To a starving person, God will appear in the form of bread alone.

Poverty is but the worst form of violence.

“As a jungli, as an adibasi I am not expected to understand the legal intricacies of the resolution. But my common sense tells me that every one of us should march on that road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilization, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the newcomers – most of you are intruders as far as I am concerned – it is the newcomers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastnesses. This Resolution is not going to teach Adibasis democracy. You cannot teach democracy to the tribal people; you have to learn democratic ways from them. They are the most democratic people on earth… The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of Independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected. There is no question of caste in my society. We are all equal. Have we not been casually treated by the Cabinet Mission, more than 30 million people completely ignored?… If history had to teach me’ anything at all, I should distrust this Resolution, but I do not. Now we are on a new road. Now we have simply got to learn to trust each other. And I ask friends who are not present with us today that they should come in, they should trust us and we, in turn must learn to trust them. We must create a new atmosphere of confidence among ourselves”.

- Constituent Assembly, 19th December 1946.

“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity… That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over”.

- Constituent Assembly, 14th August 1947, Midnight.

“Although I have every respect and praise for this Constitution, yet there is one thing which I am most afraid of, and it is that this Constitution is tendentious to create a class – a class that democracy has created everywhere – of professional politicians.’ All democracies are run by professional politicians’ and I am afraid that is the main cause of their failures, because such people begin to live on democracies. It becomes with them a profession, the Statecraft’, becomes their only source of living. That is the bane of democracy and I want to make the future generations aware of this. It creates professional politicians’ – those whose earning depend on politics, with the result that they cut themselves adrift from all creative professions. If this democracy is also to be run by such persons who will have nothing else to fall back upon, and who live on Ministries or on the memberships of the Parliament, then this democracy is doomed, I am sure… But the picture from the villagers’ point of view is dull and dead. I cannot give argument to convince the villager that from 26th January 1950 his lot will be better. Nor is there anything tangible through which he can better understand this Constitution; because we give the villager nothing but the vote, which we will take from him after two years. That is the only thing we give him. So, I submit that it is only when those who till the soil are enabled to run this Constitution that they would appreciate it to be their charter of rights and freedom. Otherwise the Constitution is dull. There must be a leader. I hope our Indian earth is not so sterile that it will not give birth to a leader who will whisper life into this mould of the Constitution so that it could speak… Notwithstanding anything contained in this Constitution, no citizen of India shall draw for his personal use either from the public exchequer or from private enterprise a pay, profit or allowance which exceeds the earnings of an average wage earner”(this last statement he called the Mahamantra).

- Constituent Assembly, 25th November, 1949.

“We must begin by acknowledging the fact that there is complete absence of two things in Indian Society. One of these is equality. On the social plane, we have in India a society based on the principle of graded inequality, on the economic plane we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty. On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up”.

- Constituent Assembly, 25th November, 1949.

First of the quote owes its existence to a spirited & gifted speaker Jaipal Singh – himself an adibasi, a Munda from Chotanagpur. He expresses his fear that Adibasis are unlikely to be treated fairly in the new nation whatever the protestations to the contrary of others, when speaking on the ‘Objectives Resolutions’ moved in the Constituent Assembly(CA). Yet he chooses to repose his faith in the words of Nehru. Stirring words of the next quote need no introduction. But they do reinforce 63 years later the sense of betrayal of reluctant confidence reposed by Jaipal in the man who uttered them. Mahavir Tyagi, a great Gandhi follower, minces no words in telling that self-serving politicians are likely to hold the constitution a hostage & make a mockery of all pious ideals. Most will agree that his stunning indictment rings true today though his prescription at the end must have met with strong disapproval when it was uttered. Many would be though wistful today as to why wasn’t his ‘Mahamantra’ included in the Constitution. The man who is described as the architect of Indian constitution, Dr. Ambedkar, speaks of his awareness of the infirmities of Indian democracy. Democracy to thrive & succeed requires the triad of Social, Economic & Political equality; just fulfilling the last will ultimately consign whole arrangement to the dustbin of history.

