Aug 2012 - RH

Founder Editor

M. N. Roy

509

THE RADICAL HUMANISTAUGUST 2012

Rs. 20/monthVol. 76 No 5

(Since April 1949)

Formerly : Independent India

(April 1937- March 1949)

THE RADICAL HUMANIST AUGUST 2012

The Radical Humanist

Monthly journal of the Indian Renaissance

Institute

Devoted to the development of the Renaissance

Movement; and for promotion of human rights,

scientific-temper, rational thinking and a humanist

view of life.

Founder Editor:

M.N. Roy

Editor:

Dr. Rekha Saraswat

Contributory Editors:

Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. R.M. Pal, Professor

Rama Kundu

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Mr. N.D. Pancholi

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Mr. N.D. Pancholi

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Please Note: Authors will bear sole

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Also, sometimes some articles published in this

journal may carry opinions not similar to the

Radical Humanist philosophy; but they would be

entertained here if the need is felt to debate and

discuss upon them. —Rekha Saraswat

Vol. 76 Number 5 August 2012

Download and read the journal at

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- Contents -

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

I am a Woman: So What?

—Rekha Saraswat 1

2. From the Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism: A Case for Atheism 2

3. Guests’ Section:

In What Sense is the Self an Illusion

—Bruce Hood interviewd by Sam Harris 5

European Crisis and India

—K.S. Chalam 8

Strange Antics on Mercy Petitions/Death Penalty

Pension for the Elderly:

No Charity, a Human Right

—Rajindar Sachar 11

An Apology to a Gentleman: Justice B. S. Reddy

—Mastram Kapoor 15

4. Current Affairs’ Section:

Minister’s Cost

— N.K. Acharaya 18

5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

Excerpts from Innaiah Narisetti’s Autobiography

—Innaiah Narisetti 19

Why FDI?

The Anticorruption Movement

—Jawaharlal Jasthi 22

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

Communal Violence Bill – Is It Enough?

—Manzoor Ali 25

7. Book Review Section:

It’s Getting Better All the Time

—Michael Shermer 29

Traitors to Ourselves

—Dipavali Sen 32

8. Humanist News 34

From the Editor’s Desk:I am a woman. So

what?I was born to parents after tenyears of their marriage as their onlychild. It was a disappointment. Allrelatives and friends had expected ason. I was taught to live like a normalhuman being. It was a miserable

failure. I had not learnt to exist like a woman(normal or abnormal). So, I had to be trained in theart of living specifically as a woman, afresh, ongrowing up, in the later years of my life. It wasquite amusing but at times very annoying too.

My grandma would often affectionately admonishme. “Don’t laugh from the inside of your stomach.What will your in-laws say?” Very confusing! Howcould laughing aloud and being cheerful annoy thenew family? The woman in me would notunderstand. My mother would scold, “Why do youmatch your stride with your father? He is a man.Take small, light steps. Learn to be feminine.”Probably, walking side by side a man was an alienand improper concept. Treading a step behind wasa native and decent tradition. My aunt wouldcomplain, “See, how she debates upon everything.All the time, - this is right; this is wrong; this is

logical; this is irrational. - How can a woman be soopinionative? She needs to learn to keep quiet anddemure like a well-mannered girl.” How keepingmy point of view before others would make meun-chivalrous was beyond my comprehension.

There were so many baffling queries. In thosetimes, in the late seventies and early eighties therewere limited means of gaining knowledge andexchanging information but for the written texts.Phones and T.V.s were luxuries. Internet and itscorollaries web-browsing, face-book, twitter,blogging were fine pieces of imagination andwishful thinking in our part of the world. Thus, theone man I would always turn to with my puzzlingquestions was my father. But, he would never replydirectly. In response to my perplexity he wouldmake me read books and more books; all kinds ofthem; books which talked about so many varieties

of people living in this world. My horizonsexpanded beyond national boundaries. Although, itwas easy to confine a girl like me (who was trainedby him to be more comfortable with a pen and paperthan a ladle and spoon) in the safe haven of thehome with a variety of manuscripts surrounding herbut it was again a total disaster. I became acomplete misfit amid my middle-class indigenoussurroundings. For example, a girl talking so muchabout ideas, about life, about ideology, aboutphilosophy and so less about men - something mustbe grievously wrong in her- my friends wouldridicule me. I finally told my father that beingidealistic is one thing and being realistic is another.Roy cannot be born again and I need to stop findinghim in every man around me. This most impracticalman who was my father laughed aloud. Hechuckled and said, “Don’t be disappointed. Keepyour search on. At least this will save you from thecharlatans.”

What happened next is a part of history. But themost astounding part of the whole story comesnow. A candid revelation! It is astonishing but true!Since the latter half of the first decade of thetwentieth century I am myself turning (almost) intoa typical Indian mother of a normal human beingwho is my daughter. The feeling is suffocating forme but devastating for her. Now, I am asking her tounlearn all that I taught her to be proud about. I aminsisting upon her to play so many roles withinnumerable masks on her face. In short, I amasking her to stop being a normal human being andto learn being simply a woman. The only differencebetween then and now is that they wanted me toachieve the art of being a successful north Indianmiddle-class house wife while I want her to attainthe tactics of surviving with dignity as a woman inany part of this fearfully unsafe, technically modern

yet culturally pagan world. I had asked my fatherthen, “I am a woman, so what?” He had given meRoy’s Ideals of Indian Womanhood to locate myanswer. But now, my daughter asks me again, “I ama woman, so what?” What do I give her, friends, toclear her doubts in the present circumstances?

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From The Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism – A casefor Atheism

Translated by

—Arundhati Khandkar

[The book Spiritual Materialism – A case for

Atheism, A New Interpretation of the

Philosophy of Materialism written by

Tarkateertha Laxmanshastri Joshi has been

translated by his daughter, Arundhati

Khandkar, who was formerly Professor of

Philosophy at S.I.E.S. College, University of

Mumbai, India. He passed away many decades

ago but his contribution in building up the

philosophical base of Radical Humanism has

been no less. Roy acknowledged it in his life time

and the followers of the philosophy continue to do

so. I had requested Ms. Khandkar to translate her

father’s major works from to Marathi to English

for the benefit of the contemporary readers of RH.

And to our pleasant surprise she informed that

there is already the above mentioned book in

English done by her. It is being serialised in The

Radical Humanist June 2010 onwards. She has

also promised to send us in English, gradually,

more of his Marathi literature.

Laxmanshastri wrote this essay with the title

Materialism or Atheism in 1941. How meaningful

and necessary it is, even now, 70 years later, can be

understood by the following paragraph given on

the cover page of the book. —Rekha Saraswat

Dawn of Sankhya Philosophy

Sankhya ideology began first its evolutionarygrowth from the philosophy of Upanishads. Itreached its prominence in the latter half of theUpanishadic period. Impressions of itsreverberations are seen in Kathopanishad and inShwetashwataropnishad in particular. The closestlink that has taken place between the philosophicalprinciples in Upanishads and the Sankhya

Darshana is observed in Hinduism. The evidencefor that is seen in the books such as Bhagavatgeeta,

Mahabharata, Yogavasishtha, etc. and other booksin the subject of Vedanta.

Sankhya philosophy evolved with the help of twoimportant declarations which resided in theseed-form in Vedas and Upanishads. The plant thatgrew from that seed is the Sankhya philosophy.

The first declaration therein is as follows: ‘Sat,unimpeded in the past, present and future,all-pervasive, is the material cause of the universe.And the universe is composed of Sat. The universeresides in Sat and disappears in Sat.’

The second declaration is: ‘That fundamentalcausal principle and the visible universe are oneand the same thing.’

Out of the first declaration follows the doctrinethat, ‘The inanimate Prakruti, a fundamentalmaterial substance, is the root cause of theuniverse’, which later evolved. Out of the seconddeclaration, another doctrine was inferred, ‘Thecause and the effect are one and the same thing.’From the root cause the universe evolves, meaningthat the root cause itself takes the form of the effect.The effect before creation resides potentially in thecause! In other words, the effect is for sure, implicitin the cause. Here creation means manifestation. Aseries of events, the birth, the evolution and thedeath of the universe is like a cinema-movie. Whenthe movie starts, the universe is born and when themovie ends, the universe is dead. According to theSankhya philosophy, nothing dies really, what isdead is only cloaked under the cover of the cause.

Conclusion of Sankhya Philosophy:

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Laxman S. Joshi

The following description of Prakruti, may befound strange by an average reader in modern timesbut may be found also charming, haunting by asophisticated reader trained in modern physics.Modern physics involves study of particles such asquarks, mesons, baryons, etc. Mesons and baryonspossess various different attributes designated byterms such as strangeness, charm, beauty,bottomness, topness, and so on. It is hoped that thetwenty-first century reader will empathise with the5th century BC Sankhya philosophers in theirstruggle to describe their discoveries of thefundamental elements of the matter and theuniverse.

The primordial essence or the root cause of theuniverse is Prakruti. While explaining itsattributes, Sankhya-gurus invented the idea ofenumeration of the elementary objects by means ofnumbers. They hit upon the idea that the attributesof the root cause must be specified through definitenumbers. Sankhya philosophers (Sankhya inSanskrit means number) postulated threefundamental attributes of Prakruti: Satva, Rajas,

and Tomas. The Sanskrit word for attribute is Guna

which has a dual meaning: attribute or string.Prakruti is constituted of triple-strings the primaryelement. These strings are different from eachother, they are intertwined, and they are mutuallyopposite but cooperative. Attribute of Satva standsfor preservation of unity among many, harmony,expansion and intellectuality. Rajas meanscreation, initiation and action. While Tamas

accounts for motion, resistance, status quo, andinconsistency.

Beauty and goodness in the universe and life are theexpressions of Satva string. Rationality,knowledge, joy, virtues, arts, organisation etc. arealso the expressions of Satva string. Valour,dynamic tendency, hyperactivity and sorrow arethe effects of Rajas string. Darkness in theuniverse, state of inertia, ugliness and resistance todevelop in life are the outcome of Tamas string.Sankhya philosophy says: Man and the universe,are composed of the triple string Prakruti. The

constituents of human experience happiness,sorrow and greed reside in the form of root causeinside the Prakruti and the universe. This is theimplication of the statement: The core of theuniverse is happiness, sorrow and greed. Elementssuch as direction and time, included also in thecause, are the other attributes of Prakruti, which isan indivisible continuum that includes space andtime as its characteristics. Inclusion, entrance andexit, are the nature of Prakruti. Therefore, Timewhich includes senses such as direction, sequentialcreation, rise and demise surely is no other than anattribute of Prakruti.

Sankhya philosophy could not accept one of thetheories of Upanishads. It is regarding: ‘The causalsubstance of the universe as the soul!’ Thisprinciple was rejected because the soul or the self isexperienced only in the human body. Atman,

however, desires freedom by detaching itselfthrough exit from the wordly activities and thestruggle therein, fighting either against the evil orfor the good. If the Supreme Being, the root causeof the universe and the soul were to be one and thesame, the soul would not have desired detachmentand it would also have been futile to detach.Therefore, Sankhya philosophy had to postulateanother primary principle, the Purusha, separatefrom the Prakruti. The core principle of the soul isfreedom. Prakruti and its evolved form, theuniverse, is a limited field. If the causal elementaryobject of the universe would have been postulatedto be the soul, the Supreme Being, freedom wouldhave had no hope. Almost all other ideas inUpanishads were accepted more or less by theSankhya philosophers, with some intellectualrefinements. The Sankhya doctrine is anevolutionary development of the systematicenunciation of the Upanishadic theory!

Universe as an object is in its elemental form,indivisible, continuous, and unitary. Dynamics ofthe emergence of the universe from the nucleus ofthis object, and its disappearance are only atime-play. Essentially nothing emanates andnothing perishes. This indivisible eternal and

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pervasive object is the soul! With the study and debate of

this and similar thoughts in Upanishads, majorideological movements had begun. Philosophy ofBuddha thereafter is an important event.

Strange distinction of Philosophy of Buddha:

Buddha’s ideology is unique and it is different fromthat of other founders of religion or mahatmas. It isremarkably distinct. From antiquity to date,founders of religion and the mahatmas have beenasking us, ‘to cast aside our intellectual critique andkeep faith in the divine commandments,experiences or revelations that we have received.’As against this Buddha said, ‘This truth, which I amtelling you should be received only after it is put totest by the touch stone just like gold. It should notbe accepted because I am telling or because Isomeone great is announcing.’ Other founders ofreligion and the mahatmas have asserted that, ‘Thetruth and the preference of the other world and thesupreme being should be understood as superior tothat of this world.’ On the contrary, Buddha hasexplicitly instructed, ‘not to waste time in thediscussion of things beyond the range of humanmind such as the transcendental other world orthose belonging to paramatma, the Supreme Being.Buddha instead asks us to think of the unavoidableand the most difficult problems of life. Otherreligious founders have argued vociferously in

favour of the mystical principles such as the otherworld, asceticism, religious practices, mantra,

sacrifice, pyre, prayer, and divine chant on equalfooting with morality. Buddha on the contrary,dismissed mysticism, its consequent practices andassertions and presented to man the Aryasatya

meaning the eternal truths. Buddha preached thesetruths, untouched by any mysticism and clear likemathematics and instructed human beings to followthe middle path of self control. He revealed thesupreme value of the human life over that of theother world, deities and god. He denounced alsototally the means of sword and bloodshed, and theiruse any place anywhere, in human life. He pointedout to the consequences of egotism, obstinacy, andintolerance towards the views of the others. He feltthat this kind of intolerance is more cruel andhorrible than the sword itself. He also indicatedhow similar institutions are born in the womb oftraditional religious faiths. Therefore, Buddhafounded the religion which assigns premium valueto tolerance, nonadamance, egoless conversion ofopinion, rationalism and to the moral principlesthat can be determined with reason, clear likesunlight. From this only arose the various differentIndian philosophies, the Darshanas, the beautifulvisions.

Continued in the next issue..................

4


A Request to the Radical Humanists,

Dear friends,

We hope you are organising meetings & lectures or informal get-togethers wherever you are, in

India or abroad to add your little bit in celebrating M.N. Roy’s 125th

Birth Anniversary Year and

not missing the opportunity of acknowledging his contributions to modern Political Philosophy.

Please send us the reports and pictures of such programs so that we may publish and post them in

the RH & its Web Portal regularly during Roy’s entire Birth Anniversary Year.

