी यही है कि वह प्रतियोगी के बिना नहीं चलती. हमारा केसरिया पेडा तभी बिकेगा जब भोले-भाले ग्राहकों को हम यह बताएंगे कि पडोस के हलवाई की हरी बर्फ़ी में गाय की चर्बी मिली है और इटालियन पिज्जा में सूअर का गोश्त," गुरुजी ने जम्हाई लेते हुए कहा.

"लेकिन गुरुजी, अपने यहां करोडों ऐसे लोग हैं जो सब्जियां महंगी होने के कारण हमारी तरह शुद्ध शाकाहारी नहीं बन पाए हैं. वे तो इन बातों से भुलावे में नहीं आने वाले," गोविंद झिझकते हुए बोला.
'रहोगे तुम निपट मूरख ही. सयाने होते तो अब तक नागपुर मुख्यालय में प्रबंध संघ चालक बन गए होते और मेरी तरह आराम से शुद्ध गाय के शुद्ध दूध से बने पेडे खाते. देश भर के करोडों निक्कर धारियों से गुरु-दक्षिणा वसूल करते, सो अलग," गुरुजी ने गोविंद को फटकार लगाई.

"क्षमा करें प्रभो. दिल्ली में प्रतिदिन प्रेस कोन्फ़्रेन्स संबोधित करने के कारण मेरी मति मारी गई है. मेरी जड हो चुकी बुद्धि में आपकी बात ठीक से नहीं घुस पा रही है. केसरिया पेडे की बिक्री से हरी बर्फ़ी और इटालियन पिज्ज का क्या लेना-देना? महेरबानी कर मुझ गंवार को थोडा ग्यान दें," गोविंद लज्जित होने की मुद्रा में बोला.

"तो सुनो और मैं जो कहता हूं उसे अपनी सिंगापुर से स्मगल की हुई डिजिटल डायरी में नोट कर लो. लगता है तुम्हें अब स्वर्गीय श्री गुरु गोलमालकरजी महाराज के १००१ ब्रह्मवाक्यों की कम्पैक्ट डिस्क देनी ही पडेगी ताकि आगे अपने धंधे के मूलभूत सिद्धांतो को तो न ही भूलो," गुरुजी ने गोविंद को फिर एक बार फटकार लगाई.

"गुरुजी, एक मिनट, मैं फोन से लगा टेप रेकार्डर ओन कर लूं. हां, अब ठीक है, आप के हर सूत्र वाक्यों को मैं रेकार्ड कर रहा हूं ताकि इसे हर रोज सुबह, ध्वज वंदन के समय सुन सकूं," गोविंद ने विनीत स्वर में कहा.

गुरुजी ने खंखार कर गला साफ़ किया, पास पडे तांबे के लोटे में रखा केसर-मिश्रित दूध का एक घूंट भरा, और बोलने लगे:

"हम जिस केसरिया पेडे की लोगों में आदत लगाना चाहते हैं उसकी खासियत यह है कि उसे लोग तभी मजबूरी में खाते हैं जब उनमें दूसरे व्यंजनों के प्रति भय पैदा किया जाए. हरी बर्फ़ी और इटालियन पिज्जा बेचने वाले भी यही करते हैं. सबकी दुकानदारी एक-दूसरे के माल के प्रति लोगों में आशंका उत्पन्न करने से ही चलती है. यदि बाजार में हरी बर्फ़ी और इटालियन पिज्जा न हों, तो केसरिया पेडा कोई नहीं खरीदेगा."

"केसरिया पेडे ही क्या, सभी रंगों की मिठाइयों की मार्केटिंग की रणनीति का यह एक मात्र शास्वत मंत्र है. अब तुम वह टेप रिकार्डर बंद कर दो तो तुम्हें अति गोपनीय बात बताता हूं जिसे सिर्फ़ देश के सर्वोच्च पद पर विराजमान पंडितजी एवं खूफ़िया विभाग का संचालन करने वाले मालपानीजी ही जानते हैं," गुरुजी ने फोन के माउथपीस को धोती में लपेट कर फुसफुसाते हुए कहा.

जब वे इस बात से आश्वस्त हो गए कि गोविंद ने टेप रेकार्डर बंद कर दिया है तो गुरुजी बोले, "वेटिकन के धर्मगुरु को यहां आने का निमंत्रण मैंने ही दिया था. ताकि वे आएं और इटालियन पिज्जा की खूब जोर-शोर से मार्केटिंग करें. हमारी वानर सेना तो तैयार ही बैठी है कि कब पिज्जा का कैम्पेन शुरु हो कि उसके खिलाफ़ प्रचार अभियान प्रारंभ करें. वैसे भी त्योहारों का मौसम चल रहा है. अपने केसरिया पेडे होट केक की तरह बिक जाएंगे."