Constituent assembly (CA) debates, the breadth & depth of which I became aware of after reading ‘India after Gandhi’ by Ramchandra Guha, are rhetorical, ideological, prejudiced, contentious, and are greatly influenced by the upheavals in India of the time from 9th December 1946 to 25th November 1949 during which it held its sessions. But they are also eloquent, rousing, analytic, profound, and surprisingly prescient. People who sacrificed their careers, creature comforts, health, wealth, even life in the cause of freedom struggle & the makers of our Constitution – at least some among them –, are holding a mirror to our face, a mirror to the face of India that is Bharat. What do we see there? Have we redeemed their pledge? Not wholly, or in full measure, but do we have a face to say at least substantially? It depends. It depends upon whom we ask. If we ask the adibasis for whom Jaipal Singh spoke, if we ask the villagers, daily wage earners for whom Mahavir Tyagi spoke, if we ask those who suffer grossest economic or social inequality for whom Ambedkar spoke, or if we ask those from whose eyes tears haven’t ceased to flow for whom Gandhi spoke; then what answer would we expect to hear?

Activists like Dr. Biyanak Sen, Himanshu Kumar, Sudha Bhardwaj, and others are telling us that answer. An answer we refuse to hear, to see, to know or to contemplate about. If Jaipal Singh, Mahavir Tyagi, Ambedkar, Gandhi were to come today, where will we find them – with Chidambaram, Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi in Delhi or with the adibasis in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and elsewhere? The government of the current ruler of India, granddaughter in law of Nehru & the newest-comer to India, would in all probability brand them terrorists or extremists, jail them or would have them die in an encounter with security forces for resisting the onslaught of the state by standing tall in solidarity with the tribals & the poor.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

This is the age of consumption. Consumption drives production. Production drives profits. Profits create mirages of unending happiness. We chase these mirages. We are exhorted to consume literally everything from cradle to coffin. We are promised that consumption will bestow innumerable joys. But we need to earn to consume. To consume more we must earn more. Consumption is our nirvana. We sit before TV sets. We spend our time browsing sports, glamour, travel, high living or simply soak in the languor of serial soaps. In between clever advertisements tell us where to find the next oases of happiness. We are sold & we buy dreams of light skins, enviable figures, insatiable stamina, luxury in mobility, cruises in the paradise, – a veritable Garden of Eden, or better. New dreams give rise to new desires. Next day we have new mirages to chase. We believe in freedom, liberty and pursuit of happiness. We take the democratic polity as given, but rarely do we value it. We take great pleasure in criticizing the state of affairs, but we seldom vote. We have no stake in the outcome of elections. We know our lives will go on more or less as before no matter who comes to power. We know this but we never wonder why it has to be so.

Sometimes we are shaken from our self contented stupor. We do get agitated when we see ‘democracy’ is violated. When the followers of Raj Thackeray rough up a fellow legislator for taking his oath in Hindi or when office & employees of IBN7 are attacked by those who swear by Bal Thackeray; we condemn their parochial thinking. Raj sees fellow citizens from UP & Bihar flocking to Mumbai as the cause of all Marathi troubles. Or Bal Thackeray views brother citizens belonging to other faiths, notably Muslims, as the source of all problems of the Hindus. Chief Minister & Home Minister assure that stringent action will be taken against miscreants & law will take its own course, whatever it is supposed to mean. They feel vindicated with those brave words. We feel assured that something is being done. When Sachin Tendulkar bats for ‘Mumbai belongs to all Indians’, our confidence in ourselves is restored. We all rally behind him as one. We also rally as one, join candle light vigils, peace marches as we did when terrorists struck at Taj & Trident (or Chabad House. We often forget pedestrian CST where the highest murders took place) on 26^th November last year. Thus assuaged we return back to our cocooned lives happy we have done our bit. Everything is forgotten by everybody until the next stirrings.