—Rekha Saraswat

Guests’ Section:

[Bruce Hood is currently the Director of the

Bristol Cognitive Development Centre at the

University of Bristol. He has been a research

fellow at Cambridge University and University

College London, a visiting scientist at MIT, and a

faculty professor at Harvard. He has been

awarded an Alfred Sloan Fellowship in

neuroscience, the Young Investigator Award from

the International Society of Infancy Researchers,

the Robert Fantz Memorial Award and voted a

Fellow by the Association for Psychological

Science. He is the author of several books,

includingSuperSense: Why We Believe the

Unbelievable. This year he was selected as the

2011 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer—to

give three lectures broadcast by the BBC—the

most prestigious appointment for the public

engagement of science in the UK. Bruce was kind

enough to answer a few questions about his new

book,The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain

Creates Identity.—Sam Harris]

In what sense is the self anillusion?

For me, an illusion is a subjectiveexperience that is not what it seems.

Illusions are experiences in the mind, but they arenot out there in nature. Rather, they are eventsgenerated by the brain. Most of us have anexperience of a self. I certainly have one, and I donot doubt that others do as well – an autonomousindividual with a coherent identity and sense of freewill. But that experience is an illusion – it does not

exist independently of the person having theexperience, and it is certainly not what it seems.That’s not to say that the illusion is pointless.Experiencing a self illusion may have tangiblefunctional benefits in the way we think and act, butthat does not mean that it exists as an entity.

If the self is not what it seems, then what is it?

For most of us, the sense of our self is as anintegrated individual inhabiting a body. I think it ishelpful to distinguish between the two ways ofthinking about the self that William James talkedabout. There is conscious awareness of the presentmoment that he called the “I,” but there is also a selfthat reflects upon who we are in terms of ourhistory, our current activities and our future plans.James called this aspect of the self, “me” whichmost of us would recognize as our personalidentity—who we think we are. However, I thinkthat both the “I” and the “me” are actuallyever-changing narratives generated by our brain toprovide a coherent framework to organize theoutput of all the factors that contribute to ourthoughts and behaviors.

I think it helps to compare the experience of self tosubjective contours – illusions such as theKanizsapattern where you see an invisible shape that isreally defined entirely by the surrounding context.People understand that it is a trick of the mind butwhat they may not appreciate is that the brain isactually generating the neural activation as if the

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Bruce Hood

illusory shape was really there. In other words, thebrain is hallucinating the experience. There are nowmany studies revealing that illusions generate brainactivity as if they existed. They are not real but thebrain treats them as if they were.

Now that line of reasoning could be applied to allperception except that not all perception is anillusion. There are real shapes out there in the worldand other physical regularities that generatereliable states in the minds of others. The reasonthat the status of reality cannot be applied to theself, is that it does not exist independently of mybrain alone that is having the experience. It mayappear to have a consistency of regularity andstability that makes it seem real, but thoseproperties alone do not make it so.

Similar ideas about the self can be found inBuddhism and the writings of Hume and Spinoza.The difference is that there is now goodpsychological and physiological evidence tosupport these ideas that I cover in the book in a waythat I hope is accessible for the general reader.

Many readers might wonder where these narrativescome from, and who interprets them, if not a self?

I do not think there are many cognitive scientistswho would doubt that the experience of I isconstructed from a multitude of unconsciousmechanisms and processes. Me is similarlyconstructed, though we may be more aware of theevents that have shaped it over our lifetime. Butneither is cast in stone and both are open to allmanner of reinterpretation. As artists, illusionists,movie makers, and more recently experimentalpsychologists have repeatedly shown, consciousexperience is highly manipulatable and contextdependent. Our memories are also largelyabstracted reinterpretations of events – we all holddistorted memories of past experiences.

In the book, I emphasize the developmentalprocesses that shape our brains from infancyonwards to create our identities as well as thesystematic biases that distort the content of ouridentity to form a consistent narrative. I believe

much of that distortion and bias is socially relevantin terms of how we would like to be seen by others.We all think we would act and behave in a certainway, but the reality is that we are often mistaken.

Answering the question of who is experiencing theillusion or interpreting the story is much moreproblematic. This is partly a conceptual problemand partly a problem of dualism. It is almostimpossible to discuss the self without a referent inthe same way that is difficult to think about a playwithout any players. Second, as the philosopherGilbert Ryle pointed out, in searching for the self,one cannot simultaneously be the hunter and thehunted, and I think that is a dualistic problem if wethink we can objectively examine our own mindsindependently, because our mind and self are bothgenerated by the brain. So while the self illusionsuggests an illogical tautology, I think this is only asuperficial problem.

What role do you think childhood plays in shapingthe self?

Just about everything we value in life hassomething to do with other people. Much of thatinfluence occurs early in our development, which isone reason why human childhoods are soprolonged in comparison to other species. Weinvest so much effort and time into our children topass on as much knowledge and experience aspossible. It is worth noting that other species thathave long periods of rearing also tend to be moresocial and intelligent in terms of flexible, adaptivebehaviors. Babies are born social from the start butthey develop their sense of self throughoutchildhood as they move to become independentadults that eventually reproduce. I would contendthat the self continues to develop throughout alifetime, especially as our roles change toaccommodate others.

You talk about the role of social networking in theway we portray our self. Do you believe thistechnology is going to have a significant effect onus?

Honestly, I don’t know, and I spend a whole

6


chapter speculating on this. We are increasinglyspending more time on social networking sites, andI believe this will continue to become an integralpart of the way we interact. These are still earlydays, and it is not clear how these new technologiesare going to shape the social landscape, but we nowhave the capability to interact and be influenced byothers in ways never before imagined.

There are some interesting phenomena emerging.There is evidence of homophily – the groupingtogether of individuals who share a commonperspective, which is not too surprising. Moreinteresting is evidence of polarization. Rather thanopening up and exposing us to differentperspectives, social networking on the Internet canfoster more radicalization as we seek out otherswho share our positions. The more others validateour opinions, the more extreme we become. I don’tthink we need to be fearful, and I am less concernedthan the prophets of doom who predict the downfallof human civilization, but I believe it is true that theway we create the narrative of the self is changing.

If the self is an illusion, what is your position onfree will?”

Free will is certainly a major component of the selfillusion, but it is not synonymous. Both areillusions, but the self illusion extends beyond theissues of choice and culpability to other realms ofhuman experience. From what I understand, I thinkyou and I share the same basic position about thelogical impossibility of free will. I also think thatcompatibilism (that determinism and free will canco-exist) is incoherent. We certainly have morechoices today to do things that are not in accordwith our biology, and it may be true that we shouldtalk about free will in a meaningful way, as Dennetthas argued, but that seems irrelevant to the centralproblem of positing an entity that can make choicesindependently of the multitude of factors thatcontrol a decision. To me, the problem of free willis a logical impasse – we cannot choose the factorsthat ultimately influence what we do and think.That does not mean that we throw away the social,

moral, and legal rulebooks, but we need to bevigilant about the way our attitudes aboutindividuals will be challenged as we come tounderstand the factors (both material andpsychological) that control our behaviors when itcomes to attributing praise and blame. I believe thisis somewhat akin to your position.

Many people may find your conclusion about theself somewhat depressing. What benefit, if any, cana reader expect to gain from your book?

That was the same reaction I got from mostpublishers when we sent the book proposal out forconsideration. I think they failed to appreciate thatthe self illusion explains so many aspects of humanbehavior as well as our attitudes toward others.When we judge others, we consider themresponsible for their actions. But was Mary Bale,the bank worker from Coventry who was caught onvideo dropping a cat into a garbage can, being trueto her self? Or was Mel Gibson’s drunkenanti-Semitic rant being himself or under theinfluence of someone else? What motivatedSenator Weiner to text naked pictures of himself towomen he did not know? In the book, I considersome of the extremes of human behavior from massmurderers with brain tumors that may have madethem kill, to rising politicians who self-destruct. Byrejecting the notion of a core self and consideringhow we are a multitude of competing urges andimpulses, I think it is easier to understand why wesuddenly go off the rails. It explains why we act,often unconsciously, in a way that is inconsistentwith our self image – or the image of our self as webelieve others see us.

That said, the self illusion is probably aninescapable experience we need for interactingwith others and the world, and indeed we cannotreadily abandon or ignore its influence, but weshould be skeptical that each of us is the coherent,integrated entity we assume we are.

Interview taken from Sam Harris Blog:

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-illusio

n-of-the-self2

7


Current Affairs Section:

[Prof K.S.Chalam is a former Member, Union

Public Service Commission, New Delhi. He was

Vice-Chancellor, Dravidian University, Kuppam,

A.P. and earlier Prof of Economics at Andhra

University. He was the first Director of Swamy

Ramanand Tirtha Rural Institute, Bhoodan

Pochampally during 1997-98. He is known as the

pioneer of the Academic Staff College Scheme in

the country as the scheme was strengthened by

UGC on the basis of his experiments in 1985. He

became the first founder director of the Academic

Staff College at Andhra University in 1987. He

was actively involved in the teachers’ movement,

secular and rationalist activities and served as

the National Secretary, Amnesty International

during [email protected]]

European crisis and India

The third world scholars and thinkers likeEdward Said and Samir Amin have

raised the issue of Euro- centrism in history, cultureand political economy. Economists on the otherhand have developed theories of export led growthor import substitution strategies of development fordeveloping countries. The euphoria of Washingtonconsensus that has guided globalization seems tohave slowed down due to the failure of marketsupported theories in most of the countries wherethere is gloom now. It is in this context, we need tolook at the European economic crisis may be

political turmoil in this region and its broadimplications for India. Dr Man Mohan Singh as aneconomist in his recent visit to G20 and Rio hasstrategically used the situation in appealing to theWest to invest in infrastructure projects as theywere searching for investment destinations in thebackground of economic crisis. The economicpredicament emanated with subprime crisis in theUSA and is spreading to rest of the world.Interestingly, Dr Singh seems to have realized thatthe solutions to our economic setbacks are to besought within.

One may ponder over here that USA is not anisolated newfound land any longer. It is anextension of Europe. We will find that all theEuropean nations are represented in the USA, butthe population data does not speak about them andonly lists Asians, Hispanics, African Americansand undocumented immigrants. The OECD andEuropean Union are economic blocks of theAnglo-Saxon or occidental nations that havecolonies in the present third world including India.The desire to continue the past hegemony and thelifestyles based on plunder appears to be hauntingthem unconsciously through the policies andstrategies recommended by them to the third world.The nations that have seriously taken their adviceare now in jitters despite of their sovereign entities.It is due to the fact that their economies have beendeeply engaged with them and the contagion issuspected to be imminent.

The European crisis has been discussed wheneverthere was an economic slowdown in recent monthsand particularly with reference to Greece, Spain,and Portugal etc. The economic crisis in Greeceonce seriously talked about as a failed nation in themedia has suddenly disappeared once the rightwing New Democracy took the reins of power inrecent elections. The political economy of Greeceis a very interesting case study to understand someof the contemporary issues. The political atlas ofGreece was dominated by two political parties,PASOK, socialist party and N D, new democracy ,the former a left oriented party and the latter a right

8


K.S. Chalam

wing group. There are several formations like theEuro communists and others playing second fiddlein the coalitions. It appears that the Indian politicaldrama is enacted in Greece or vice versa. Thesuccessive governments, some of them calledthemselves as socialist, have expanded publicsector and helped to improve the fortunes ofinterest groups. The system has acquired thecharacter of according to some scholars,‘bureaucratic clientalism’ , serving the interests ofthe political parties in power. This has facilitatedthe country to raise loans to tide over theireconomic needs. As a result, the fiscal deficit of thecountry has reached 15 percent of GDP and forcedit to approach IMF, for a loan. The IMF has grantedloan on very stringent conditionality that peevedthe political establishment. It seems that wasbeginning of the crisis in Greece. Interestingly, twoof the Greek innovations, democracy and tragedyare being performed live.

The GDP of the country according to World Bankdata in 2010 was $302 billion. It has a total publicdebt of $481 billion, almost one and half of itsGDP. It is a serious problem. The crux of theEuropean crisis is that they have barrowed mostlyfrom European Banks at an exorbitant rate of 18 percent interest. It is reported that out of $2.84 trillionof the European Central Bank capital, $ 637 billionare given as loans to Portugal, Ireland, Greece andSpain. The problem of Spain is not public debt butprivate debt where fiscal deficit has reached a peakat 8.9 percent of GDP in 2011. The private debt ofSpain is alleged to be having links with real estatebubble that may go around 90 per cent of its GDP.The implications of the Greece profligacyaccording to some scholars is that, it has helpeddistrust on political parties that led to change ofgovernments in quick succession. Rampantcorruption seems to be both cause and consequenceof demeanor of public servants. The popularVatopedi land scam during the period of NewDemocracy in power is a case of how publicproperties were converted as private estates. Thesocialist party is also not impervious from this. As

in India, the Parliamentary committee appointed toenquire in to the allegations has failed to reach anyconclusion except naming five ministers who wereinvolved in the land scam.

The unemployment rate ranges between 16 to 19per cent during the last few years. There are reportsof riots by the unemployed groups and theemergence of a new movement called ‘I don’t paytax’. The rate of growth of the economy hasdropped to less than 0.5 per cent and to negativerates in recent years. Then why the Europeans andthe Americans and therefore the world are worriedabout the events in Greece and other Europeancountries noted above. As I pointed out earlier, theUSA is not an autonomous sovereign country, it isan extension of the Europe and has been sustainedby few families led MNCs that control theeconomic fortunes of the World. More than 50percent of the World’s GDP is from USA and E U.Interestingly, out of 500 billionaires of the World(Forbes) 425 originate in USA and the exclusiveshare of Greece is 12 including the World’s richestperson John Paul De Joria. The billionaires haveaccumulated the wealth through Banking, Oil andGas, Pharmacy and Real Estate. One may noticethat banking, real estate and related fields likecement and concrete mixture are the sectors inwhich Greece was deeply involved both within andoutside the country. It is conjectural to say that themoney must have gone in to the pockets of superrich that had political connections. Who knows, itmay be a political game?

There is lot of discussion in India about the fall outof European crisis. It appears that India has verylittle connection apparently through trade. It isfound that our trade balance with Europe isnegative except for the year 2011. In fact, Chinaalong with Hong Kong has higher proportion oftrade with India much higher than USA. Our tradewith Middle East is very significant in terms ofexports, imports and in proportion to our total valueof trade. It is alleged that the real estate bubble is anartificial opportunity created for the Europeans toexploit the situation with their hedge funds to

9


amass huge profits through financial and bankingmaneuvering. The Financial Crisis Inquirycommission USA 2011, has said that “the crisiswas avoidable and was caused by widespreadfailures in financial regulations… to stem the tideof toxic mortgages, dramatic breakdowns incorporate governance…in accountability andethics at all levels”. Why should India bother aboutit?