जब आम ने सेब का काम किया

2006-09-08T16:50:00.000+05:30

मैंने कभी सेब नहीं खाया था, फिर भी मुझे लडके-लडकी वाला प्यार हो गया.
हमारे गांव में सेब मिलता ही नहीं था. हां, केला, पपीता, कटहल, अमरूद, बेर, चीकू, इमली प्रचूर मात्रा में फलते-मिलते थे.
मुझे जहां तक याद है, जिस दिन मुझे लडके-लडकी वाला प्यार पहली-पहली बार हुआ, उस दिन मैंने पडोसी के बगीचे से आम चुरा कर खाए थे और इस कारण शाम को मां से चार-पांच थप्पड भी खाए थे.
मैंने उस लडकी को भी चुराए हुए आमों में से एक यह कह कर दिया था कि यदि वह मेरे पास वाली सीट पर बैठे तो मैं उसे रोज आम दिया करुंगा.
वह खिल-खिल कर हंस दी और अपने दांतों बीच आम फंसा कर भाग खडी हुई. बस, उसी दिन मुझे मेरा पहला-पहला प्यार मिला. कच्चे आम की तरह कुछ खट्टा, कुछ मीठा.
बरसों बाद जब मैंने आदम और हौआ की कहानी पढी तब जा कर पता चला कि सेब एक वर्जित फल है, जिसे खाना पाप है, क्योंकि इसे खाने से लडका-लडकी अपनी मासूमियत खो देते हैं और उन्हें प्यार हो जाता है.
आदम और हौआ के जमाने में पडोसियों के बगीचे में शायद सेब ही फलते हों, आम नहीं. तर्कशास्त्र का विद्यार्थी होने के कारण मैंने मान लिया कि लडका-लडकी का प्यार होने के लिए वर्जित फल खाना जरूरी है.
जैसे परीक्षा में चोरी करना वर्जित है, वैसे चोरी किया हुआ फल भी वर्जित है. इसीलिए मेरे लिए चुराए हुए आम ने वही काम किया जो एक सेब ने आदम और हौआ के लिए किया था. मन में पाप के बीज बोने का.
चोरी करना पाप है, यह तो समझ में आता है. लेकिन प्यार करना क्यों पाप है यह बात मैं आज तक नहीं समझ पाया.
जिस धर्म ग्रंथ में मैंने सेब की खूबियों के बारे में पढा था उसी पुस्तक में यह भी लिखा था कि मनुष्य का पहला धर्म है अपने पडोसी को प्यार करना. मैंने पडोसी होने के धर्म को बखूबी निभाने में कोई कसर नहीं छोडी.
धर्म ग्रंथ में यह भी जोर देकर कहा गया है कि अपने से कमजोर व्यक्ति को आपके प्यार का पहला हकदार मानना चाहिए. सो मैंने पडोस के हट्टे-कट्ठे हम उम्र लडकों के बजाए, पडोस की कमजोर, कमसिन कन्याओं से मेल जोल बढाने के प्रयास शुरू कर दिए.
मैंने पाया कि मेरे क्लास की सबसे सुन्दर कन्या पढने में सबसे कमजोर थी. भूगोल में गोल और गणित में शून्य थी. मैंने दोनों विषयों में उसे नि:शुल्क ट्यूशन देना शुरू कर दिया.
भूगोल समझने तथा समझाने के लिए हमारे पास रमणीय स्थलों की कोई कमी न थी. पास ही एक नदी थी, एक छोटी पहाडी थी, खेत-खलिहान थे और ऐसे निर्जन स्थल थे जहां का पता सिर्फ़ मुझे ही मालूम था.
जहां तक गणित का सवाल था, हम 7-7 सबसे नजर चुराकर 9-2-11 होना बखूबी सीख गए थे. लेकिन प्रेम के ढाई अक्षर को हम पूरी तरह से सीख पाते इससे पहले उस कोमल कन्या के निष्ठुर पिता का तबादला हो गया और वह अपने बाबुल के साथ दूसरे शहर चली गई. बुलबुल के इस प्रकार अचानक उड जाने से मेरे मन का पंछी उदास और अकेला हो गया.
आजकल भी मैं आम खाता हूं, मगर खरीद कर. इसीलिए शायद चुराए हुए आम का असर नहीं मिल पाता.

इक्कीसवीं सदी के महामानव

2006-08-29T18:29:00.000+05:30

[यह लेख प्रियंका गांधी तथा चंद्रबाबु नायडु को एक अंग्रेजी अखबार द्वारा इक्कीसवीं सदी के व्यक्ति घोषित करने पर लिखा गया]