We have clash of hotly contested opinions with our class fellows when urban sprawl in which we live hits hard. Chaotic traffic jams, piling garbage bins, ugly shanties, pot holed roads, erratic power, petty graft, begging children at crossings, etc. disturb our pretty picture. The daily staple of news regarding rape/murder/dacoity/strikes/ corruption/burglary wreaks vengeance upon us. It spoils the coziness of our cocooned lives. We miss the feel good factor. We blame all these ills on someone else. We are law abiding citizens. How could we be responsible for all these evils? We fail to see Bal or Raj within us. We overlook the fact that like them we too have reduced the discourse to We versus They. We get angry when we find sundry hawkers blocking pavements to eke out a living. But we are oblivious when we park our cars on road and block traffic – roads are meant for moving vehicles. We hate the eyesores that slums present, but we want the cheap home maids, cooks, car washers, gardeners, drivers that come out of them. We want our holidays, sick leave, allowances, pension funds, weekly off; but are roiled if they want the same. We willingly pay extortionists prices in boutique stores & malls, but call street vendors or cabdrivers cheats for charging a few rupees more.  We rant against pickpockets, thieves and general lawlessness; but we indulge in insider trading, tax evasion, or bypassing laws through innovative methods.  We detest the graft at all levels, but pay out speed-money to get the ‘work’ done. We accept salary under different heads, in cash & in kind, to avoid tax in a neat arrangement between employer & employees. We open several units to keep workforce small or in modern days outsource work to avoid paying just salaries, Provident Fund, unionization, providing crèche and we call it avoiding headaches. We keep two or more sets of account books to create a parallel world hidden from the government. While they cheat we innovate. We do all this in a comforting belief that we don’t have a choice. What to do when the system is like that? We unabashedly enjoy an unjust, unearned, undeserved systemic advantage.

We fear the rise of urban lumpen youth, but forget the uncontrollable desires planted in their hearts by the great consumer dream. Pickpockets and thieves, mind you accused not convicts, were recently paraded by Mumbai police before the shopkeepers of a locality. Few saw the patent injustice of it all. What about similarly parading Raju of Satyam, Ketan Parikh of Bombay Stock Exchange, Reddys of Bellary, Manu Sharma of Jessica murder case, Madhu Koda of Jharkhand, and may be the rest of us? When faced with a proposal to stone a sinner, Christ countered by saying that only a person who hasn’t sinned may pelt the first stone. None were pelted. Today no Christ or Buddha is amongst us to hold mirror to our faces. No one to show how starkly unjust the system is.

This is the story in urban centers. At the top is the miniscule minority that controls all the wealth & power. That minority is the system. Below it are ‘we the Consumers’ who help turn the wheel of greed ceaselessly by insatiable consumption and keep the system going. At the bottom are the toiling poor in the city who make our lives comfortable in a million ways. They aspire to climb into the middle of the pyramid. Aspire to realize our lifestyles. We aspire to move up the comfort chain, possibly to join the gods at the top. There is a frenzy to get rich. Get rich quick. Anyhow! Somehow! A frenzy that has knocked out our senses and has reduced us to uncaring beings.  But inhabitants of villages, forests and remote areas do not even figure in this scheme of things. They are not consumers. Tribals don’t have place in this pyramid.

A P J Abdul Kalam was the most popular president at least in last 35 years or so I can assert. He was humble, he was frugal, his conduct was irreproachable & above all he was simple & approachable even as president. These are admirable qualities in any president. But I don’t think that alone explains his charm. He asked us to dream. We liked that, because that is what we have been doing. He made us dream of India – a super power by 2020. He also thought of an innovation – PURA. PURA means providing urban amenities in rural areas. PURA was not a gargantuan project to cover whole of rural India. It was a modest proposal to demonstrate in about 5000 out of some total 600,000 villages the power of integrated development. One such place selected was Bhaktara in Chhattisgarh. A cluster of 22 villages with 36,000 inhabitants were to get four lane high quality roads, battery operated bio-diesel buses, a thousand modern dwelling units, state of the art school, 250-bed modern hospital, and paramedical & nursing training  institute. Kalam wanted to teach even villagers to dream so as to unleash their creative energies too. It was his idea of what makes for transformational catalyst. It was this ability of Kalam to create a ‘feel good factor‘that really endeared him to us. We love feel good factor. Everyone loves it. But when Joseph John of Indian Express recently visited Bhaktara he could not even locate the sign boards announcing the scheme. As if PURA never existed, as if Kalam never launched the project, as if it was all a dream – or not even that. Inhabitants of Bhaktara were not even equipped to dream such dreams. This is the story of the heart of India.