It is strange to find a country that boasts of a highforeign exchange reserves and an overall positivebalance of around $ 55719 million in the year2011-12 and a positive trade balance withEuropean Union is behaving wobbly to look at theEuropean crisis. What could be the reason? It is aknown fact that 60 percent of the global currencyreserves are in US dollars. It is said that thepersistent current account surpluses of China andother Asian economies would serve to finance theUS current deficit at favorable terms. This must

have made some of the financial institutions in theUS to act recklessly and have taken too much risk atothers peril. Some analysts allege that the exchangerate and the dollar reserves are positioned inproportion to the strength of the military power ofUS. India is an open economy now and amenable toall kinds of investments including the toxicderivatives through the share and money marketsroute. It is perilous in view of the fact that themarket capitalization in India as per SEBI data bythe end of December 2011 was Rs 1.05 crorecrores. It means that the value of the capitalizationis one and half times that of our GDP. We do notknow how the channels are operating inmanipulating the markets despite of our sincerewatch dog RBI. Those who are in the policymaking with intimate connections with the marketsand international agencies would alone know aboutthe future of the Indian economy and may bepolitics in the months to come?

10


Letter to the Editor:

Respected Madam,

Expressing my profound respect for the Royist scholar Swarajbrata Sengupta, I pen down mydissenting note on his article Creative Imagination: Instincts, Impulses and Values’.

Three towering Intellectuals of the Nineteenth Century were Marx, Darwin and Freud. Of them, theideas of Marx and Freud are not accepted as scientific theories because of the inapplicability of ‘theprinciple of fallibility’ to them. Yet each one’s genius shaped many defining features of the TwentiethCentury.

Both Anthropology and Neuro-Science have outdated many prominent ideas of Freud. Freud’s stresson Aggression sex as the dominant landmarks of the unconscious has been challenged by leadingmodern Anthropologists and Neuro-scientists.

Freud stuck to his guns even when Einstein questioned him about the role of instincts in wars. In 1986,twenty leading scientist of the world gathered t Seville to make a declaration, “ It is scientificallyincorrect to say that war is cussed by instinct or any single motivation”. To quote a leadingNeuro-Scientist of the world, V.S. Ram Chandran. “ For most of the Twentieth entry, all we had in theway of offering were two theoretical edifices Freudism and Behaviorism, both of which would bedramatically eclipsed in the 1980 and 1990s.” (The Tell-Tale Brain : Preface).

Regards,

Sincerely yours,

Bhgwat Prashad ([email protected])

Rayagada, Odisha

[Justice Rajindar Sachar is Retd. Chief Justice of

High Court of Delhi, New Delhi. He is UN Special

Rapportuer on Housing, Ex. Member, U.N.

Sub-Commission on Prevention of

Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and

Ex-President, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties

(PUCL) India]

I

Strange Antics on MercyPetitions

visa-vis Death Penalty

President Patil just before her retirementhas been the subject of strong criticism

allegedly for accepting over 35 mercy petitions andcommuting death sentence to life imprisonment ofthese accused convicted of rape and murder ofchildren – an action which causes justifiablydisbelief and alarm. She is even said to havecommuted the sentence of a person who died 5years ago (showing a kind of sloth in disposing ofsuch delicate matters).

The Presidents office being naturally piqued atgetting the blame and finding an unexplained andunfair silence from Central Home Minister Mr.Chidambaram refusing to clarify that it was he whohad recommended the pardon has had to come outwith a press statement that all commutations are“not playing to the gallery” by the President butrather she has acted on the aid and advice of Home

Minister”. The President is on firm footing – it hasbeen held by the Supreme Court that pardon underArticle 72 of the constitution being an Executiveaction by the President is to be exercised on theadvice of Central government i.e. Home Minister,Govt. of India. Hence it is incumbent on Mr.Chidambaram to explain to the public as to whatwere the special considerations which led him torecommend pardon to these 35 accused held guiltyof most heinous crimes. This is an instance whereexplanation from the Home Ministry is urgentlyrequired if faith in even and serious dealing withsuch sensitive matters is to the accepted by thepublic – more so when President Patil is retiring innext three weeks. Mr. Chidambaram owes toPresident Patil to remove the unfair cloud, theblame for which if any has to be taken by him, andnot by her, who only did the ministerial act offollowing Home Minister’s advice, which she wasbound to accept under the constitution. The reasonsby Mr. Chidambaram need to be placed in publicdomain, so that electorate can profitably be amazehow such serious matters of life and death is dealtwith the home Ministry.

It also needs explaining that while Chidambaramhas had all the time for consideration and to givesuch unlikely pardons but, he has not found time toeven consider and deal with cases of Afzal Guru(J&K. Govt. has pleaded mercy for him). Thekillers of Rajiv Gandhi (T.N. Assembly, and evenSonia Gandhi has recommended it for some killers)and the case of Rajoona where Punjab Govt. haspleaded for him.)

This is all the more urgent because previousPresidents had specifically formulated certainguidelines before death sentence should beimposed. Thus President APJ Abdul Kalam whohad 25 mercy petitions pending before him onlydealt with two, rejecting one and pardoning theother. He took keen interest in laying down specificcriteria for consideration of the petitions. He madedetailed queries from the Home Ministry about thepoverty of the accused and whether the accused hadproper legal help for his defense and made queries


11

Rajindar Sachar

about other petitions and remanded them to theHome Minister for further clarification.

President K.R. Narayanan, also chose a similar roleby disposing one only out of 10 petitions pendingbefore him. Of course we had the opposite case ofPresident S.D. Sharma who rejected all 14 mercypetitions filed before him. These illustrations showthat even is disposing of mercy petitions, Presidentthough objective is yet sub consciously influencedby major inarticulate premise of their personalviews on the question of the death penalty. Thus acertain kind of arbitrariness at granting pardons isbound to happen. Let me clarify – for people likeme who advocate the abolition of death penalty,even a messy policy of pardons is to be welcomed,because at least by this process the horror of deathpenalty is somewhat lessened, because I fullyaccept stand of Dr. Ambedkar, who said, “I thinkthat the proper thing for this country to do is toabolish the death sentence altogether” and that ofJaya Prakesh Narain, Socialist leader who said,“Death sentence is no remedy for such crime”.

Ironically, after the rarest of rare doctrine of deathpenalty was propounded in 1980 by the SupremeCourt, it confirmed death penalty in 40 per cent ofcases in the period 1980- 90 whereas it was 37.7%in 1970-80. For the High Courts the figuresconfirming death sentence rose from 59% in1970-80 to 65% during 1980- 90. The vociferousopposition to abolition of death penalty springsfrom myth that it can lead to increase of murders.Facts show otherwise. Thus, in 1945-50 the Stateof Travancore, which had no death penalty, had962 murders whereas during 1950-55, when deathsentence was introduced, there were 967 murders.

A survey conducted by the United Nations in 1988concluded that research has failed to provide anyevidence that executions have a greater deterrenteffect than life imprisonment.

A survey released in September 2000 by The NewYork Times found that during the last 20 years thehomicide rate in the states with death penalty hasbeen 48 per cent to 101 per cent higher than in the

states without death penalty.

The death penalty has been abolished since 1965 inU.K. The membership of European Union isdependent on having no death penalty. This hasbeen done obviously in the confidence that murdersdo not get automatically reduced by retaining deathpenalty.

Since 1973, 123 prisoners have been released in theUSA after evidence emerged of their innocence ofthe crimes for which they were sentenced to death.

So far 139 countries, from all regions of the world,have abolished the death penalty and 150 have put amoratorium on death penalty. Mahatma Gandhiopenly proclaimed “I cannot in all conscience agreeto anyone being sent to the gallows, God alone cantake life because he alone gives it”. Must this landof Buddha and Gandhi continue to present such anegative face against human rights by retainingdeath penalty?

II

Pension for the elderly: It’s nocharity, but a human right

It is a truism, though painful, that theCentral government’s priorities in fiscal

matters are determined by the perceivedsensitivities of the foreign and Indian corporatesector and the richer class rather than the urgent andhumanitarian considerations for the poor and oldcitizens of India. How I wish that instead thegovernment was to show urgent attention to theplight of about 10 crore elderly people (8 per cent ofthe Indian population, with 1/6th of them livingwithout any family support). No doubt, under theCentral government’s pension scheme, personsabove the age of 60 get a pension of Rs 200 andthose above 80 years Rs 500 per month, but this isapplicable to those below the poverty line. Theuncertainly is increased by the ever-fluctuatingdetermination by the government of what should be

12


the poverty level; pensions vary in different states— Delhi paying a maximum of Rs 1000 per monthwhile others like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, etc, onlyRs 200 per month.

Of the total elderly population, only 1.97 crore arebeneficiaries of IGNOAPS, which means that onlyabout one in every five persons over 60 yearsreceives old-age pension.

Employment-linked pensions are restricted to theelderly in the organized sector or to those who areamong the rich and upper middle class categories.But the groups that are most in need of old agepension are largely in the unorganized sector.Between the year 2000 and 2010, the organizedsector added less than 0.3 per cent workersannually to the workforce while the GDP of thecountry more than doubledwith an annual rate of more than 7.55 per cent. It isclear that much of the contribution to this growthcame from the workers in the unorganized sector.But unlike the organized sector, workers in theunorganized sector do arduous manual labour oftenin the most difficult physical circumstances andwithout adequate nutrition and rest. Forcing themthen to work beyond the age of 55, in order tosurvive, amounts to a form of punishment. Thedemand for old age pension is thus not a demand forcharity but a demand for recognition of theircontribution to the economy, and the need-basedconstitutional principles which are to be applied.As Chief Justice of India S. H. Kapadia hasexpounded in Human Rights Year-Book 2011,“What is the need-based approach? Supposingthere is no statute but the right to life is involved, isit open to the defense to say tight resource, financialcrunch? The answer is ‘no’ because the right to lifeis there in Article 21 of the Constitution and thedefense cannot toll the bell of tight resource. Takethe case of food security. Two out of five people arebelow poverty line, and if pension is to be paid tothem, the government cannot say I have no money.Now this is what I mean by revisiting welfarerights. And that is where if enforceability is therethe rule of law will prevail.” (Emphasis supplied)

The insensitive and negative approach of variousstate governments and the Central government tothe plight of five crore people in the unorganizedsector in the construction industry would show thegovernment’s anti-poor face, especially in the waythey have dealt with the report of the Justice V. R.Krishna Iyer Committee given decades back.

One of the key recommendation and which onpaper has even been accepted by the Governmentof India but it has persistently refused to enforce inthe manner in which the scheme of contribution bythe employer along with a contribution byemployee is to operate.

Now as construction industry worker is a migrantand has necessarily to be on the move for findingemployment, it was accepted by the governmentthat the contribution of the employer and theemployee will be deposited in a computerized bankaccount with a specific identity number for eachindividual workman. This was so decided becauseconstruction labour being migratory, with the resultthat if a new account was to be opened every timewith separate employers, his past accumulation wasin danger of becoming irrecoverable. So, the waysuggested was that each employer will deposit hiscontribution in a fixed numbered identity accountgiven to the employee, and which will be honouredby all banks anywhere in the country. But this nothaving been done, the result is that at least Rs 5000crore of the Employees Provident Fund is lying inbanks but has not been disbursed to the workersbecause the government has not yet allotted themtheir identity account numbers. The result is thatlakhs of workers are continuing to be nearstarvation line.

Another callous indifference of the government isshown by the fact that though all governmentcontracts provide for the contractor to maketemporary but proper accommodation for theconstruction labour at the site, it is commonknowledge that contractors mixed up withdishonest inspectors do nothing of the kind —forcing female workers to use open toilets and

13


leaving children to the vagaries of weather with noshelters built. A simple solution is for thegovernment itself to provide these facilities andadjust funds at present being given to thecontractors. In spite of protests by workers, nothinghas moved — probably, the contractor-inspectionnexus is all powerful.

The Central government has unapologeticallyannounced many concessions for the corporatesector and the rich with the shameful claim thatprosperity so generated will move down andimprove the condition of the poor. This is a falseclaim as given in a warning by Noble LaureateJoseph Stiglitz — “The theory of trickle-downeconomics is a lie”.

According to the ILO’s 2010-11 World SocialSecurity Report, the ILO’s new recommendation

on social protection sets nationally definedguarantees aimed at universal access to minimumincome security, especially during old age, and thatsuch guarantees are a human right and an ethicalimperative of governments. How can the Centralgovernment remain silent?

Governments cannot negate the claim for pensionsfor the old by pleading that development has to takeprecedence over poverty reduction. This is aspecious argument that shows that poverty is along-term problem and that current deficitsrepresent a short-term emergency, that poverty canwait but deficits cannot. This is muddle-headedthinking. To reduce and eliminate massive absolutepoverty lies at the very core of development itself.It is critical to the survival of any democratic anddecent society.

14


[Mr. Mastram Kapoor is a freelance writer and

journalist in Hindi. He has written, edited and

translated more than 100 books and pamphlets on

literature, social and political thought, education

and children’s literature including 11 volumes of

documents on freedom movement and 17 volumes

of collected works of Dr. Lohia. He has had a long

association with the socialist movement. His

special interests of study are Mahatma Gandhi,

Dr. Rammanohar Lohia, Jaiprakash Narayan,

Acharya Narendra Deva, Madhu Limaye and Dr.

B.R. Ambedkar.79-B, Pocket-II, Mayur Vihar

Phase-I, Delhi-91, Phone- 22710479

[email protected].]

An Apology to a Gentleman –

Justice B. Sudarshan Reddy

Dear Sir,

I owe you an apology for dragging your name in thePresident’s election which I hoped could be anoccasion for bringing about a healthy change in thedull political atmosphere of this country. I amsorry, the occasion turned out to be duller and moresickening in view of the total surrender of theopposition to the will and manipulations of theruling party.

What I conclude from this sordid drama is that thereis an all round crisis, which is not limited to thestate management (meaning now facilitatingcorporate sector) but has extended to the minds ofthe politicians, academicians and various kinds of

intellectuals. No one questioned why in ademocracy, there should be a President selected byconsensus of party-bosses rather than a President,elected in a democratic way. No one raised thepoint that in no democratic country, the oppositiongives smooth walk-over to ruling party’s candidate.It seems that the Congress is behaving as if it has adivine mandate to rule even though it has lost thecapacity to steer and has given up to mere drifting.The opposition has lost the will to power (inLohia’s words) and their leaders seem to beenjoying their present status as regional satraps orcaste leaders or as shadow prime minister,ministers and governors.