"इक्कीसवीं शताब्दी का व्यक्ति कहलाने के लिए कौन सी खूबियाँ होनी जरूरी है? अगले साल मैं भी तो २५ वर्ष का हो जाउँगा. फिर यह खिताब मुझे क्यों नहीं मिलना चाहिए?"मोन्टू ने सुबह-सुबह जब यह सवाल दागा तो मैं सोचने को मजबूर हो गया. "आखिर मेरे बेटे में क्या कमी है कि उसे यह खिताब न दिया जाए? वह भी जवान है, वह भी कम्प्यूटर से दिन-रात चिपका रहता है, वह भी दिन में सुनहरे सपने देखता है. उसमें वे सभी खूबियाँ हैं जो एक इक्कीसवीं सदी के युवक में होनी चाहिए."सवेरे अखबार में प्रथम पृष्ट पर दो फोटो चिपकी हुई थीं, जिन्हें देख कर मेरी १४ वर्षीय बेटी के मुँह से बरबस निकल गया था - पापा देखो 'ब्यूटी एन्ड द बीस्ट'. तब तो मैंने उसे यह कह कर डाँट दिया था कि बडे लोगों के बारे में ऐसी बात नहीं करते.मगर जब मैंने नित्यकर्म निपटाते हुए इस बात पर गहन चिंतन किया तो लगा कि बिटिया ने बात तो ठीक ही कही थी. जिन दो हस्तियों की फोटो अखबार के पहले पन्ने पर लगी थीं उसका शीर्षक 'ब्यूटी एन्ड द बीस्ट' होता तो ज्यादा उपयुक्त होता. अखबार अंग्रेजी का था, सो अनुवाद करने की खटपट भी नहीं. इसे पढकर पाठक का मन पुलकित भी हो जाता.
लेकिन फोटो का विवरण बता रहा था कि ये तस्वीरें अगली सदी के महानुभावों की हैं. जिसे मेरी बेटी ब्यूटी बता रही थी वह वाकई मोनालिसा और सोफिया लॉरेन के सौंदर्य का संतुलित सम्मिश्रण लग रही थी. इटली के सुप्रसिद्ध चित्रकार की जगविख्यात कलाकृति एवं इटली की चिरयौवना फिल्म अभिनेत्री से जिसकी तुलना करने का मन हो जाए उसका संबंध भी कहीं न कहीं इटली से जरूर जुडा होना चाहिए.
तस्वीर के इटालियन कनेक्शन को सुलझाने की उधेडबुन में मैंने टूथपेस्ट को शेविंग क्रीम समझकक़्र दाढी पर लगा लिया. नाश्ता करते हुए मैंने आखिर अपने बेटे से उस तस्वीर वाली यौवना का परिचय पूछ ही लिया.
"अरे ! आप इसे नहीं जानते? अपने आपको देश का प्रथम परिवार कहलाने वाले खानदान की यह एक मात्र कुलदीपा है. आप किस दुनिया में रहते हैं,पापा?" मेरे एक मात्र कुलदीपक मोन्टू ने मेरे कमजोर सामान्य ज्ञान पर अपनी गहरी चिंता व्यक्त करते हुए कहा.
"इसके नाम के पीछे भी राष्ट्रपिता के खानदान का नाम जुडा हुआ है. मगर बापू से इसका दूर का भी रिश्ता नहीं है. हाँ, बापू के नाम पर दुकानदारी करने वाले राजनेता 'नरो वा कुंजरो वा' की तरह इस बारे में चुप्पी बनाए रहते हैं, विशेषकर तब जब वे जनता के सामने वोट माँगने निकलते हैं," मोन्टू ने इस विस्मयकारी व्यक्तित्व को और भी अधिक रहस्यमय बनाते हुए कहा.
मुझे मोन्टू के सामान्य ज्ञान पर गर्व और अपनी अनभिज्ञता पर शर्म महसूस हुई. 'नरो वा कुंजरो वा' की उक्ति से तो मैं मोन्टू के संस्कृत ज्ञान से भी प्रभावित हो गया.
मगर दाढी बनाते समय जिस इटालियन कनेक्शन का ख्याल मेरे दिमाग में कौंधा था उसका हल निकाल पाना मोन्टू के भी बस की बात नहीं है. यह सोचकर मैंने अपनी उर्वरक बुद्धि का रौब जमाने के लिए मोन्टू से पूछा,"अच्छा, यह बूझो तो जानें कि तुम कितने अकलमंद हो. मोनालिसा, सोफिया लॉरेन और इस ललना में क्या साम्य है?"
"यह भी कोई सवाल हुआ? ये तीनों महिलाएँ सुबह नाश्ते में पिज्जा खाती हैं, दूध और जलेबी नहीं," मोन्टू तपाक से बोला.
मोन्टू के जवाब ने मुझे लाजवाब कर दिया. मैंने अपनी गंजी खोपडी पर हाथ फेरते हुए गहन चिंतन करने का अभिनय शुरू किया. मुझे इस प्रकार घेर पाने में सफल होने पर मोन्टू मुस्कुराया.
"अच्छा पापा, अब आप बताओ यह खिचडी दाढी वाला कौन है जिसे मुन्नी बीस्ट कह रही थी?" मोन्टू ने पहला सवाल फेंका. मैंने सवाल अनसुना कर दिया. मगर मोन्टू मुझे ऐसे कैसे जाने देता.
"एक संकेत देता हूँ. यह बम्बइया फिल्मों के खलनायक का चमचा-सा दिखने वाला दढियल, तेलुगु सिनेमा के अब तक के सर्वाधिक लोकप्रिय अभिनेता-राजनेता का दामाद है. और आजकल 'किंग मेकर' के रूप में पहचाना जाना पसंद करता है," मोन्टू ने मुझे चुनौती दी.
"देखो मोन्टू, मुझे न अभिनय में रुचि है न ही अभिनेता से नेता बने नायकों में ही कोई रुचि है. हाँ, बचपन में जरूर नौटंकी, सरकस देखे थे," मैंने मोन्टू से आँख चुराते हुए कहा. आज यह लडका मेरे सामान्य ज्ञान की परीक्षा लेकर ही मानेगा.
"ठीक है पापा, मैं कथा पुराणों से उदाहरण दे कर एक और हिंट देता हूँ. महाभारत में जैसे राज के लिए भाई-भाई लडे थे, आंध्र में ससुर-दामाद का द्वंद्व हुआ था. दामाद की जीत हुई तथा सास-ससुर को राजनीतिक वनवास लेना पडा," मोन्टू ने आँखें मटकाते हुए कहा.
"मोन्टू अब बस करो. यह मेरी उम्र नहीं है पहेलियाँ बूझने की. और सुनो, ये ब्यूट एन्ड बीस्ट जो भी हों, एक बात मैं बेशक कह सकता हूँ कि उन्होंने कभी अपने बाप से पहेलियाँ नहीं पूछी होंगी. इसीलिए तो तुम तुम रह गए और ये दोनों इक्कीसवीं सदी के व्यक्ति चुने गए," मैंने बहस पर पूर्णविराम लगाने के अंदाज में कहा और छाता उठाए घर से बाहर निकल गया.