Tribals living in the heart of India breathe air, drink water off the streams, cultivate food if they are allowed to or live off the forest as only they know how to. State neglect so far has been so complete that schools, health centers, agricultural extension services, improved seeds, irrigation, micro-credit etc. that government schemes boast of providing to our rural populace are conspicuous by their absence here. Yet they survived, may be barely. But now their days of neglect are over. They have been chosen for special attention. They have been selected for the intense scrutiny of the Indian state. The state wants their land. Below these lands lies immense mineral wealth. The top of the pyramid wants these lands. Minerals underneath their habitat are capable of turning the wheel of greed faster & faster. Minerals out in the open means more goods, more consumption, more profits, and still more factories. Faster & Faster! The glint of gold is shining into the future. Tribals don’t understand this. They are stubborn. They resist being shooed off from their lands. They refuse to walk quietly into oblivion. They don’t realize they are the problem- scarifying them is in ‘national interest’. They are holding up progress. The system is impatient. System is goading the State to do something. Do something fast. State is foaming at its mouth with greed & anger. It has let itself loose. The carnage of tribals looks imminent. We are unconcerned. We have our dreams to chase. We feed on the goods the System serves us. We are content with consuming the news the State gives us. We are blissful in our “nirvana”.

Yet the world is interconnected. Chinese & Indian leaders are hawking dreams of reaching US & European standards of living to their constituencies. The wheel of greed wants to turn even faster. Faster & Faster! Rocketing consumption is gobbling forests, wetlands, coral reefs, and other balancers in nature. Earth just cannot sustain that kind of lifestyle for every earthling. What is needed for the developed countries to do is sacrifice their luxuries, to axe their grotesquely bloated consumption, so that everyone can live decently in a sustainable world.  The demon of consumerism has to be halted in its tracks. Climate is changing. Climate is warming.  Climate knows no boundaries. Climate is delicately balanced, but it is also blind. It recognizes no elite, no super powers, no guilty or innocents. Warnings of climate change are ominous. Climate change will unleash droughts, water scarcity, famines, and hunger deaths. We are as if in a train that is hurtling towards an abyss, a certain perdition. But the partying of consumers is in full spate. Drums of insatiable greed are beating louder & louder. Nobody knows where this is leading. No one is concerned. No one cares. It is a state of ecstasy. But the fabric of universe is such that whatever we do to it will come back to us later with interest & more. Everything will be accounted for. Everyone will be held accountable.

Post Script :

1. “Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian and the only human rights activist on ground zero in faraway Dantewada where Operation Green Hunt is to be launched, says, “We can all be agreed on the premise that Naxalism is a problem, but why are these poor people attracted to a politics that will end in death? Have we created such a heinous system that death is more attractive than the deprivations and humiliations this system doles out? If that is so, why should I defend this system? All that these people want is food, health care, school, clothes and their legitimate right over their land. Yet, instead of weaning them away by strengthening the democratic process, if we are going to run our democracy only on the strength of weapons, I fear we are entering a dangerous and irreparable state. We are headed for civil war.” Men like Himanshu should know. For 17 years, he has functioned like an ICU on the edges of a wounded society, providing education and health care, painstakingly drawing tribals into the electoral and constitutional process. The government, loath to undertake the trouble, has been happy to outsource its functions to him. Yet now, it is deaf to his wisdoms.” – Tehelka.
2. Vedanta Resources published a full front page advertisement in Indian Express on 18^th November 2009. Among its achievements following caught the eye. JCommunity development initiatives improving the lives of over 2.5 Million people in 427 villages through education, self-employment, mid-day meals to school children, women empowerment, health & hygiene and other programmes – a major initiative towards socio-economic development of communities at large.J5% of the profit committed towards development of Kalahandi – Creating a new model for local area development. I have written to them asking for details, such as names of 427 villages state/district/Tehsil wise.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

Bellary is (a) ‘MINE’ to Chhattisgarh is (a) ‘MINE’.