Surprisingly, Lord Meghnath Desai, aLondon-based Indian intellectual and member ofHouse of Lords, in his column in The IndianExpress (July 8, 2012) gave a small hint that thetendency to select the President by consensus, isdue to love for dynastic rule, which the Congressnever tried to cast-off. According to Shri Desai, theonly time when this effort was made when after theassassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, President R.Venkatraman suggested to his Vice-President Dr.Shankar Dayal Sharma that he should accept thepost of President of the Congress Party, so that hecould become the Prime Minister. He says it wasCongress Party’s own device to change thetradition. What really happened on that occasioncould not be imagined by Shri Desai due to longdistant. This scene has been aptly described by(Late) Shri Madhu Limaye in one of his articles.According to him, it was a clever move on the partof the President, R. Venkatraman, who wanted tosecure for himself a second term of President-ship,after forming a national government with ShankarDayal Sharma as Prime Minister, Shankar DayalSharma cleverly refused because he eyed onpermanent promotion as President rather than apurely temporary promotion as Prime Minister.This was a repetition of the trick played by GyaniZail Singh on his Vice-President, R. Venkatraman.When Zail Singh’s term was about to end, hewanted to dismiss Rajiv Gandhi and form a national

15


Mastram Kapoor

government with R. Venkatraman as PrimeMinister, with an eye on second term for himself.But the offer was refused because Venkatramantoo, wanted to be a full time President rather than atemporary Prime Minister. Lord Desai was not in aposition to see this internal struggle of the nobleminds.

I can’t exactly say what transpired in my mindwhen I thought of your name as an ideal President.May be, I was moved by your two judgmentsregarding black money and Salva Judum which youdelivered together with your colleague Justice S.S.Nijhar, before your retirement or may be, it was dueto your lecture on Dr. Lohia, in the Law Institute ofIndia. The main consideration in my mind was thatthe President should not belong to the ruling partyand it would be best if he didn’t belong to any party.In the present situation I thought that a man withdeep understanding of and commitment to theConstitution would be best as President, since ourwhole political set-up is being taken over by someunconstitutional elements and there must besomeone worthy to keep an eye on them. I alsothought that if a person like you will enter theRashtrapati Bhavan, it may respond to some of thecalls of Mahatma Gandhi, say of austerity andopenness.

I also had in mind some other things which I used todiscuss with my sagacious friend Ravela Somaiyawhose proximity to you suggested to me that Ishould request you to agree to stand for electionwithout expecting a win, according to Lohia’sprescription of ‘Nirasha Ke Kartavya’ (to actwithout hope). Your first reaction was to laugh outthe suggestion but after thinking over seriously youagreed to become sacrificial goat. I was deeplymoved by your generosity.

But in working for all this, I was not merelythinking of the present political conditions. Therewere also some other questions in my mind which Ithought could be solved with your little help fromRashtrapati Bhavan. It has pained me after theexperience of 72 years of my political awareness

that the whole structure of the State___ Executive,Legislature and Judiciary___ had so far doggedlyopposed the highest goal of the Constitution, toensure equality and fraternity to all. To eliminateinequality, abolition of caste was necessary forwhich the scheme of reservations or specialopportunities to the classes, who have sufferedfrom the caste-system, was laid down in theConstitution. It was confirmed by Supreme Courtin Indira Sahani Judgement (1992) that the aim ofreservation is abolition of caste. But thegovernments never tried seriously to enforceArticle 16(4) (which provided reservations), northe Supreme Court directed the government to doso. Neither the government nor the Supreme Courtdefined the words ‘adequate representation’, nordid they order the caste-wise census along withgeneral census to obtain the figures of ‘social andeducational backwardness of the classes ofcitizens’ on the basis of which adequate orinadequate representation could be ascertained andclasses having got adequate representation, couldbe removed from the reserved category to thegeneral category thus ensuring approximateequality among all sections of population andultimate elimination of caste system. Allgovernments, right from Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru’s toDr. Manmohan Singh’s, with the exception of thatof H.D. Devegowda, firmly opposed the caste-wisecensus, which used to be carried out by the Britishgovernment from 1872 to 1932. WhenDevegowda’s government sanctioned it, theCongress withdrew its support to that governmentresulting in its fall and the subsequent governmentheaded by Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, after takingoath, performed the first act to cancel the orderissued by Devegowda’s government. Compelledby people’s agitation and clamour in Parliament,Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, gave anassurance in the Parliament that this governmentwill soon order caste-wise census, but he soonforgot his promise and instead sanctioned about Rs45000 crore scheme of Unique Identification Cardsto facilitate corporate sector and enforce mass

16


surveillance over people in the style of a fasciststate. Even the Supreme Court didn’t extend ahelping hand to this problem and it refused to evenentertain the special petitions requesting forcaste-census, one moved by Madhu Limaye, in1992 and other by this writer and several others in2010 and 2011. How could the reservation schemeof the Constitution be implemented when even thefirst step of obtaining reliable and scientific dataregarding castes was so resolutely resisted? I amsure, all this is not merely “measurableunderachievement” (in Amartya Sen’s words) it iswillful non-achievement. It is open defiance by theupper castes in order to protect their centuries oldprivileges bestowed upon them by thecaste-system.

The other question in my mind was that of languageof administration and instruction. The Nehrugovernment imposed a permanent slavery of aforeign language on Indian people. A languagespoken and understood by not more than two and ahalf or three percent population made the wholebusiness of state mystic utterances of the sorcerersfor the 97 percent of population. This gave fullfreedom for corruption, nepotism and inefficiencyto all concerned with the business of the state. Notonly this, the slavery of the foreign language,stifled the growth of our languages (which havehistory older than of English) resulting indumbness of masses and all round backwardness ofour vast population.

The two big road-blocks described above (leavingaside some others) have been simply ignored byEnglish-educated classes and some of their selectindividuals have even threatened a civil war overthe demand to remove them. But the injury theyhave caused to the nation is beyond the imaginationof these people. The first road-block has snatchedfrom 90 percent population of this country whatthey had earned through centuries of sufferings___

the hope of freedom from caste-slavery. The otherroad-block has hit even harder by erasing thememory of the nation which is unpardonable crimein History. With a foreign language as medium ofinstruction, all hopes of providing education to allof our children are lost forever since we couldprovide education to only 10 percent of our childpopulation in last 65 years.

I hoped that these two logjams of reservations andlanguage could be broken or at least consideredseriously by the central government and theSupreme Court, if a President sympathetic to thesecauses was in Rashtrapati Bhavan. His reference tothe Supreme Court or advice to the Prime Ministercould make a definite dent on the stone wall.

I am sad, for we failed and caused youembarrassment but I assure you that we will notgive up our determination to find out a new path tocome out of thick jungle for which we may againseek your cooperation.

With regards,

Mastram Kapoor

17



Dear Editor,

For the first time a brief history of Radical Humanist Movement in Andhra Pradesh (1940-2012) is

brought out in Telugu and English with pictures and blog addresses.

Http://paradarsi.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/humanist-history-in-a-p/

Kindly circulate this news to all the RH friends.

— Innaiah Narisetti, ([email protected])

[Sri N.K. Acharya is an

advocate, columnist and author

of several books on law. He was

formerly Secretary of Indian

Rationalist Association and had

edited the Indian Rationalist,

then published from Hyderabad

on behalf of the Association prior

to its transfer to Madras.]

Minister’s Costs

Recently, the Courts are issuing summonsto the Ministers in corruption cases and

the Ministers are defending themselves byappointing the Government Counsel and spendingGovernment money towards expenses required inthat connection. The question raised is whether aMinister is entitled to utilise Government funds fordefending himself in such cases? The furtherquestion is that if he is found or required to paycompensation, should the Government bear suchmonetary burden on behalf of the Minister? Therehave been instances of Government servantsinvolved in suits filed against the Government,being summoned and required to file theirdefences. In all such cases, when the Governmentservant is held to be personally responsible, theCourts have directed no part of the financial burdenshall be borne by the Government and theGovernment servant shall make arrangements ofhis own for his defence. The Courts further heldthat such Government servant is not entitled to the

services of the Government Pleader. In the case,where Army men are held responsible for theexcesses committed by them the Supreme Courtheld that the compensation payable by theGovernment to the victims of Army excesses, shallbe recovered from the salary and pension due to theArmy men. Hence, it is just and proper when theMinister is made a party and he is summoned by theCourt, he shall make his own arrangements for hisdefence and he shall not be entitled to utilise anystate or funds for his defence. Before issuingsummons/however, the court must decide whetherthe summon issued or so issued to the Minister inthe capacity as Minister or in his personal capacity,The allegations in the proceedings must clearlystate that the act complained of is the act for whichthe Minister is made answerable or as a personacting in abuse of his powers. It is only in suchcases, the Minister is not entitled to the services ofGovernment Pleader and not in cases of routinenature where the Minister is made as a party as partof Government machinery. In case, where aMinister is made a party to explain certain mattersto the Court or make available the relevant, recordand not as a person liable to the complaint, he isentitled to use the Government machinery.Therefore, it is advised that the parties who filesuits or complaints against the Government shall inthe first instance add the appropriate Governmentas a party and add the concerned Minister also as aparty, in his individual capacity.

18


N.K. Acharya

The Radical Humanist—Rates Of Advertisement/Insertion-

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IRHA/IRI Members’ Section:

[Dr. N. Innaiah, former Director, Centre for

Inquiry (CFI), India, did his Ph.D on Philosophy

of Modern Science. He is a veteran Radical

Humanist who has translated maximum books

written by M.N Roy as well as other books on

Humanism in Telugu. He has recently completed

his Autobiography. Excerpts from the same are

being published here.He is now based in the

U.S.A. [email protected]]

Excerpts from NarisettiInnaiah’s Autobiography

Humanist movement: I stepped up my activitieslike writing articles for The Radical Humanist andtranslating Humanist literature into Telugu onmoving into the New MLA Quarters in 1968organizing an all-India Humanist conference apartfrom seminars and workshops at the New MLAQuarters itself. Many Humanist leaders likePremanath Bajaj, V.B. Karnik, and V.M. Tarkundetook part in the all-India conference. We gotBazaj’s sensational work on the Bhagavadgita

reviewed in newspapers. Narla Venkateswara Rao,to whom I introduced Bajaj, was highly impressedwith the work. Whenever Humanist leaders likeC.T. Daru (from Ahmedabad) and A.B. Shahvisited Hyderabad, I took them to Andhra. I oncetook V.B. Karnik to Guntur. V.B. Karnik often tookpart in seminars at the Administrative College ofIndia in Hyderabad, where G.R. Dalvi worked.Komala interviewed Nissim Ez’ekiel for a radioprogram when he attended a seminar in Hyderabad.

I took part in the seminar along with him.Lakshman Sastri Joshi, J.B.H. Wadia and IndumatiParekh were among those who visited Hyderabadand shared their experiences with us. We organizedHumanist meetings relentlessly for over a decadeand helped spread the movement. Later, I metIndumati Parekh in Washington in 1994. I took partin various all-India Humanist conferences atBombay, Delhi, Dehradun, Shanti Niketan,Calcutta, and Nagpur.

Rationalist movement: Only after I settled downin life after marriage in 1964, I could pursueeducation and take part in movementssimultaneously. The rationalist movement hadbeen limping in the State and the country by then.Crippled by old age, Editor S. Ramanathan hadhalted publication of Indian Rationalist, themagazine in English. Even in Bombay andMaharashtra, the movement was on the wane.Rationalists met at Avula Sambasiva Rao’sresidence and discussed ways and means ofreviving the movement. The participants includedN.K. Acharya, Narra Kotaiah, Y. Raghavaiah(Professor of Public Administration in OsmaniaUniversity), A.L. Narasimha Rao (journalist), JastiJawaharlal (an employee in the Auditor General’soffice), and Polu Satyanarayana. JayagopalSuryanarayana from Madras extended his support.We revived the monthly magazine with AvulaSambasiva Rao as Editor, and N.K. Acharya’shome as its office. A.L. Narasimha Rao took care ofprinting. I wrote every month on rationalism andrelated subjects. N.K. Acharya strove to bring outthe magazine to the best of his ability, because hetoo had had no experience in running a magazine.Sambasiva Rao soon became a judge. At that point,Jayagopal Suryanarayana volunteered to run themagazine from Madras. The rationalist movementhad its origin in Bombay in the 1930s with stalwartslike Abraham Solomon, Lokhandawala, and R.P.Paranjape leading it. In Andhra, AvulaGopalakrishna Murthy and M.V. Rama Murthyshouldered the responsibility of spreading it.Leaders like M.N. Roy and Annadurai took part in


19

Innaiah Narisetti

its all-India conferences. Robert G. Ingersol’scritiques of the Bible appealed to the public. Thewritings of Charles Bradlaw, and Haliac wereinspiring. Later on, rationalist societies sprang upin places like Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur,Tenali, Chirala and Mangalagiri and spread themovement. I took part in some study camps andconferences. Charvaka magazine, founded byThotakura Babu, attracted the youth. The summerclasses conducted by us had drawn Babu into therationalist fold. Abraham Kovur gave a big boost tothe rationalist movement with his tour of Andhra.Magic and hypnotism shows formed part of theKovur tour. I joined Kovur in his public meetings.Komala, Naveena attended the program at GandhiBhavan. Sanal Edamrukku from Kerala with hismagic shows exposed the so-called spiritual guruswho claimed miraculous powers. Later onRavipudi Venkatradri, Katti Padma Rao,Ramakrishna (of Charvaka School), Jayagopal(Visakhapatnam) and M. V. Rama Murthy playedan active role in running the movement. Icontributed by writing articles and bringing outbooks. Although rationalist societies existed, theywere not strong. Their magazines had limitedcirculation. Some societies conducted summerclasses.