जो जीता वही सिकंदर

2006-08-28T13:38:00.000+05:30

मुझे पहली बार लडके-लडकी वाला प्यार छह साल की उम्र में ही हो गया था. हमारे गाँव की दो लडकियों से. जी हाँ, एक साथ दो-दो लडकियों से. दोनों ही मेरी क्लास में पढती थीं.
चूँकि इन तीस साल में हम तीनों शादीशुदा हो चुके है और हमारे बच्चे भी प्यार करने की उम्र के हो चुके हैं मैं अपने पहले प्यार को मधु और सुधा के नाम से पुकारूँगा. ऐसा करने से न उनके पतियों को, न मेरी पत्नी को और न ही हमारे बच्चों को हमारे उस निर्मल्, निश्छल पहले प्यार पर कीचड उछालने का मौका मिलेगा.
मधु, सुधा और मैं साथ-साथ स्कूल जाते थे, क्लास में पास-पास बैठते थे, और स्कूल छूटने के बाद साथ ही घर लौटते थे. मधु और सुधा के साथ खेलने का सिर्फ मुझे ही अधिकार था. मजाल है कि कोई दूसरा लडका उनके साथ खेलने की जुर्रत करे. वैसे ही किसी तीसरी लडकी को मेरे साथ खेलने का अधिकार मधु और सुधा ने नहीं दे रखा था.
मगर मधु और सुधा के बीच मुझे लेकर कोई विवाद नहीं था. विवाद की कोई गुंजाइश भी नहीं थी. मेरी नजर में दोनों का महत्व समान था, भूमिकाएं अलग-अलग थीं. हम रोज घरौंदा खेलते थे. मधु मेरी घरवाली बनती थी, तो सुधा मेरी प्रेमिका. किसी दिन जब सुधा को घरवाली बनने का मन करता था तो मधु प्रेमिका बन जाती थी. यह सिलसिला दो साल तक बिना किसी तकरार के चला. फिर पिताजी गाँव छोडकर शहर आ गए.
शहर की स्कूल में मैं वर्षा का दीवाना बन गया. मैं थोडा सयाना हो गया था, जितना कि किसी दस साल के लडके को होना चाहिए उतना. शहर आने के बाद पहली बार सिनेमा देखा, कौन सी फिल्म थी यह तो याद नहीं. इतना जरूर याद है कि एक पुरुष और स्त्री हर दस-पंद्रह मिनट में बांहों में बांहें डाल कर गाते और नाचते थे. मुझे फिल्म की नायिका की सूरत कुछ-कुछ वर्षा जैसी नजर आई. वर्षा भी उस हिरोइन की तरह दो चोटी रखती थी. बात करते समय उस हिरोइन की तरह आंखें भी मटकाती थी.
मैंने भी फिल्म से प्रेरित हो कर हीरो की स्टाइल में अपने बाल संवारने शुरू कर दिए. सामने की जुल्फों को गुब्बारे की तरह फुलाने के बाद मुझे यकीन होने लगा कि मेरी सूरत भी उस हीरो जैसी नजर आती है. (जब एक दिन वर्षा ने भी मेरी हेयर स्टाइल की तारीफ की तो मुझे पूरा विश्वास हो गया कि मैं सचमुच हीरो जैसा दिखता हूँ.)
वर्षा का घर स्कूल के रास्ते में पडता था. मैं रोज शाम वर्षा के घर होमवर्क पूरा करने के बहाने चला जाता था. उसके पडोस में हमारी ही क्लास का एक लडका दिनेश रहता था. दिनेश मुझसे लंबा-तगडा तो था ही, स्कूल की क्रिकेट टीम का कप्तान भी था.
प्राय: रोज वर्षा के घर जाते समय मुझे दिनेश गली के नुक्कड पर दूसरे लडकों के साथ क्रिकेट या गुल्ली-डंडा खेलते हुए दिख जाता था. वैसे दिनेश ने मुझे कभी कुछ कहा तो नहीं, लेकिन उसकी आंखें हर बार गुर्रा कर मुझे दो-दो हाथ कर लेने के लिए ललकारती थीं. मैं नजरें झुकाकर चुपचाप आगे बढ लेता था.
एक रोज जब मैं वर्षा के घर की ओर जा रहा था कि अचानक मेरी पीठ पर कोडे जैसी मार लगी. मैं दर्द के मारे चीख पडा. पीठ पर मानों जलता हुआ कोयला दागा हो, ऐसी जलन हो रही थी. मैं ने पीछे मुडकर देखा तो मुहल्ले के छोकरे खी-खी कर हँस रहे थे. मेरे कुछ दूर रबर की एक गेंद पडी हुई थी. दिनेश हाथ में क्रिकेट का बल्ला लिए विकेट के पास खडा ठहाके लगा रहा था.
उसके लगाए फटके से ही वह गेंद मेरी पीठ पर गोली की तरह आ लगी थी. मैं तिलमिला गया. लेकिन चुपचाप खून के घूँट पी गया. और कर भी क्या सकता था? थोडा आगे चल कर, इस बात से आश्वस्त हो कर कि कोई नहीं देख रहा, मैंने अपने आँसू कमीज की बाँह से पोछ डाले.
मैं वर्षा के घर आ पहुँचा. होमवर्क पूरा कर मैंने वर्षा को यह कह कर अपने साथ मेरे घर चलने को कहा कि आज माँ ने आईसक्रीम बनाई है. वर्षा खुशी के मारे झूम उठी और झटपट कपडे बदल कर मेरे साथ निकल पडी.
नुक्कड के करीब पहुँचने पर मैंने वर्षा का हाथ अपने हाथ में थाम लिया. उसने मेरी ओर देखा और मुस्कुराने लगी. वह मेरे और पास आ गई. हम दोनों यूँ ही हाथ में हाथ फँसा कर चलने लगे.
नुक्कड पर दिनेश कुछ छोकरों के साथ खडा था. मैंने दिनेश की आंखों में आंखे गडा दीं. इस बार दिनेश ने चुपचाप अपनी नजरें झुका लीं, एक हारे हुए खिलाडी की तरह्.

Messenger of Doom

2006-08-17T00:36:00.000+05:30

The timing was uncanny. The day my wife left me for the children, I got my 24 X 7 Net connection. Without realizing the impending danger, I logged on to the wilderness of the Net.

The first visible symptom of the looming calamity was insomnia.“Ting-tong”, a messenger window would pop up at devilish intervals. “Cuckoo”, an unauthorized cyber squatter would squeal, in a desperate effort to find a soul mate in the cyber space.

In no time, I found my sole mate, who checkmated me in just a few moves that even a grandmaster could not have strategised in wildest of his dreams. She masqueraded herself as a sibling but her ulterior agenda of life was to become the darling of nerds – both veterans and greenhorns.Sibling-turned-darling was her favourite screen name. She had multiple screen names to achieve multiple tasks and targets. And, her favourite hunting ground was the voice chat rooms of romantically-inclined netizens, whose cooing and crooning evoked ecstatic oomphs and aahs and an occasional vaah, vaah.

Vulnerable would be the apt description of my state of mind, when an innocuous ‘Hi’ chimed in on the messenger window one lazy Sunday morning. Someone, with filial yet fatal feeling was trying to reach out to me.

Though fed upon Jim Corbett’s jungle lore, I failed to read the message loud and clear that the call of the cat was in fact a hunter’s ruse to lure the prey and not that of a lonely tigress tempting a tiger for a date.

A click on the messenger window did me in. A pair of shimmering brown eyes shrouded behind a veil was how she appeared on the screen, enticing and intriguing. ‘If you ever come across a serpent, don’t look into the eyes, the reptile would hypnotize you,’ a wildlife enthusiast friend had advised me.

Had I heeded the advice, I could have been saved. I was fated to be doomed. There followed a cat-n-mouse game. Some pow-vow, and some ohs and ahs. “Welcome back”, would be her refrain every time I logged on to the Net. A warm welcome indeed, a courtesy my wife had long denied me.

