Lessons from Chhattisgarh Peace March

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.

Teacher who became a watchman

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.

Partitioning Hearts - Part II

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)

The Compulsive Tutor

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

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.