Secular movement: I entered into correspondencewith A.B. Shah within a few days of my marriage.Amritlal Bhikku Shah of Poona was running thesecular movement from Bombay. He was a greatintellectual who incisively studied and followedM.N. Roy’s humanist movement right from 1948.He sought my help in spreading the secularmovement in Andhra Pradesh. I readily agreedsince the assignment was dear to my heart. By1964, A.B. Shah had founded NachiketaPublications, brought out literature, started SecularSociety and ran the magazine Secularist. AlthoughI agreed to assist A.B. Shah, I did not have theresources to travel and undertake the task entrustedto me. Understanding my plight, A.B. Shah offeredto pay me Rs.120 a month towards travel expenses,besides 50 percent of the sale proceeds of

Nachiketa books as commission. I requisitionedNachiketa books and sold as many as could be soldin Hyderabad, Tenali, Guntur and Vijayawada.Gurajala Seetaramaiah in Tenali and KoneruKutumbarao in Vijaywada helped me in the salesdrive. In Hyderabad, I myself sold the books to myfriends. I conducted many seminars anddiscussions with A.B. Shah himself as the chiefguest organizing discussions with religious groupslike the Tamir-e-Millat, Jamat-e-Islam, MuslimLeague, and the Jana Sangh. Osmania University’sInstitute of Asian Studies provided me the forumfor conducting the debates at the YMCA Hall.Among the participants in the discussions wereA.B. Shah, V.K. Sinha, Rashiduddin Khan, AlamKhundmiri, Anwar Mozam, Moginitha Bassum,Mohitsen and Lakshminarayana. We organizeddiscussions with people like K. Seshadri andB.A.V. Sarma and brought out the contents in abook form. All such activities helped to spread thesecular movement. We organized debates on PuriSankaracharya’s views and on cow slaughter ban.We organized A.B. Shah meetings at Guntur,Vijayawada, Tenali, and Avanigadda. A.B. Shah’slecture at A.C. College in Guntur impressed manystudents. He also addressed the Bar Association.A.B. Shah took part in the study classes weorganized at Avanigadda for five days during1965-66. Many prominent humanists, rationalists,and atheists took Gopalakrishna Murthy, M.V.Rama Murthy, Ravipudi Venkatadri, N.V.Brahmam, G.V. Krishna Rao, and TripuraneniVenkateswara Rao. Koneru Kutumba Rao,Mandava Srirama Murthy, and I organized theAvanigadda classes. The press coverage was good.A.B. Shah held discussions with a number ofpeople during his Avanigadda stay. A. B. Shahcalled on the bed-ridden Avula GopalakrishnaMurthy at Tenali in 1967 and persuaded him toundergo treatment in Madras for his heart ailment.However, he passed away before leaving forMadras. A.B. Shah succeeded in spreading thesecular movement in Andhra Pradesh withassistance from people like Polu Satyanarayana

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and B.V. Sarma, besides me. The movementsuffered a setback with Shah’s demise in 1982.M.N. Roy spelt out clearly and scientifically whatsecularism means and he followed hisinterpretation meticulously. Secularism impliesthat State and religion are separate. Religiousbeliefs should remain personal and not be injectedinto governance. There should be one commoncivil law for all communities. I translated hisarticles into Telugu. Anupama Publicationscompiled them and brought out a book in 1968.Prof. Kotha Satchidananda Murthy wrote theforeword and addressed a meeting held to mark itsrelease. Suryadevara Hanumantha Rao of Tenalipublished the book, Secularism, written by PoluSatyanarayana, on my request. I invited HamidDalwai, who assisted A.B. Shah in Bomaby, toHyderabad. I translated his work Muslim Politics

and serialised it in Prasaritha, a quarterlymagazine. Shah cast his influence onTelugu-speaking people from 1964 to 1982. Iintroduced him to Chief Minister BhavanmVenkatram, Alapati Ravindranath, and NarlaVenkateswara Rao in Hyderabad. He impressed allof them. At his instance, I inquired into thebackground of the family of Osmania UniversityVice Chancellor Nookala Narotham Reddy whenShah’s daughter wanted to marry NarothamReddy’s son. The marriage took place but ended upin divorce later.

Shah helped me with my Ph.D. thesis by sendingme the manuscript of ‘Philosophical Consequences

of Modern Science, which M.N. Roy authored injail. I took down notes and returned the manuscript.

He relished his pipe. Both of us enjoyed drinking inmoderation. He suffered a heart attack during avisit to Hyderabad to take part in a seminar butrevealed it to me only after his return to Poona.Shocked and surprised, I conveyed my indignation.Occasionally, I took part in all-India seminarsalong with him in Bombay. His influence on me isdeep. I translated his Scientific Method into Teluguand got it included in the curriculum for M.A.Philosophy in Osmania University. He was knownfor his clarity in thinking and perfection inarticulation. His demise in 1982 at the age of 62came as a setback to the secular movement ingeneral and me in particular. He was next only toAvula Goapalakrishna Murthy among intellectualswho captivated me.

A.B. Shah had suggested to the U.S. publishers ofthe ‘Encyclopedia of Unbelief’ that they include anarticle on India and entrust the job of writing it tome. In response to an invitation from EditorGordon Stein, I did the piece. That he made thesuggestion to the publishers without informing mebeforehand testifies the immense confidence hehad in me. It was only through him that I learnt ofMinerva, the magazine of Edward Shills, andIntellectuals, the work by a Chicago UniversitySociology Professor.

A.B. Shah brought out eight issues of Humanist

quarterly systematically. He was the first to studythe 22 doctrines propounded by M.N. Royscientifically and publish them. Although he wasborn into a Digambar Jain family in Gujarat, hegrew into a humanist, settled in Poona and taught inBombay. He was a knowledgeable critic.

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Request to the Contributers:

Dear Friends, Please do not send articles beyond 1500-2000 words. Also, please inform whether theyhave been published elsewhere. And, do try to email them at [email protected] instead of sendingthem by post. You may post them (only if email is not possible) at: C-8 Defence Colony, Meerut,

250001, U.P., India. Do also email your passport size photographs as separate attachments (in JPGformat) as well as your introduction details, if you are contributing for the first time. Please feel free tocontact me at 91-9719333011 for any other querry.

—Rekha Saraswat

Why FDI?—By Jawaharlal Jasthi

[Mr. Jawahar Lal Jasti was introduced toRadical Humanism and writings of MN Roy by hisuncle, the late Mr. Jagannatham while he was astudent in the AC College at Guntur. He wasdeeply involved in studying Roy’s writings for thenew exciting way of looking at the world revealedby him. His father-law, the late Mr. K.Radhakrishnamurty contested the first generalelections on the banner of Radical DemocraticParty. He has been in close association with themovement ever since. He is also involved in theRationalist Association 6-3-596/65 NaveenNagar, Khairatabad, Hyderabad-500 004, Ph:88974 77888, [email protected]]

We are seeing so much of controversyabout Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

in the retail shops of India. It is being proposed sopassionately by the government as an executivedecision. Unfortunately it was announced while theparliament was in session and all the parties tookobjection to it by stalling the proceedings in theHouse. Those who objected are being branded asreactionary with vested interests.

It is no doubt too courageous to question theproposal made by the economist Prime Ministerand supported by luminaries like Deepak Parekhwho also advises the India Inc. to come out insupport of government. As merits of the proposal itis stated that it gets better price for farmers. TheChief Economic Advisor to government declaresthat the ‘poorest will have to pay higher prices ifFDI fails’, as if the present inflation is only becausethere is no foreign investment in India. There are somany advantages by opening the retail field. Butwe, the ordinary people, fail to understand why thebenefits accrue only if it is opened to foreigninvestment. Will the FDI in retail increaseagricultural production to avoid inflation? Theretailer may construct godowns and streamlineprocurement chain. Is it not possible if FDI is notallowed?You find fault with aam bania (the commonbusinessman) for raising objections. If it is a vested

interest group, ignore it. Nobody has the right toobject to opening of more stores. But the question iswhy foreign investment is needed for it. Extend theretail field to any extent. But why foreigninvestment? It is pointed out that in other countries,traditional traders are thriving side by side withforeign controlled retail chains. Is it a proof thatforeign investment is ‘needed’? There must be avalid justification for inviting foreigners in anyfield. Why did we hate the East India Company?What is it that the FDI could bring now? Is thereany rocket science involved in managing the retailchains?What is the reason to claim that FDI will supplyfoods at lesser price? Do they come here for charityor business? It is claimed that 40% of agriculturalproduce is spoiled due to lack of ‘adequate roads,infrastructure and refrigeration’ facilities. Theroads and infrastructure are already open to foreigninvestment. Is refrigeration such a great technologythat needs foreign investment? What efforts aremade by the government to meet the deficiency? Isit to escape the responsibility to do something thatwe invite FDI?It is strange that the corporate leaders also form aline to invite FDI in retail instead of offering to doby themselves what the FDI is expected to do.Don’t they have the means to do it? Naturally sucha step involves responsibility to manage the retailline by themselves. If it is managed by the foreignerhaving 51%, we can easily enjoy the profit of 49%without responsibility to manage the unit. Perhapsthat is the plan of the industrialist in India ininviting foreign investment. It would have beenmore honourable and legitimate for them to objectto induction of FDI in retail and demand to allowthem do the job. All the benefits claimed by thePrime Minister like employment opportunities,transportation and storage and the reasonableprices claimed by the advisors can also occur evenif the investment is from Indian entrepreneurs. Whyare they not allowed? Or why they do not comeforward?The most demeaning aspect of Indian politics iswhen the opposition points to some corruptpractices of government, the immediate retort isthat the opposition also did it when they were in

22


power. It is the curse of democracy that the party inpower continues to change with elections. By thatthe need to answer the allegation is escaped.Similarly in this case it is being pointed out thatNDA asked for 100% FDI when they were ruling.That does not make the proposal sacred. We have todecide it on its merits whoever moots it. Ourgovernments have no such habit.What we want to know is why it is only the FDI thatcould prevent inflation? Why is it that all benefitsof retail trade will accrue only if the investment isfrom foreign countries?If that is the only way to save Indian economy, whynot open all the areas of economy to foreigninvestment without limit? That is what the ‘aamaadmi’ fails to understand.The other point we need to understand is what is thecriterion to leave decisions to the executive and tothe legislature. What are the matters that are left toexecutive decision? How do we decide whether it isa policy matter or executive matter? When the issueinvolves basic policy of economy affecting somany people, does it not make it a policy matter?How is the executive allowed to decide on it at theback of legislature? How can the government arguethat the legislature has no say in the matter?

II

The Anticorruption Movement:

It is not a long time since the “India againstcorruption” movement was launched

under the leadership of Anna Hazare. Support fromthe public was overwhelming. The government wasable to spill cold water on the enthusiasm bymaking some insincere promises to draft a bill forLokPal, which was managed to fail. The officialparty naturally felt it an insult that a private personcould drive them to draft a bill and present it to theParliament. Arguments were made that it is theprerogative of the government to draft bills and ofParliament to pass them. The fact that private billscan be considered by the Parliament when they aresubmitted by members was ignored.

Having failed on that argument, the partyspokesmen started a tirade against Hazare that he

was a member of RSS; but he was not asking forany communal benefit. He was fighting for a causein which every citizen was interested. But even thePMO went to the extent of calling the supporters‘antinational’! Is it so? But when the agitatorspointed out that the honorable Prime Minister isbeing used like a shield by the government, it wastwisted as name-calling of the untouchable PrimeMinister.

It was but natural that the public support for suchcauses would cool down over time and thegovernment wisely counted on it. The sponsors ofthe agitation feel frustrated and are trying tointensify their public relations campaign. They areof the opinion that the bill could have been passedin the Parliament if only the party in powersincerely wanted it. They turned their ire on to theparty in power. It is interpreted as a sign offrustration and blamed them for targeting oneparticular political party. It is a very unsympatheticallegation as the cause is very clear but deliberatelyignored only to undermine the cause. Even theso-called intellectuals castigated them saying“instead of transforming this mass movement intopeople’s agitation, it degenerated into a protestagainst one single party.” Did it? Is it wrong topoint out that the one political party that could andshould have done what is required to be done failedto do it? Did the movement fail to be a massmovement just because of it? Is it not necessary topoint out the drama played by the party in power?How can it be a defect in the movement?

One of the unfair criticisms made against themovement was that it has created a feeling amongthe people that by the passing of the Jan LokPal billalone “corruption will be rooted out for ever”. Thepeople in India are not so naïve as to think like that.It is an argument made to undermine themovement. The critics started to high light the factthat corruption will not be rooted out by passing thebill at all. Can it be rooted out by not passing thebill? If at all we want to root out corruption, is thebill not a step in the right direction? Does it not

23


deserve the support of all who have ‘faith in theconstitution and who support democracy’?

It is alleged that “out of frustration or distress” themembers of Anna Team started loose talk and theymisused the freedom of speech. It is true that theyfeel frustrated. Are they not human?They have theirown defects and drawbacks. But what is the role ofthe so-called intellectuals in this? Did they evercare to issue a call of support to the demand whenthe entire country rose like one man? Now they tryto find excuses and point out the frustration as adefect which will only undermine the movement.The mass support is described as ‘mobocracy’.What consists of the mob? Who are the people inthis country? How many cases are there where thegovernment moved without the mass coming on theroads? How many cases are there whereconstitutionally accepted ways of representationsgave results? It is because of the governmentsbecoming insensitive that the people started theiragitations on the roads. What are the leaders‘having full faith in the constitution and supportersof democracy’ doing when the legislatures have

become ruled by hoodlums? If a sensitive man criesfoul of the situation, it is called lose talk. That iswhat the intellectuals are doing from easy chairs.The frustration now is mostly because of the failureof the intellectuals to support a popular cause at thenick of the moment, when it has acquired anoverwhelming support from all quarters. They tryto justify their inaction by pointing out someimperfections and defects in the behavior of thesponsors of the anticorruption movement. It is notthe responsibility of Anna Team alone to fightagainst corruption. The country must be thankful tothem for taking the initiative in that direction andmaking it a mass movement. Intellectuals think thatmass movements are not honorable. They knowhow to think but not how to act. They can only findimperfections and defects in any movement andconvince themselves that they need not support themovement. By pointing out such human drawbacksat this moment will only undermine the movement.If the intellectuals at least tie their tongues andavoid sabotaging a sacred movement, even that canbe considered as a great help.

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Announcements: I

A single copy (in English) of the following book is available with Gautam Thaker, General Secretary,IRHA (Gujarat unit): M.N. Roy – The Man Who Looked Ahead

It is written by Tayab Sheikh (A.K. Hindi) and published by Dashrathlal Thaker in 1938 (pp 242).

He has offered to post its zerox (spiral bound) copy on payment of its zerox charges which will come toaround Rs. 150/-. Those of you who are interested in having it may contact him at his following address:

Gautam Thaker, 4, Sanmitra Society, Jivraj Park Area, Opposite Malav Talav, Ahmedabad,

380051, Gujarat, (M) 9825382556

II

Agehananda Bharati’s Great tradition and Little traditions is now available in Telugu version.