States are usually very jealous in guarding their turf – may it be language, boundary, water and other material riches. Not so if you are Janardan, Somshekhar or Karunakar Reddy. Then you can shake the Chief Minister of Karnataka or pocket the Late Chief Minister of Andhra.

“Burrowed and battered by mining barons, a stretch of Karnataka’s border with Andhra Pradesh has been all but erased. Neither political parties, nor protests by citizens, nor the Lok Ayukta report on illegal mining in the region, nor High Court directives have stopped the violations in two places along the border in Karnataka’s Bellary district.” – writes N Bhanutej of The Week in Rape of Bellary. Courts had ordered a survey to be carried out to determine scope & extent of illegal mining. But the surveying party feared for its life. A letter in possession of The Week shows that an officer of Andhra Pradesh Geospatial Data center Swarna Subba Rao writes, “to the Union home secretary seeks CRPF protection during the survey. “We perceive serious threat to our men and equipment during the work and the security cover of local state will be inadequate,’’”. Report ends with this ominous scenario, “As we stand on the Hagari bridge on the Bellary-Anantapur highway, thousands of trucks with “zero material’’—code word for illegal ore—roll towards ports in Andhra Pradesh. With international prices of ore climbing to Rs 2,000 per tonne, business is brisk. And Bellary—reeling in poverty, unemployment, low literacy, high infant mortality and water scarcity—continues to be ravaged by a band of ruthless miners”.

Bellary brothers have done it all. They have had ‘official surveys fixed’, ensured ‘loyally of local officials’, redrawn ‘interstate boundaries’ and above all they have had Chief Ministers of Andhra & Karnataka cooperate – one a willing partner, the other duly arm twisted. Sugata Srinavasarju has evocatively titled his piece Bellary is Mine in Outlook. A union Minister has this say when queried by Outlook. “When Outlook asked Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh about the efforts of the Reddys and the Andhra government to scuttle the survey, he said: “The matter is in the Supreme Court and I can’t say which way it will go. As far as my ministry is concerned, we believe SoI is the best agency to carry out the survey, but the AP government is saying that its forest department has already carried out this survey”.

“The Central Empowered Committee (Environment and Forests) of the Supreme Court has recommended that all mining activity in Obulapuram in Andhra Pradesh be suspended till an independent body fixes the boundaries of the mining area again. The panel slammed the Andhra Pradesh government for “trying to cover up illegal mining done by M/s Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) in the unalloted forest areas outside the approved mining leases”. This is the news of 21st November.

When loot of mineral wealth is taking place so blatantly even while both government agencies and media are aware of it; When patently aggressive & ruthless behavior is practiced so openly that survey officials are forced to ask for protection of the central government security agencies; When orders of Lok Ayukta & High Courts are disregarded so imperiously that serious question arises if the Kingdom of Money isn’t finally here; hasn’t the time come for Union Government to establish its writ in these areas? But ain’t the Writ of money running amok already in these lands? So what if it is not the writ of the Constitution? Where is Chidambaram? Or does he only see RED?

UAVs to Defang Maoists.

TOI reports that security forces are to use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for ‘precision strikes’ (think what USA does in Afghanistan & Iraq) against Maoists in the border areas of affected states. Of more interest is the rare acceptance of the real difficulty facing the offensive. “The authorities are a bit worried over the safety of lakhs of people, especially tribals, who would be caught in the crossfire between the Maoists and security forces as and when the full-scale battle is launched. According to an official, around 25 lakh people would be directly affected. Maoists have a free run in nearly 40,000 square km area in the worst-affected states and the security forces cannot afford to put the lives of lakhs of people in jeopardy, an officer serving in Khammam border said.”.

Repeat a lie, blow up a threat, till it sticks.

Repeat a statement again & again and it acquires an aura of self evident truth. One such gospel currently doing the rounds is : “Central paramilitary and police forces in several states are mobilizing for a huge push to establish governmental authority in 223 of the country’s 626 districts where Maoists dominate.”.