Without realizing the fatal signs of all her gestures, I was drawn deeper and deeper into the dragnet that she had so carefully laid out for me in the wilderness called cyber space. She would entice me now and again, with her ‘available’ status on the chat window. A ‘Hi’ from me would elicit a ‘Welcome back’ reply.

Was she ‘available’ to all, did she welcome all and sundry? My pathetically weak-kneed disposition always prompted me to believe that her ‘available’ status was meant exclusively for me, just for me.

Infatuation often leads to stupor. When this happens in the surreal realm of cyber space, stupor can lead to comatose. She always kept me on my toes, by drawing me into conversation having to do with my peculiar cardiac condition, only to leave me in lurch for hours, changing her online status from ‘Available’ to ‘Be right back’.

Having spent hours gazing at the blank screen of my PC, awaiting her return, my brain too would often go blank. What makes my optimistic heart tick is the ‘Available’ status displayed on her messaging window, 24 X 7.

The Compulsive Tutor

2006-08-17T00:29:00.000+05:30

He was fatally attracted towards a whiteboard. His response to a white board was quite like that of a dog to a lamppost. While canines, irrespective of their breed, would impulsively lift their hind leg up on seeing a lamppost, our man would lift his right hand to reach for a marker pen.

The similarity between him and man’s best friend ended there. In all other respects, our man drew inspiration from other species. He had an elephantine memory, the walk of a grizzly bear, the vision of an eagle and the appetite of a hog, to list just a few of his zoological characteristics.

Had he not taken up a mundane job with a company dealing in hydrocarbon products, our man would have become professor emeritus of vital statistics at the Fairsex University of Domestic Science.

In the number-crunching game, he lagged behind a Pentium IV computer by just three nano seconds.The dead wood in the company resented his penchant for explaining complex business problems on the whiteboard. But the eager beavers looked forward to attending the learning sessions presided over by him.

Whenever the top management wanted to keep the otherwise under-worked staff occupied fruitfully, the chief executive officer would summon our man post haste to his chamber.

Soon a meeting would be convened in the conference room. Our man, a marker pen in one hand and a rubber swap in another, would take charge of the whiteboard. All the other staff members, most of them grudgingly, would occupy their seats like obedient school students mentally prepared to be at the receiving end of at least an hour-long discourse.

Discourse it would be of course, but with a difference. Even while our professor emeritus rattled out such high-sounding words as “competitive intelligence, SWOT, Gantt chart, PRD, CSD, mission objective, strategy” so on and so forth, he would fill up the whiteboard with charts, graphs, bullet points, arrows, sets and sub-sets in a myriad of colors.

To be sure, most of what our in-house professor uttered got transmuted into Greek, Latin, Spanish, Hebrew and Chinese the moment those words hit the eardrums of the august audience. Equally obvious would be the audience response, which found expressions in unending yawns, grunts, coughs, hiccups or simply a gush of foul smelling wind.

Least perturbed by such overtures from the audience, the professor would continue with his lecture, marking each of his pause with a scholarly gesture –a nod here, a pointed finger there or simply a dot on the whiteboard with a red marker pen.

Whenever such sessions of intellectual intercourse were held, a sense of purpose would charge up everybody in the company. With a smug satisfaction writ large on his lizard-like lips, the CEO would troop in and out of the conference room, leaving behind some unintelligible interjections for the participants to mull over.

The top management made it a point to meticulously maintain the minutes of every session. These minutes, prepared and transcribed by the pool secretary, were printed on the finest bond paper and kept in spiral bound files, the words ‘Strictly Confidential’ and ‘Only for internal circulation’ embossed in red letters on the cover page.

Post Script: While the company retrenched three-fourths of the staff recently as part of its restructuring, the in-house professor has been given a promotion and re-designated as ‘Director Emeritus’.

Divine Vision

2006-08-17T00:21:00.000+05:30

After nine long months of deep meditation, His Holiness delivered a two-pager. His devotees dotingly declared it as the ‘Vision Statement’.

The devotees had been anxiously waiting for this auspicious moment from the very first day of conception. His Holiness had shut himself in the sanctum sanctorum displaying symptoms of divine thoughts germinating in his fertile mind.

Pregnant with ideas, His Holiness had started behaving like an expectant mother. He would throw tantrums at slightest provocation, pace to and fro inside the room, scream at the sight of a flying bumblebee, stomp heavily to scare away a lizard and chew anything sour in taste –tamarind, raw mango or even his nails.

“Don’t you dare disturb Him. Or even be seen near Him. Can’t you see, He is in the contemplating mode,” admonishes, Swami Sahajawani, the disciple numero uno of His Holiness.

Swami always uses a capital ‘H’ whenever he refers to His Holiness as ‘He, Him, His’ just to pledge his unflinching loyalty to Him. Swami also expects others to scrupulously follow the same practice if they want any interaction with him.

Swami was retained by His Holiness at a fabulous salary plus an unlimited expense account primarily to build an imaginary halo around the diminutive physique of His Holiness. It was with the design to enlarge and glorify the otherwise puny personage of His Holiness that the likes of Swami and Sukhanand Saraswati were given higher ranks than the other members of his personal staff.

Had they not got into His Holiness’ regal retinue of staff, Swami and Sukhanand would have easily found place in the Jat Regiment or Haryana police known for their hefty havildars and burly jawans.

As a rule, His Holiness neither directly spoke to others nor liked to be spoken to by any of his followers. He always conveyed, if at all such an exigency arose, through Swami and Sukhanand who were given license to interpret and explain the unspoken divine diktats and dictums. There was no way to find out if these interpretations and explanations had the official sanction.

So, when His Holiness retired to his sanctum sanctorum pregnant with ideas and went into deep meditation, the Swami-Sukhanand duo used the nine-month incubation period to the hilt in creating a hoopla.

“His Holiness, the master creator, is in direct communication with the God. He and the God are busy in serious intellectual and spiritual intercourse,” the duo would repeat day in and day out.

“Wait for the divine deliverance,” the duo would console the followers who were getting impatient and jittery over the agonizingly long period of wait while His Holiness was having his communion with the God.