It is translated by Innaiah Narisetti. It may be checked on the following link:

ebook link:http://paradarsi.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/great_tradition_and_little_traditions/

III

Author Rani Drew talks at Open Studios about her new book ‘The Dog’s tale’ on Cambridge 105

Community Radio in Your City: The talk is available for two weeks on the folowing URL:

https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/?ui=2&ik=36d9479b21&view=

att&th=138b4fb7106862d4&attid=0.1&disp=inline&safe=1&zw&saduie=AG9B_P-hsHHujkV

YaajHp0q3sb7E&sadet=1343146137092&sads=N18qSuHTxHos6SIJFC_CR6qZezY

Students’ and Research Scholars’ Section:

Communal Violence Bill – Is ItEnough?

Introduction:

“Communalism”, wrote Thompson and Garratt, “isan old Indian problem that time does little to solve.”It is a myth that during Nehru’s period India had notseen communal riots and there was lull in theright-wing politics. Analyses of Home Ministrydata on communal riots since 1954 to 1964 (theyear Nehru died) reveals that as many as 1,690incidents took place in which 2,310 were dead and7,318 hurt. However, post-Nehru era differs only interms of frequency of riots.

Similarly, communal violence does not end withthe defeat of National Democratic Alliance (NDA)in 2004. The Table below shows the number ofcommunal violence or incidents taken place until2011 during the Congress led UPA government.The current year 2012 has seen number ofcommunal violence across the country. The latestone is in Koshi Kalan, Mathura in Uttar Pradeshwhere three out of four dead are from minorities’community. So, right-wing political mobilisation,anti-minority campaign and physical violence havebeen parts of Indian politics. Hence, anything likePrevention of Communal and Targeted Violence(Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011 is

long overdue to prevent violence against theminorities and the weaker sections of the society.

Communal Violence/Incidents (Year-wise): in2011 (till Dec.)- 580; In 2010 – 701; In 2009 -719;In 2008 - 656 (Hindu-Muslim incidents); In 2007 -681 In 2006 – 698; In 2005 – 779; In 2004 – 640.

Number of Dead/injured (Year-wise): in 2011(till Dec.) - 91/1,899; In 2010 116/2,138; In 2009 -117/2,298; In 2008 - 123/2,272; In 2007 - 96/2,117;In 2006 - 133/2,170; In 2005 - 124/2,066; - In 2004- 129/2,022.

(Source: Home Ministry Annual Report 2004-05 –2011-12)

Communal Violence Bill:

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-I,supported by Left parties, under its CommonMinimum Program (CMP), which promised acomprehensive legislature againstsectarian/communal violence, circulated the firstdraft of Communal Violence (Suppression) Bill inthe parliament on 5th December 2005. However,the bill turned out to be ‘a remedy worse thandisease’. Later, it was sent to the StandingCommittee on Home Affairs for reviews andrecommendation. With few minor changes theStanding Committee on Home Affairs submitted its122nd Report on The Communal Violence(Prevention, Control, and Rehabilitation ofVictims) Bill, 2005 on 13th December 2006.

While bill was in Rajya Sabha many civil societyorganizations, activists and left parties opposed thebill in its current form. The friction pressurized theUPA government to re-think about the bill. UPA-IIgave the task of drafting the bill to NationalAdvisory Committee (NAC). NAC convened theAdvisory Group with social activists to prepare adraft. After intense efforts for over a period of oneand a half years the draft came to its final stage inMay 2011. The bill sets out to protect religious andlinguistic minorities in any State in India, as well asthe Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes,from targeted violence, including organisedviolence.

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Manzoor Ali

Despite long route the bill covers, concernedactors/agents (government, pro-minorities groupsand right-wing) have mixed opinion with the waythe draft has taken shape and are at loggerheadsabout the same.

Critical Analysis of Communal Violence Bill:

The bill seeks to empower the government toprevent and control communal violence, providefor speedy investigation and trial of offences andrehabilitate victims. The Bill defines communalviolence as any act that is a scheduled offence andpunishable under section 19 of the Code ofCriminal Procedure (CCP). The Committeerecommends the definition be amended to includeany act of ‘omission or commission whichthreatens the secular fabric, integrity, unity, orinternal security of the Nation.’ The Bill allows anarea to be notified as communally disturbed whencommunal forces cause death. The Committeeobserves that this does not include other heinouscrimes. They recommend including areas whereviolence results in grievous harm or propertydamage. Under the Bill, an area may be notified ascommunally disturbed for no more than thirty daysthe first time. The government may issue newnotifications if public peace and tranquility are stilldisturbed. The committee recommends that anotification shall not extend beyond six monthsunless warranted. When an area has been notifiedas communally disturbed, the competent authoritymay direct persons to deposit all arsenals regardlessif the person has a license. The Committeerecommends deleting this provision. States mayrequest the Central Government to send armedforces to control communally disturbed areas. TheCommittee recommends that if violence is notcontrolled within seven days, states are required torequest the central government to deploy armedforces.

On the positive side of this bill it has clear andbroader provisions against the sexual assault onwomen. Its implementation will really detercommunalists at the ground level. Compensation

and resettlement too are merits of the bill. “HostileEnvironment against a Group” in chapter one and“Hate Propaganda” in the following chapter givesample scope to quell communalism prior tophysical violence.

However, the proposed bill, apart from number ofminor problems, has two main problems. Firstly,the government’s proposal to declare certain areasas “communally disturbed” may create them intopermanent situations like in north-east in minoritiesdominated areas. We already know the fact thatmost of those Muslims areas which are todaypointed out by banks and administration assensitive areas, are deprived of many facilities,which a normal citizen needs to get. Hithertoalmost all the riots have taken place nearbyminorities’ dwellings and so it is very natural thatevery time when communal riots will flare up theirghettos will be declared as communally disturbed.And if considering the frequency of communalriots in the country, each day one minorities’ areaor the other will be declared as ‘communallydisturbed’. It would be a frightening situation forthe minority. Each time in the name of protectionthe minority areas will be under curfew likesituation. With the right-wing at the helm of affairs,both at the Central and State, the law will bemanipulated to suit the communal elements.

Secondly, this bill gives District Magistrate (DM)the powers to take preventive measures when thereis an apprehension of breach of peace or creation ofdiscord between members of different religiousgroups, it is provided that he may, by order inwriting, prohibit any act which in his opinion islikely to cause apprehension in the minds ofanother community or caste or group that it isdirected to intimidate, threaten or otherwisepromote ill will against that community or caste orgroup. This provision is generating a fear in theminds of the minorities, especially Muslims. TheAll India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB)Assistant Secretary-General and spokesmanMaulana Abdur Rahim Qureshi said either theCommunal Violence Bill should be withdrawn or

26


redrafted, as the proposed legislation in its presentform created apprehensions in the minds of theMuslims. He said the apprehensions stemmed fromthe fact that arbitrary powers are proposed to begiven to the police and the magistracy in the Bill.The various commissions of inquiry, he said, havepointed to the biased and prejudiced role of thepolice towards the minority community in theirfindings on communal riots.

From 1961 to 2002, commission after commissionhas indicted the police. For instances, JusticeShrivastava Commission of Inquiry Report of 1961on the riots in Jabalpur, Justice Dayal Commission(1967), Justice Reddy Commission (1969), JusticeMadon Commission (1970), Justice VithyatlulReport of the Commission of Inquiry into theTellichery (1971), Justice Narain, Gliosh and RizviCommission of Inquiry into the Jamshedpur riots in1979, N C Saxena inquiry into the Meerut riots of1982, have indicted police and administrationparting with communalists. Justice B NSrikrishna’s report found specific police officers tobe “utterly trigger happy”, “guilty of unnecessaryand excessive firing resulting in the deaths ofinnocent Muslims”, “extremely communal” and“guilty of inhuman and brutal behaviour”.Furthermore, talking of the police attitude, thereport observes, “Police officers and men,particularly at the junior level, appeared to have anin-built bias against Muslims which was evident intheir treatment of the suspected Muslims andMuslim victims of riots…The bias of policemenwas seen in the active connivance of policeconstables with the rioting Hindu mobs on someoccasions with their adopting the role of passiveonlookers on other occasions, and finally, in theirlack of enthusiasm in registering offences againstHindus even when the accused were clearlyidentified...”

Thus, to stop police acting in alliance with riotersreform in the department is a must. It may includesensitisation about the issue and changing of policecharacteristic by diversifying the recruitment.According to Gopal Singh Committee Report

(1983) from 1971 to 1979 only 2 per cent Muslimswere recruited in Indian Police Service. After 23years Sachar Committee Report shows that theshare of Muslims in these activities at the Centralgovernment level was only about 6 per cent, whilethat of the Hindu-UCs was 42 percent and bothHindu-SCs/STs and Hindu-OBCs had a share of 23per cent each. At the state level, the share ofMuslims was a little higher at 7 per cent while theother categories had shares of 37, 21 and 26 percent respectively. The share of Muslims in thedefense services was found to be only 4 per centwhile that of Hindu-SCs/STs (12 per cent),Hindu-OBCs (23 per cent) and Hindu-UC (52 percent) was much higher. Additional data madeavailable to the Committee also showed that theparticipation of Muslims in security relatedactivities (e.g. Police) is much lower than theirshare in population.

Hence, if government is serious about this bill it hasto accommodate the demands formulated by leftparties, academicians, reputed members of civilsociety and NAC and ensure the passing of this bill,despite right-wing opposition in and outsideParliament.

Conclusion:

Continuous eruption of pre-planned communalriots has jolted the base of secularism in India.Religion has proved to be potent communalmobilisation and lethal when mixed with politics togain political purpose. In recent times religioncame handy to capture the political power. KalyanSingh’s government in Uttar Pradesh, NarendraModi’s rule in Gujarat, Shiv Sena government inMaharashtra, and 1998-2004 NDA (led by BJP)rule are epitome of politicization of religion.Today, right-wing forces are crippled withfactionalism and loss of face due to non-fulfillmentof communal agenda they promised before comingto power. But, even then one cannot rule out theircomeback. It is not necessary that right-wing willalways capture state power by the use of religion. Italso comes through the promise of corruption free

27


administration, better development alternatives andsecurity of nation from external and internalthreats. Once they come to power the hiddenagenda of segregation takes place.

Hence, Communal Violence Bill is necessary toprotect minorities from communal riots, but notsufficient. The bill has its own weakness as arguedabove. Further, this Bill is tilted more in favour of

post-violence scenario and less on preventingcommunalism to originate. May be the Bill haslimited purpose to serve. Thus, to protect minoritysecularism needs more than a law. It needs ademocratic and secular politics in praxis andconsistence opposition to communalism in society.

[Mr.Manzoor Ali, a research scholar at JNU is aResearch Officer at CBGA, New Delhi.]

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BOOKS BY M.N. ROY PUBLISHED by RENAISSANCE PUBLISHERS, INDIAN

RENAISSANCE INSTITUTE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS and OTHERS

1. POLITICS POWER AND PARTIES Rs. 90.00

2. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY Rs.95.00

3. BEYOND COMMUNISM Rs.40.00

4. THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF ISLAM Rs.40.00

5. MEN I MET Rs.60.00

6. INDIA’S MESSAGE Rs.100.00

7.MATERIALISM Rs. 110.00

8.REVOLUTION AND COUNTER REVOLUTION IN CHINA Rs.250.00

9.REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION Rs.300.00

10. NEW ORIENTATION Rs 090.00

11. ISLAAM KI ETIHASIK BHOOMIKA (IN HINDI) Rs.25.00

12. HAMARA SANSKRITIK DARP (IN HINDI) Rs.40.00

13. NAV MANAVWAD (IN HINDI) Rs.90.00

14 .SAMYAWAD KE PAAR (IN HINDI) Rs.45.00

Book Review Section:

[eSkeptic says: Rapidly advancing technologies

may have the potential not only to spread

information but to solve some of humanity’s most

vexing problems. Here below, Michael Shermer

(Founder, Publisher, e Skeptic) reviews a

just-released book called Abundance: The Future

is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis

and Steven Kotler (Free Press, ISBN:

978-14516-1421-3). Together they have

produced a manifesto for the future that is

grounded in practical day-to-day solutions

addressing the world’s most pressing problems:

overpopulation, food, water, energy, education,

healthcare, and freedom. A slightly different

version of this review was originally published in

the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, February

22.]

[BOOK- Abundance: The Future is Better Than

You Think by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven

Kotler]

It’s Getting Better All the Time

If you read a major newspaper such as theNew York Times or Wall Street Journal

cover to cover every day for a week you will haveconsumed more digital information than a citizen inthe 17th century Western world would haveencountered in a lifetime. That’s a lot of digital

data, but it’s nothing compared to what is on theimmediate horizon. By comparison, from theearliest stirrings of civilization thousands of yearsago to the year 2003, all of humankind created agrand total of five exabytes of digital information.An exabyte is one quintillion bytes, or one billiongigabytes. That’s a one followed by 18 zeros, andfrom 2003 through 2010 we created five exabytesof digital information every two days. By 2013 wewill be producing five exabytes every ten minutes.How much information is this? The 2010 total of912 exabytes is the equivalent of 18 times theamount of information contained in all the booksever written. This means that the world is not justchanging, and the change is not just accelerating,but the rate of the acceleration of change is itselfaccelerating.

This and many other examples of acceleratingreturns are documented in Abundance: The Futureis Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandisand Steven Kotler. Diamandis is the Chairman andCEO of the X PRIZE Foundation and the founderof more than a dozen high tech companies. Kotler isa journalist who writes for the New York Timesmagazine, Wired, Discover, GQ, and NationalGeographic. Together they have produced amanifesto for the future that is grounded inpractical day-to-day solutions addressing theworld’s most pressing problems: overpopulation,food, water, energy, education, healthcare, andfreedom. They suggest that “humanity is nowentering a period of radical transformation wheretechnology has the potential to significantly raisethe basic standard of living for every man, womanand child on the planet. Within a generation, wewill be able to provide goods and services that wereonce reserved for the wealthy few to any and allwho need them.” Accelerating change is happeningin many areas:

Information: A Masai warrior with a smartphoneon Google has access to more information than thePresident of the United States did just 15 years ago.


29

Michael Shermer

Technology: Today more people have access to acell phone than a toilet.

Computing: In 15 years, the average $1000 laptopshould be computing at the rate of the human brain.

Education: The Khan Academy?s YouTubetutorial videos on over 2200 topics from Algebra toZoology draw over two million viewings a month.

Medicine: The field of personalized medicine?anindustry that didn?t exist before 2003?is nowgrowing at 15 percent a year and will reach $452billion by 2015.