At long last, on an auspicious Monday morning His Holiness emerged from his sanctum sanctorum. Wearing a Cheshire cat smile, His Holiness announced before the eager gathering that God had finally handed him down the Divine Vision. He called upon his devotees to devote their complete attention to understanding the divine message.

Swami and Sukhanand made copies of the two-page statement of His Holiness and distributed it among the devotees.

“Interact with the God, immerse deeply into the repository of divine content, shunning all other earthly activities and you will have attained the ultimate deliverance,” read the executive summary prepared by the Swami-Sukhanand duo after three months of intense deliberations.

His Holiness has gone back to his sanctum sanctorum, this time to seek inspiration for formulating the fundamental principles of divine content.

Swami and Sukhanand are busy displaying ‘Do not disturb’ signboard outside the sanctum sanctorum.

Mumbo Jumbo Basics

2006-08-17T00:04:00.000+05:30

Ms Speakeasy Eveready greeted the news with much gusto. Sitting cross-legged before the idol of the elephant god, she burned up the whole bundle of incense sticks—101 of them she had purchased in the local train at just Rs 10 as a bargain deal.

In deep meditative pose, she chanted the vashikaran mantra 84 times, keeping count by the string of beads she rotated by her fingers. The parrot perched on her shoulder religiously repeated the mantra after her. The parrot prattled with precision all the intonations his patron uttered in her nasal tone.

“At long last, the Rahu kaalam is over. Happy days are here again. Henceforth, everything is going to be very nice, very lovely, very beautiful and obviously fortuitous,” she soliloquized.

Ardent practitioner of the art of mumbo jumbo that she was, Ms Speakeasy firmly held that positive words such as nice, lovely and beautiful have positive effect on the persons who utter them as also on those who hear them. Specially when preceded by the adjective ‘very’.

She was particularly chirpy on this Monday morning because of a two-paragraph news report that had otherwise gone unnoticed but had caught the attention of her beady eyes. “Universities to teach Vedic Astrology”, the news report buried deep inside the newspaper proclaimed.

“We are going to be back in big business, Mitthu,” she said addressing the parrot. “Back in big business,” repeated the parrot.

It had not been easy going for Ms Speakeasy and her parrot for quite some time. Her down-to-earth bureaucrat father had thrown them out of the official bungalow for having wrongly predicted about his promotion.

Instead of the long-overdue promotion, the burra babu was suspended from service facing corruption charges.

Ms Speakeasy had blamed her misfortune on the wrong feng-shui of the official bungalow. For giving out wrong prediction of her father’s career graph, she had punished the parrot by denying it the weekly ration of carrots. Apparently, the parrot had picked up the wrong sets of tarot cards.

Since then, she had taught all the tarot card tricks to the parrot. They were simple tricks. She would stick pastry crumbs on the cards which had ‘positive’ phrases inscribed on them. Ms Speakeasy would then read out these phrases as surefire solutions to the plethora of problems her clients brought forth before her for astrological atonement.

Usually, Ms Speakeasy’s clients were people with weak constitution of mind. They were mostly men and women who relied more on stellar configurations than on their own physical and intellectual efforts to overcome difficulties of earthly life.

Ms Speakeasy’s words carried conviction as, while delivering celestial prescription, she would liberally throw in such pedantic phrases as ‘your Venus is on ascendancy, eclipsing the evil Saturn who was the root cause of all your problems’.

For her own problems – and they were aplenty – Ms Speakeasy apportioned the blame on a freak combination of Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Pluto and Neptune.

She was firm in her conviction that it was because of the evil influence of Neptune that her fortune had been eclipsed. Venus had shied away from her all these 40 years, turning her moon-faced and bereft of much-needed love, Platonic or otherwise.

Now that Indian universities had decided to include Vedic Astrology in their curriculum, Ms Speakeasy had all the reasons to believe that her fortune was going to take a U-turn, eclipsing all her present misfortune.

“Surely, the local university will confer a D.Litt. degree on me. It is time the Vice-chancellor returns me the good I had done him. Remember, Mitthu, how I had juggled with his daughter’s horoscope to make a perfect match with the horoscope of the minister’s son,” she said offering a green chilly to the parrot.

“Horoscope of the minister’s son,” parroted Mitthu in an equally jubilant tone.

Sash, Ash and Di

2006-08-16T23:55:00.000+05:30

"Three Miss World in almost a row! The country has indeed made it in the global market so far as this particular kind of merchandise is concerned. If the present trend is maintained for the next two decades, there is every chance of India monopolizing the beauty pageant market and subsequently the global advertisement market. Already, several MNC ad agencies have begun scouting for models in India," mused the principal chief secretary poring through the computer printout of the graphics and other info downloaded from the Internet the previous night.

The principal chief secretary (PCS) was woken up at 8 O' clock in the morning by the PA to the CM and told to be present at the CM's bungalow at 8.11 sharp to make a multi-media presentation on the status of the state vis-a-vis the global market.

The PCS popped several drops of mouth freshner just to make sure that the CM did not get a whiff of the brew he had consumed till late into the night at a five-star hotel with that NRI contractor.

The burra babu, as the PCS was fondly called by his subordinate staff, was ushered into CM's room after making him wait for two hours in the lounge.

"Come to the point. You have this pugnacious habit of beating about the bush with your statis sticks. And, you also have this tendency of mixing up vital statistics with logistics. So, you mean to say this particular Indian merchandise has promising prospects in the global market. Well, what then?" asked the CM.

"Sir, the most heartening thing is that this time it is a city girl who has bagged the world title. Sir, if you allow me, I would suggest setting up of a Personality Development University on the lines of the Information Technology University to help bloom several such sleeping beauties, the PCS purred softly.

"I like it, I like it. The idea sounds good. Remind me to make the announcemenent at the next press conference," said the CM."I will make Joe Baby the VC. She has been sulking ever since the PM inducted that hoyden into his cabinet, over-ruling my wish. The VC's post is any day better than a mere MP's," the CM mused to himself.

"Yes Sir! You can also, Sir, announce a package deal for the entrepreneurs who want to set up beauty clinics, mini personality development institutes, modelling studios and the whole range of ancilliary units," suggested the PCS, encouraged by the CM's response to the idea.

"Smart boy! You do show flashes of brilliance one in a while. Why, I can sell the idea to the media moghul whose latest dream is to divert the entire business of Bollywood and Hollywood to his film city. By giving the necessary policy support, I can retain his group's loyalty till the next general elections. Though he happens to hail from my very own community, the media moghul needs constant doses of incentives to be kept in good humour," said the CM, glowing at the prospect of ensuring media support with the latest master stroke.

"Why not, Sir? This is the time for you to pay him back for the favour his newspaper group had done you at the time of the family coup. Had the group not shifted its loyalty, it would have been impossible to topple the papa-in-law," said the PCS, endorsing the CM's media policy.

"Organize a gala reception for our girl from Secunderabad. She should not run away to Mumbai again. Longer she stays here the better for the development of the state. At least she will keep the paparazzi and the press occupied. A section of the media has been giving bad publicity to me after that bomb exploded near my residence," said the CM.

"Yes, Sir. Very good, Sir. Good day, Sir," said the PCS, satisfied that he was again able to sell a novel idea to the CM.

Confession of a beer guzzler

2006-08-16T23:49:00.000+05:30

One of the main reasons why my wife had pestered me into accepting a transfer from Mumbai to Hyderabad was the imposition of dry law by the NT Rama Rao govenment.

She believed that in the absence of beer bars, I would be compelled to drink water or at the most some aerated water to quench my thirst.

But even after a quarter-century of our fevicol-stuck marriage, she had failed to fathom my ingenuity.

Thanks to a childhood chum, who had risen to the rank of a colonel in the army and was posted at one of the defence establishments in Secunderabad, my mug of beer remained full to the brim throughout the dry spell.

My work as a creative director in an advertising agency allowed me ample scope to steal an hour or two during the lunch break to drive down to the officers' mess.

Away from the golden eagle eyes of my wife and secure in thought that her thunder bolt cannot strike me, I merrily guzzled gallons after gallons of 'officer's choice' in the company of my colonel buddy.

She did smell a rat at times, specially when she found me in a particular jovial mood. But she could never pin me down. What about the pungent smell of the brew, you may ask. Several packets of 'gutka' spiked with heavy doses of mint used to achieve the effect that some patented multinational chewing gum claimed to attain through the multimillion clip on the television.

Ever suspicious as she is, my wife started keeping a close tab on my spendings. My daily 'pocket allowance' was reduced to Rs 20. This had little effect on my beer-guzzling routine.

How, you might ask, did I manage the luxury of downing an average of two bottles with just Rs 20? Simple. Like in the past, I never paid for my drinks, which invariably came courtesy the colonel and the eager clients of my ad-agency who had this habit of throwing a working lunch every time they wanted to discuss their campaign.

In fact, I must say this to the credit of the golden yellow, frothy brew that such working lunches in local pubs helped our ad-agency retain many an account. The secret being the coincidence that most of my clients, in their late 40's, also found in working lunches a convenient excuse to steal a beer or two in the afternoon away from the needling eyes of their spouses.

(Advisory: Don't let your wife read this article. It is injurious to your health.) I must admit, though, I always felt guilty about conning my wife almost every day. Her searching looks invariably rattled my bones, but I always put up a brave front.

Dodging the wife becomes a second nature to a veteran husband like me. In fact, it is because of this that our marriage has weathered the last 25 years and become well-seasoned.

Moral of the story: Like the stolen kiss, a stolen beer gives better kick. Any doubt? Try it out.

Janata class travel

2006-08-16T21:30:00.000+05:30

If you want to test your physical fitness and agility, board a general compartment of a long-distance train. Getting into the coach itself will be your very first test in basic survival tactics.

If you are an experienced general class traveller, you would have already 'booked' your seat with a porter and arrived well before the train on the platform.

If you haven't had the occasion to travel by a general compartment as yet, let me reveal a state secret - by an unwritten memorandum of understanding (MoU), the railway ministry has outsourced the space in the general compartments to a cartel of porters and touts. The cartel, in turn, auctions the seats and berths.Being an integral part of the market economy, the price of a seat and a berth is determined by the rule of demand and supply. During rush season, like Dasara holidays, a seat in the general compartment could go for as high as Rs 100 and could be had for as low as Rs 10 during the off season.

Personally, I shudder at the thought of travelling unreserved. A quick-finger artiste operating from the Ahmedabad railway station was responsible for making me travel in the unreserved coach up to Warangal recently.

My friend and I had reserved seats in the AC chaircar to go to Mumbai en route Hyderabad. While I was entraining, someone picked my wallet from the back pocket.Left with little over Rs. 50 and no tickets, we had no choice but to board the next day's Navjeevan Express at 6.25 in the morning.

Having worked as a crime reporter with an influential daily, I instinctively contacted a top police officer with the suggestion to return me a favour by helping me get into the train.

He readily obliged and instructed the inspector of the railway police station to make the necessary arrangements.

The inspector, a burly six-footer with an uncanny resemblance to a grisly bear, was humility personified when we met him."We are trying our best to nab the pickpocket. Though I can't promise getting back the money you have lost, there is every chance of recovering your press card," the inspector reassured, his voice dipped in the sugary syrup that goes into making jalebis.

"Unfortunately, the VIP quota has already been released and therefore I won't be able to get you berths in the sleeper class. If you insist traveling by the train tomorrow, I can get you into the general compartment," he said.

"Come by 5.30 to the police station and have the morning cup of tea. They say the tea served at the police station is very very special. The hawaldar will be here to receive you," the inspector said introducing us to the head constable standing in attention.

The train had already inned by the time we arrived at the railway station. "Come on, Sir, there is no time for tea now," said the hawaldar and led us across the platform, making his way through the crowd using his metre-long danda. It was only by his danda that the hawaldar was being recognized by the public as the 'strong arm' of the law, for our man was not in his uniform.

The general compartment was jam packed, with no room even on the floor. While a couple of tough-looking guys were trying to muscle their way into the coach at the main gate, the hawaldar shoved them to a side and led us to two window seats 'reserved' for us by the porters.