Aging: The centenarian population is doublingevery decade, from 455,000 in 2009 to over 4.1million by 2050.

Poverty: The number of people living in absolutepoverty has fallen since the 1950s and has droppedby more than half. At the current rate of decline itwill reach zero by around 2035.

Expenses: Groceries today cost 13 times less than150 years ago in inflation adjusted dollars.

Business: Billion dollar companies are beingcreated faster than ever?YouTube grew fromstartup to $1.6 billion in 18 months; Groupon wentfrom startup to $6 billion in two years.

Standard of living: 95 percent of Americans nowliving below the poverty line have electricity,Internet, water, flushing toilets, a refrigerator and atelevision. John D. Rockefeller and AndrewCarnegie, among the richest people on the planet,enjoyed few of these luxuries.

The timing of this book is propitious. Between the2011 Christian end-times soothsayers, the 2012Mayan Calendar doomsayers, gloomyenvironmentalists, and the announcement inJanuary by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists thattheir Doomsday clock had been advanced to fiveminutes to midnight (and now includesenvironmental degradation and biological weaponsalongside nuclear weapons as the likeliestcandidates for our demise), how can anyone be sooptimistic? With seven billion people now pressingup against the Earth’s carrying capacity there are

seemingly intractable problems to be solved. Isn’tpessimism the appropriate response? Who’s right,the optimists or the pessimists?

The problem turns on cognitive biases that slant ourinterpretation of the data. Optimism is good forovercoming obstacles that are part of daily life, butover-optimism can blind one to adversities thatshould be heeded. In a Canadian study of inventors,for example, of those who participated in theInventor’s Assistance Program in which they paidfor objective evaluations of their invention on 37different criteria, 47 percent continued working ontheir projects even after they were told that it washopeless, and as a consequence they incurred lossesdouble that of their more realistic colleagues.Optimism helps entrepreneurs override normal“loss aversion,” in which losses hurt twice as muchas gains feel good, an emotion we evolved in ourevolutionary environment of scarcity anduncertainty. Loss aversion leads most of us to beshort term in our thinking. We discount the futurein ways so predictable that economists haveformulas to describe it. We focus on immediateevents and bad news, and are blind to long-termtrends and good news. Diamandis and Kolter notonly acknowledge these cognitive biases, theyaddress them head on as one more obstacle toabundance to be overcome.

I have long been skeptical of both doomsayers whoproject the end of the world in our generation, aswell as futurists who proclaim that the Next BigThing to revolutionize humanity and save theplanet will happen in our lifetime. To date, theend-of-the world doomsters have beenspectacularly and often embarrassingly wrong.And the futurists who craft a utopian narrativeabout how one day we will live forever, colonizethe galaxy in starships, and materialize food anddrink in replicators are indistinguishable fromproducers of science fiction and fantasy. Skepticsare from Missouri: Show Me. Diamandis andKolter do just that, describing in specific detail howthe revolution has already begun and that suchabundance can be realized in our lifetime through

30


three current forces:

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) backyard tinkerers such asthe aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, who won theX-Prize for achieving privatized space flight, andthe geneticist J. Craig Venter, who beat the U.S.government in the race to sequence the humangenome. Thousands of such DIYers are workingaway in garages and warehouses innovatingsolutions in neuroscience, biology, genetics,medicine, agriculture, robotics, and numerousother areas.

Techno-philanthropists such as Bill Gates(malaria), Mark Zuckerberg (education), Pierre andPam Omidyar (electricity in the developing world),and many more are dedicating significant portionsof their vast fortunes to solving specific problems.

The bottom billion, the poorest of the poor whohave nowhere to go but up, as they become pluggedinto the global economy through micro-financingand the Internet will lift all boats with them as theywork toward having clean water, nutritious food,affordable housing, personalized education,top-tier medical care, and ubiquitous energy. Don’tthink of seven billion people as too many mouths tofeed; think of them as seven billion brains who canthink about solving heretofore insoluble problems.

The principles behind this process of abundancecreation include: bottom-up v. top-down;non-linear v. linear; horizontal v. hierarchical;private entrepreneurship v. public works; smallgroup v. large corporation; competition for prizesv. make-work for paycheck; risk disposed v. riskaverse; Nonzero win-win v. zero-sum win-lose.The trend lines outlined by the authors are realenough, and if these principles were appliedworldwide such abundance should indeed berealizable, in the long run if not in the short. Thebiggest hurdles, however, are not scientific ortechnological, but political. There are still too manycorrupt dictators, third-world thugs, dear leaders,and backwards looking governments that wouldprefer corralling their people into medievaltheocracies in order to enrich themselves. Still, asMatt Ridley demonstrated in The Rational Optimistand Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of OurNature, even the political trend lines are moving inthe right direction. In any case, as Diamandis likesto say: “The best way to predict the future is tocreate it yourself.”

Book Review Source URL:

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-29/

31


The following books of M.N. Roy may now read and downloaded

from the RH Web portal: www.theradicalhumanist.com

'Revolution and Counter-Revolution in China'; 'Science and Philosophy';

'Memoirs'; 'India's Message: Fragments of a Prisoner's Diary';

'Materialism'; 'M.N. Roy: Philosopher Revolutionary';

'Reason, Romanticism and Revolution' Volume I & II;

'New Orientation'; 'New Humanism';

The Russian Revolution and the Tragedy of Communism';

'Politics, Power & Parties'; 'Men I Met';

'Historical Role of Islam' and

'From the Communist Manifesto to Radical Humanism'.

[Ms. Dipavali Sen has been a student of Delhi

School of Economics and Gokhale Institute of

Politics and Economics (Pune). She has taught at

Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, and

various colleges of Delhi University. She is, at

present, teaching at Sri Guru Gobind Singh

College of Commerce, Delhi University. She is a

prolific writer and has written creative pieces and

articles for children as well as adults, both in

English and Bengali. [email protected]]

Book Review

[BOOK: Dr BD Sharma, Glimpses of Treachery

with Village India, by Sahyog Pustak Kuteer,

New Delhi, with Tata Institute of Social Sciences,

Mumbai, 2nd edition March 2012, contribution

/price: Rs 50(institutions), Rs 30(individuals),

paperback, pp 116.]

Traitors to Ourselves

It may look more like a pamphlet than atreatise but this book is as informative as it

is interesting. Independent India started off with alot of promises made to its rural component (whichas we all know is the larger component). But hardlyany promise has been fulfilled. The story is ofbetrayal and treachery. This is what this book (let)drives in.

Dr. BD Sharma is a doctorate in Mathematics aswell as a retired IAS officer (1956-81) and former

Vice-Chancellor of NEHU (1981-86). During1986-91, he was Commissioner, for ScheduledCastes and Scheduled Tribes. Ever since 1991, he isan activist taking part in the struggle of the tribals.His many writings in Hindi on the issue of progressare available in English translation. He is amuch-respected authority on tribal affairs in India.

The Preface says that the book Glimpses ofTreachery With Village India is “addressed to thecommon man” (p 4).The common man needs to betold how the agricultural population as well as thetribal population are being betrayed by theImperialist Capitalist Global Gang.

In the 19-point Abstract, it is proposed that the“rural-urban balance” and “Development withEquity” must be realized (p 10).

The rest of the text is in three parts.

Part I (The Farmers’ Hanka) discusses howfarmers are being subjected to hunting, shikar orhanka, just like wild animals. Liberalization hasunleashed corporate hunters who are shootingdown the farmers’ aspirations. Tribal resources arebeing captured and tribal people displaced.

Part II (Hanke Ka Hanka) provides an outline ofthe people’s democratic assertion. ‘Hunting theHunters’ may be tough but the people must puttogether a frame of action and follow it upforcefully. There has to be struggle to achieveDevelopment with Equity, and if the struggle failsin these times of ‘money and market’, there has tobe People’s Revolt.

Part III (Development with Equity) offers atentative outline of the goals people should strivefor. Economic equality must be restored to thecentre-stage of the economy and inequality mustnot be accepted as an essential condition ofdevelopment as the pro-Liberalizations arearguing. People’s assertion must have immediate aswell as long-term goals. Among immediate goalsthe book mentions greater public accountability,better health and education facilities, and improvedwages-and-incomes policy. Among long-termgoals, it mentions reduction of consumerism,

32


Dipavali Sen

increase of dialogue and participatory democracy.

In the (very) short Epilogue the book reminds us ofwhat Tolstoy had said long ago. Well-wishers ofthe poor should, instead of giving them advice, justget off their shoulders – upon whom they areperched.

There is an Annexure: Gram Sabha Declarationabout Offences against Democracy. This isfollowed by a subject index which may be veryuseful for people given to taking action rather thanreading on.

The book is factual. It substantiates its points withfigures, e.g. “...According to a survey by DuleepSwamy the expropriation through questionablevaluation of a few crops was about Rs 40,000

crores during 1970-80” (p 65). Or, “The rulingwage in agriculture is about Rs 50-100 per day. Iffamily-wage principle is accepted revised wagescannot be less than Rs 300” (p 65 again).

It also has a firm historical basis, and refers oftento Acts passed during the British Raj and earlyyears of Independence, e.g., the Bihar MoneyLender’s Act, 1938 (p 19), or the Madhya PradeshLand Revenue Code, 1959 (p 33).

The language is rather effusive. But then with thespectre of treachery haunting Village India, that isin the best traditions of any manifesto.

I picked this book up while attending a thought (andaction)-provoking seminar on Citizens ForDemocracy (14-15 July, 2012, at Gandhi PeaceFoundation). I read it and was fascinated. If youpick it up, you too will be.

33


37th

Death Anniversary of GORA (1902-1975)

Seminar on “March towards the Post-Religious Society” &

Unveiling of the statues (busts) of Gora, Saraswathi Gora & Chennupati Seshagiri Rao

ATHEIST CENTRE Cordially invites you to 37th Death Anniversary of GORA (well known atheist,

social revolutionary, freedom fighter and an ardent champion of Castelessness and eradication of

Untouchability).

Seminar on March towards the Post-Religious Society at Atheist Centre, Benz Circle, Vijayawada 10 at

10.15 am on Thursday the 26th July 2012.

Mr. Even Gran Norwegian Humanist leader, Oslo, Norway inaugurates.

Mr. Umesh Choube National Executive President, All India Andh Shradhha Nirmulan Samiti (Nagpur)

Chief Guest

“Padmashree” Turlapati Kutumba Rao (Veteran Journalist & Chairman, AP Granthalaya Parishad,

Govt. of AP) presides.

Dr. Samaram, Dr. Vijayam, Mr. Lavanam,Ch. Vidya (ex-MP), J. Mythri and others participate. All are

welcome.

—Invitation sent by Dr. Vijayam, [email protected], www.atheistcentre.in

Humanist News Section:

I

Indian Renaissance Institute Meeting

Meeting of Delhi Trustees (IRI) andInvitees:A meeting of the Delhi based Trustees of IRI washeld at Gandhi Peace Foundation, Delhi on 20thJuly 2012 in which the following participated:

B.D. Sharma, N.D. Pancholi, Vinod Jain, NarottamVyas, Mahipal Singh, Rahul Jain, Vidyasagar,Ghanshyam Singh and S.C.Verma

Following decisions were taken:-

A meeting will be held between 10 Am to 1.30 PMon Saturday, the 18th August 2012, to discuss thephilosophy of the Radical Humanism. Followingmembers have agreed to speak as below:

B.D. Sharma on “Communism & NewHumanism”. Vinod Jain on “Animinism,Polytheism, monotheism, humanism”. MahipalSingh on “Relevance of Radical Humanism intoday’s context”. N.D. Pancholi on “Gandhism &Radical Humanism”. National Seminar on“Marxism, Socialism & Radical Humanism”.

It was decided that a National Seminar should beheld on “Marxism, socialism and RadicalHumanism” as part of the 125th Birth AnniversaryYear Celebration of M.N. Roy sometime inSept/October 2012.

A preparatory meeting of the Delhi based trusteeswill be held on 3rd of August 2012 to discuss theabove programme.

Report on Kashmir by Interlocutors

It was further decided to obtain the report ofinterlocutors appointed by the Central Govt. whohave made recommendations for solution of theKashmir problem and organize a discussion overthe same.

The Vth Volume of Selected Work of M.N. Roy

The IRI members and trustees shall also meet on27th July 2012 at G.P.F. to assess the progress

made towards finalization of the Vth Volume of theSelected Works of M.N. Roy.

13 Mohini Road, Dehradun

It was decided to request our advocate at Nainitalto take steps for early hearing of our case pending atNainital High Court.

—News sent by

N.D. Pancholi, Secretary, IRI

II

Citizens For Democracy (CFD) AllIndia Conference: Call for People’sCampaign to defend DemocraticRights in India:All India Conference of Citizens For Democracy(CFD) was held at Gandhi Peace Foundation, NewDelhi on 14th & 15th July 2012. CFD wasestablished in April 1974 by Lok Nayak JayprakashNarayn during those tumultuous days whendemocratic institutions were under severe strain.The main objective of CFD was stipulated topreserve, defend and strengthen democracy in thecountry without being involved in power politics orparty politics. It did commendable work in variousfields like electoral reform, land reforms,campaigns against corruption, communalism andcasteism, campaign for autonomy for Radio &T.V., jail reform for anti defection law, campaignfor promoting people to people friendship betweenIndia and Pakistan and investigations intoviolations of human rights in various parts of thecountry. However, since 1997 CFD was notfunctioning for certain reasons. Keeping in viewthe prevailing growing frustration anddissatisfaction of the people at large with thepresent deterioration of the political, social andeconomic conditions in the country, there was astrong demand from the old members to revive andreorganize CFD. In response to that the aforesaidconference was held.

A large number of representatives from various

34


parts of the country, notably from Bihar,Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan,Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab, inaddition to Delhi, had participated in theconference. Shri Kuldip Nayar inaugurated theconference on 14th July and Shri Ashis Nandypresided over it.

In the beginning Shamsul Islam and NeelimaSharma from Nishant Natya Manch along withtheir team welcomed the delegates by chantingrevolutionary songs. N.D. Pancholi briefly statedthe context in which the conference was being held.Shri Kuldip Nayar in his inaugural address said thatorganizations like Citizens For Democracy werethe need of the hour for strengthening democracyand civil liberties in the country. It was unfortunatethat CFD remained inactive for about 14 years. Hesaid that all citizens and organizations who wereconcerned with the present appalling political,social and economic situation, should cometogether to save democracy.