Having established our legal right over the two prized seats, courtesy the sircar maibaap, the two of us became the object of awe before the other co-passengers.

Most of the passengers were mill workers and migrant labourers returning home to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

"Can't you shift a little and make room for the women?" shouted one of the two Telugu-speaking men at a Keralite youth whose proximity to the former's wife was the cause of great concern to him.

The Telugu biddas had purchased two seats from the touts at Rs 20 each. While the women occupied the seats, their husbands squatted on the floor, resting their back on each of our seats, their shoulders and heads having a peculiar tenency of falling on our laps now and again.

The day journey was spent nudging our fellow-travelers into an upright position and requesting anyone that got down at the various stations to fill our water flask.Having emerged one-up in the pecking order, we had no difficulty in spreading our legs to the utmost comfort when the sleep got over us.

Tip from a veteran traveler: The most comfortable way of traveling by an unreserved coach is to sleep under a bunk by spreading a newspaper on the floor.

Getting high on aqua pura

2006-08-16T07:47:00.000+05:30

What makes a drink intoxicating?Of course water!Mix water with gin, you get a kick. Mix water with whiskey, you get a kick. Mix water with rum, again you get a kick.Water is the common liquid in all the above concoctions. Therefore, water is the most intoxicating stuff on this earth. Quod Erat Demonstradum (QED).

Convinced by this geometric argument, Tipsy Toddy, out of job ever since the government imposed dry law under the National Toddy Recycling (NTR) programme, decided to make the most of the government's plan to privatise water supply. He brought together all the tipplers under one toddy roof and formed the Aqua Pura Incorporated (API).

The first thing that Tipsy Toddy did was to contact Kahnthibhai, the only son of the late centenarian patriarch in Mohamaya Nagari whose secret of longevity was the quantum of 'water of life' he consumed.

After much surmonising on the ethics of public life, Kahnthibhai agreed to lend his father's name to the new venture on the condition that he be made a sleeping partner.Having gained impeccable legitimacy for his project by roping in the epitome of all that is moral in this widely immoral world of politics, Tipsy tiptoed his way to Big Bull of suitcase fame to secure consultancy on how to go public with a block-buster mega issue.

Big Bull twirled his tail, unlocked his horns, stamped his hoof and politely, if that is the word to describe bullish way of showing civility, turned down Tipsy's plea."Come to me for private consultation after you go public. Go to Hirubhai Dumbani if you want to learn a trick or two about public issue. He has the latest on multiple option mega issue. Besides, he has a direct line to the powers that be at the Centre," said Big Bull, letting Tipsy in on the secret way to sure success.

Tipsy drew a large swig from the pint of water he always carried in his hip pocket, taking extra care not to let Big Bull know."Thank Ram, I was wise enough to have diluted this extra strong, extra dry smuggled water with a liberal dose of that cheap Russian vodka. I would have choked on the water had I taken it neat," mutter Tipsy to himself.

By now, the water was beginning to show its effect on Tipsy as he stepped off the elevator from Big Bull's penthouse. Known for his zig-zag way of walking, Tipsy crossed the road in a straight line, making it amply clear to the world at large that he had one too many of the water.

Tipsy did not remember how he reached home that afternoon."Enough of your water project! If this is how you are going to drown yourself in water now and damage your liver and kidneys, only God can save you once your project comes through," shouted Tipsy's wife Rummy, nee Giniben Daroowala.

"So long as Rummy is going to remain with me, my project is not going to make any progress. I must find a toddy way out to bypass her," Tipsy resolved, drawing an extra large swig from the pot of neat water he had kept hidden in the bathroom.

In Love at 58

2006-08-16T07:37:00.000+05:30

It was like being hauled up by the time machine and transported almost 40 years back into the teenage.

As it is, Professor Knowall Donothing, KD to the girls and Kamchorwa to the folks back home in Bihar, was feeling the tug for quite sometime.The uneasy sensation of something pushing him back into the youth had started tingling his balding head from the moment that breezy little Dolly, with long black hair, walked into his chamber the other day looking for nothing in particular.

KD had gasped and Dolly had blushed. The campus was abuzz with gossips. Like the little Jack Horner who sat in a corner, KD had pulled out a plum assignment for the breezy little thing.What the assignment was, nobody knew. But everybody knew that it required hours of consultations between the professor and the understudy.

“Probably the assignment has something to do with the impact of art and theatre on the contemporary literature,” guessed Prof. Goodfornothing, who had failed in his latest attempt at convincing Miss Silly Ninkompu about the importance of doing research on the impact of comics on modern management techniques.

Prof. Goodfornothing’s guess was based on the campus grapevine which had received reports of KD and Dolly frequenting defunct art galleries and empty cinema halls.The only time one found KD under public gaze was when he stood before the full-length mirror outside the NCC office combing his thinning hair and looking at himself from different angles. KD had already crossed the point of no-return where public gaze, howsoever intense that might be, did not matter.

Having observed KD attending to toiletry before NCC office’s magic mirror half an hour before the scheduled arrival of Dolly, Callmenot pattawala had picked up the pugnacious habit of asking him if he should order for two cans of coke from the campus canteen.

Coke, comics and disco were the only topics KD was interested in those days, besides, of course, Dolly’s favourite Mills & Boon on which KD could give discourse for hours. The KD-Dolly duo was a living encyclopedia on these subjects with the difference that no guy or gal could dare approach them for an update or a cross-check.

The time machine that had set to work from the day Dolly entered the campus had transformed KD’s appearance completely. The shock of gray that dangled like a rope earlier had turned into jet black, its shape fashioned after Gregory Peck. A denim jeans and jacket had replaced the Jawahar-cut churidar and achkan. And, his tortoise-shell rectangular reading glasses had been discarded for a pair of 22-carat gold-plated Christian Dior.

Dolly’s folks arrived one day from Jhumritalliya to take her back for the prospective groom to see.“Arrey! Yeh to Kamchorwa buzaata hai,” (Behold! He looks like our Kamchorwa) exclaimed Dolly’s dad in ecstasy. Her folks had fixed Dolly’s marriage with KD’s nephew Bobby.

The time machine whirred back, bringing KD to the present.