Chairing the inaugural session, eminent sociologistAshis Nandy said that the Indian state has becometoo powerful and centralized and there is a need tostrengthen the fight for democratic rights. He saidthat those who want to safeguard democratic valuesand democratic rights in the country should takespecific issues and fight for people’s rights forspecific purpose. Referring to Anna Hazare’smovement against corruption, he said that peoplehave started thinking that Lokpal, once established,would be the most costly bureaucrat to buy andwould be a terrible source of corruption. He saidthat Jayprakash Narayan formed Citizens ForDemocracy in an attempt to build a more humanesociety. The organization needs to start its activityagain. However, he raised doubts over thePresidential form of government and said that in acountry like India, Presidential form of governmentis not likely to succeed. On the other hand it willworsen the situation.

Justice (Rtd.) Rajinder Sachar welcomed the moveto re-activate CFD and advocated the repeal of

sedition and other draconian laws. He said that firstPrime Minister of the country Jawahar Lal Nehruhad said that a law like sedition would have noplace in independent India. “Unfortunately inindependent India we have made such lawsharsher,” He said.

Dr. Ramji Singh said that party system was thesource of all corruption. He said that electoralreforms were the need of the hour to enable thepeople to have meaningful control over theirrepresentatives.

Noted environmental activist SR Hiremathemphasized upon a movement to restore people’srights over natural resources to strengthendemocracy. Many other speakers participated.However all were of the opinion that people’sstruggles should be organized and strengthened todefend democratic rights and promote democraticvalues in the country.

Representatives from various parts of the countryexpressed their anguish over the present regressingsituation in the country and were of the opinion thatmoney power is controlling and spoilingdemocratic institutions leading to failures ofpeople’s struggles and campaigns for protectingtheir rights to forest, water and land and there isgross violation of civil liberties and human rights.Another ill-effect of money power is that rightkinds of people are not able to be elected asrepresentatives in Parliament and StateLegislatures. Media is also being misused by thevested interests. Judicial system is also notfunctioning to the satisfaction of the people. In sucha situation it is necessary to re-organize andre-activate ‘Citizens For Democracy.’

On 15th July 2012, the next day, Shri S.Y. Qureshi,Former Chief Election Commissioner delivered hismain speech on ‘Electoral Reforms’. He spoke ofhis experiences and started with a positive note. Hestated that it was not appropriate to condemnpoliticians, bureaucracy and judiciary in mattersrelating to holding of elections. He said thatElection Commission in India is an independent

35


body and its independence has been respected byall other institutions. So far there has been noallegation against the Election Commission offavoritism or partisanship. He said that politiciansand political parties have strengthened Electioncommission. Similarly bureaucracy and judiciaryhave also rendered valuable help to it inmaintaining its integrity and independence. Therole of bureaucracy is commendable as it hashelped in holding, by and large, free and fairelections from time to time, especially in remoteand difficult areas of the country. The commissionhas also received commendable help from mediaand civil society. The vigilant civil society groupsand citizens as well as certain section of media givetimely help in exposing the unfair means adoptedby certain politicians and parties to enable thecommission to take immediate steps to check theevil. He said that democracy is a growing systemand it is for the people to strengthen and preserve it.

Thereafter Shri Qureshi delved on the negativeaspects. He said that our election system isthreatened by a few challenges. The first challengeis the entry of tainted politicians. Previously somepoliticians were getting support from criminals, butnow criminal elements have themselves startedcontesting elections. Another challenge was the useof money power in the elections. He said that it wasa matter of great concern that moneyed people arecontesting elections to preserve their vestedinterests and this was leading to large scalecorruption in the country. Another challenge was“Paid News”. The most important challenge to theelection system is “Voters Apathy”.

Shri Qureshi suggested that in order to cleanpolitics, it was necessary to debar those candidateswho are accused of serious criminal offences andagainst whom charges were framed six monthsbefore the declaration of election. To the argumentthat an accused is deemed to be innocent till provedguilty, he said that large number of accused facingtrial are lodged in various jails in India andnotwithstanding that they are deemed to beinnocent, their rights to liberty, occupation,

movement and dignity is restrained, and thereforewhy the right of such accused facing seriouscharges be not curbed by debarring them fromcontesting elections. He further suggested thatthere should be transparency in functioning ofpolitical parties, misuse of religion in politicsshould be checked, “Paid News” should bedeclared as electoral offence. He strongly opposed“Opinion Polls” and expressed his apprehensionthat vested interests are capable of getting any kindof Opinion Poll in the way they desire.

In order to further strengthen the ElectionCommission he said that same protection be givento the tenure of other two Election commissionersas is provided to the Chief Election Commissioner,its secretariat should be independent and budget ofElection Commission should get direct funds fromthe central funds as is the case with judiciary. Mostimportant suggestion was that voters must beeducated to understand the importance of votingand participating in the elections. However, he didnot favour the demands for “right to reject” and“right to recall”.

A lively discussion followed and somerepresentatives stressed the need for “right toreject” and “right to recall”.

In the next session some important decisions weretaken towards future activities of CFD and a fewresolutions were passed,

It was decided to prepare a Demand Draft forElectoral Reforms and send the same to the ChiefElection Commissioner and the Prime Minister,discussions should be organized in various statesand thereafter a National Conference should beorganized in Delhi in Nov/Dec 2012 on ElectoralReforms.

A seminar / discussion should be organized inDelhi on the issue of Judicial Accountability Billpending in Parliament, if possible in August, 2012.

It was resolved that an appeal should be made to theNaxal groups as well as governments to stopviolence against each other and come to negotiatingtable.

36


The conference expressed its shock and concernthat even after 25 years of horrendous incidentwhich took place in July 1887 in village Oinam andsurrounding areas in Senapati district in Manipur,mostly habituated by Naga people, where largenumber of innocent residents were killed, injured,their women raped, properties looted and burnt bythe soldiers of Assam Rifles, no compensation hasbeen paid to the victims and that even the judgmentin the criminal case filed against the guilty officialsof the Assam Rifles has not been announced thoughthe arguments were heard by the Court in 1991 andjudgment reserved. The judgment which wasexpected to redress the grievances of the torturedand victimized people of that area and punish theguilty officials never came though more thantwenty years have passed since it was reserved forannouncement after conclusion of arguments. Theconference resolved that memorandum should bepresented on behalf of CFD to the CentralGovernment as well as the government of Manipurthat victims of Oinam carnage should beimmediately adequately compensated, guiltyshould be punished and Arms Forces (SpecialPowers) Act should be repealed.

Annual membership of the CFD was decided to beRs.100/- and it was also decided that members ofthe political parties should not be eligible to bemembers of CFD while efforts should be made toenroll non-party social, dalit & cultural activists,intellectuals, youth and women. State conferencesshould be held.

A national council was constituted. Kuldip Nayarwas elected as the President, Dr. Ramji Singh andS.R. Hiremath as Vice Presidents, N.D. Pancholi asGeneral Secretary, and Satyendra Ranjan and AnilSinha as Secretaries. Names of national councilmembers would be announced soon as consent ofsome of the persons whose names have beenproposed is awaited.

Conference ended with vote of thanks. Theparticipants included, amongst others, Dr. RamjiSingh, Ramsharan, Raman Kumar, Priyadarshi,

Surender Kumar & Sheodayal from Bihar;Ghanshyam and Manthan from Jharkhand; S.R.Hiremath from Karnataka, Gautam Thaker &Mahadev Vidrohi from Gujrat; Amitabh from MP;TRN Prabhu from Kerala; Bhawani Shanker,Hanuman Sahay Sharma & Ramender Kumar fromRajasthan; Sheik Hussian, Kishan Gordia fromMaharashtra; Prof. M.K. Das from UP; Nafisa Ali,K. Zimik, Father T.K. John, Sanjeev Shaswat,Massoma Ali, Syed Akhlaq Ahmad, Abu BakrSabhag, Surendra Kumar, B.D. Sharma, DipavaliSen, Bhawna Sharma, Shivakant, Premchand, Dr.D.K. Giri, Satyendra Ranjan, Gopa Joshi, BhabaniDixit, Meetpal Singh, Kuldeep Singh Arora, A.S.Saini, Ajay, PT Gopal, Mohd. Bilal Shabga,Azharuddin Khan, Chaturbhuj, A.K. Arun, PrasunLatant, Rajendra Rajan, Mahipal Singh and ManiMala from Delhi.

—Report sent by:

N. D Pancholi,

General Secretary (CFD)

III

In ‘e-Gujarat’, just 3% of householdshave Internet connectivity:In a state that has about 40 e-governance projectsand has won several awards for them, the Internetpenetration among households is just over 3%. Thestate has fewer homes with Internet connections ascompared to states like Maharashtra, AndhraPradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and WestBengal.Of the 1.21 crore homes in Gujarat coveredin Census 2011, only 3.8 lakh homes havecomputers and laptops having Internetconnectivity. In comparison, states similar in sizehave better Internet connectivity — Maharashtrahas Internet connectivity in 13.7 lakh homes,Andhra Pradesh in 5.4 lakh homes, Karnataka (6.3lakh) and Tamil Nadu (7.7 lakh).Even smallerstates like Kerala (4.8 lakh homes with Internetconnections) and West Bengal (4.4 lakh) have far

37


greater Internet penetration.Urban-rural e-divide.Most of the Internet connectivity in Gujarat is inurban centres.In ‘e-Gujarat’, just 3% of householdshave Internet connectivityOf the 67 lakh homes inrural Gujarat, just 0.6% of the households haveInternet. Urban areas are a shade better, with 6% ofthe total 54 lakh homes having Internetconnections.The unimpressive Internetconnectivity in Gujarat puts a question mark on theimpact of 40-odd “citizen centric” e-governanceprojects launched by the state government in thelast one decade.Most of these e-governanceprojects are meant to assist people from rural areas.For instance, e-Gram project, which won SkochChallenger Award and the CSI-Nihilent Award in2008 for being an outstanding project, is primarilymeant for the rural people for accessing serviceslike e-ticketing of railways, airlines, utility billpayments, licences, permits, insurance selling andmarket linkages for agriculturecommodities.However, the state government sayse-governance projects have been very effectivebecause Gujarat has “created its own Internetfootprint through projects like e-Gram”.“Last year,e-transactions worth over Rs 10.5 crore happenedin the state,” said Ravi Saxena, additional chiefsecretary in charge of state’s science andtechnology department.“In 2010-11, electricitybills of 55 lakh rural households, worth Rs 29.1crore, were paid through e-gram outlets,” he said,adding that people could easily access these centres(located in panchayat offices) that have broadbandInternet connectivity.According to Saxena,projects like e-Dhara (complete computerisation ofall land records and citizen-centric delivery ofservices), Mahitishakti (online forms for citizensfor ration cards and old-age pension scheme),Gujarat Ration Card Computerisation and FormBook (an online book containing various formsrequired by the citizens), have made an impact inthe state. However, most of this Internetconnectivity seems to restricted to the governmentand panchayat offices/centres.As per the Census2011, the districts of Dang (137 homes with

Internet connections) and Narmada (576 homes)have the lowest Internet connectivity whileAhmedabad (1.2 lakh homes with Internetconnections), Surat (55,000) and Vadodara (53,000homes) have the highest Internetpenetration.Interestingly, the rural areas of even themost progressive districts of the state have poorInternet penetration. While rural areas in Vadodaraand Surat have just 1,500 and 3,200 homes withInternet connections, respectively, ruralAhmedabad has just 1,002 homes with Net.

—News Source:

Avinash Nair

Dalits Media Watch

Dalits Media Watch <[email protected]>

IV

Police in Sanal’s house to arrest him:4 July 2012. This morning, officers of the DelhiPolice reached Sanal Edamaruku’s house to arresthim. They came upon directions of a Delhi court toexecute an arrest warrant issued by a MumbaiMetropolitan Magistrate Court (second highestCriminal Court). If Sanal had been at home, hewould be in jail now....

The officers were informed that Sanal is presentlyout of Delhi and traveling. They insisted on detailsof his whereabouts, addresses and contact numbers.Some hours later, they came again to press forinformation, to no avail.

What will happen next?

With this dramatic turn of events, SanalEdamaruku’s persecution has reached a dangerousnew level. Exposing the “miracle” of thewater-dripping crucifix at the Velankanni church inMumbai as a plumber’s problem, he incurredCatholic fury beyond all trademark forgiveness.Highly alarming is the fact that the Catholic sidehas managed to secure considerable support fromIndian government agencies. The Catholic Churchis representing only a small minority of believers in

38


India. But it is backed by a powerful worldwideapparatus, driven by great ambitions to conquerIndia and make up for its losses in the westernworld. I don’t want the Dark Ages to come to India!Sanal says in the controversial TV program,drawing the battle lines.

In the ongoing conflict, Sanal has theevidence-based factual truth on his side - regardingcapillary action as well as regarding church history.Moreover, he enjoys the full support of the IndianConstitution that explicitly obliges all citizens todevelop “scientific temper, humanism and the spiritof inquiry and reform”. And then, of course, there isthe right to Freedom of Expression (Article 19 ofthe Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) on hisside of the balance tray..

The revengeful local Catholic leaders, on the otherside, have the tacit support of another heavyweight: the powerful Catholic Church. The Pope iskeeping mum, ignoring thousands ofcontemporaries from various parts of the world

who are calling upon the Vatican via an OnlinePetition of the Rationalist Association (UK) to takea stand in this case. But his Mumbai representative,Bishop Agnelo Gracias (whom Sanal encounteredin the TV-9 program), does all the talking.Unstinting in his public praise for Sanal’sprosecutors, Gracias “rejoices” about theircourage!

It is obvious that the Catholic Church is trying topull the strings to silence its most vocal andcourageous opponent in India. If there is one personwho could cross their ambitious plans, it is SanalEdamaruku. So there is much at stake, for bothsides. How far will they be able to go? That cannotbe foreseen. We have to be prepared for the worst.

—News Source:

Rationalist International Bullletin

www.rationalistinternational.net

[email protected]

39



Madam,

I am a reader of The Radical Humanist. I am a

person who has interest in the non-political

writings of M.N. Roy. I have translated M.N.

Roy’s book India’s Message in Malyalam. It has

been published in book form titled

Divyanmarude Manasasthram (meaning

Psychology Of The Seer) by Insight Publica,

Kozhikode, Kerala, February 2012, Rs. 80/-. It is

an abridged edition of India’s Message.

M.V. Haridasan

Sivaramnilayam

C.T. Palayam

Kollengode, 678506

Kerala

Note: Mr. Haridasan had sent this information inMarch 2012. The unavoidable delay in publishingit in the RH is regretted.

—Rekha Saraswat

40



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