Even if it is assumed that entire Jharkhand & Chhattisgarh, half of Orissa, and 1/5th of the rest (a very brazen overestimate indeed of districts ‘affected’) are in the thrall of Maoists; then the number of Maoists dominated districts that government desires to ‘liberate’ still add up only to 102. Even this lower figure I would imagine that the Maoists would find highly flattering. May be the government finds 223 districts, more than 1/3rd of the entire country, a more respectable figure to rush in Paramilitary forces on such an unprecedented scale into areas where foreign-hand cannot be depended upon like in Kashmir to justify the emasculation of human rights & use of raw power. Will Home Secretary G K Pillai name those 223 districts for the benefit of ignoramuses?

Promises of the Rulers.

“It is ridiculous. We live in a free society, we live in a democracy. The press is a part of democracy and has every right to criticize.”, – thus spake the ruler of Orissa, Biju Patnaik, on 25th September. He then “promised that justice would be done to Choudhary and on Wednesday (30th September) ordered a probe by Deputy Inspector General of Police (Southern Range) R P Koche into the arrest”. This was on 25th September, roughly 2 months ago. Choudhary, a stringer with the vernacular daily Oriya in Gajapati District, was arrested on charges of sedition & criminal conspiracy because he had the misfortune of Maoists addressing an envelope to him containing their leaflets. Real grouse of the police was that hapless scribe had the temerity of writing about the local ganja mafia despite friendly advice to desist. Two months down Journalists’ protests in Bhubaneswar & Gajapati have been to no avail. His wife Minati is struggling to make ends meet. Two lower courts have turned down his bail application twice. Rulers have added yet another trophy of ‘promises to break’ to their museum of governance.

Voices from the Margins (around the world).

Peruvian Amazon (Gold) : Yet, according to Ramirez(head of the ministry’s Environmental Affairs office), IAMGOLD (A Canadian Mining Company) has no concession for exploration or mining in the region.“What they are doing is illegal,” the official said, adding that the Canadian firm has not even sought authorization to operate in the Amazon. This came to light when Indians in the Peruvian Amazon complained about IAMGOLD’s activities.

Luzon Philippines (Nickel) : Catholic priest, Garriguez, charged government that it allowed a Norwegian company to conduct nickel mining exploration on close to 12,000 hectares of land on the island, which could cause irreparable ecological damage, endanger the health and lives of people and threaten their food security. This is done in violation of its own 2002 ordinance which imposes a 25-year ban on large-scale mining on the two Mindoro Island provinces – Mindoro Occidental and Mindoro Oriental – in Southern Luzon.

Venezuela (Native Rights) : National Assembly passed a new law on Thursday to preserve, promote, and strengthen indigenous artisanship through legal recognition, the creation of indigenous artisan councils, and a special development fund. As a result of constitutional mandates, Venezuelan indigenous communities have gained representation in the government and received more social services than ever before, but conflicts persist over the ownership and mining of their ancestral lands.

Canada (Mining Companies) : Forty-three per cent of the mining exploration around the world can be attributed to Canadian mining companies. The allegations of human rights abuses come from at least 30 of the world’s poorest countries and have named companies of all sizes, from giant corporations to junior mining companies. This caused John McKay, Liberal MP for Scarborough-Guildwood, to introduce the private member’s bill that seeks to control the behavior of Canadian companies abroad.

Peruvian Amazon (Oil) : A Peruvian Amazon Indian federation is demanding that U.S.-based Hunt Oil Company leave a reserve where it has already begun laying the groundwork for exploration and production. Hunt Oil is operating in an indigenous reserve that was established in 2002 after Indians fought for years to protect the rainforest area of the vast Madre de Dios and Karene watersheds and set aside zones where Indians could live from fishing and hunting.

O O O O O O O O O O O O

Shoma Chaudhary of Tehelka interviewed P Chidambaram recently. He is arguably among the most articulate ministers of UPA government. His exhortation to Maoists to suspend violence sounds most reasonable. Dialogue is impossible in the climate of war, he chimes. He has given very lawyerly answers harping on semantics. Elsewhere Maoist leader Azad, spokesperson of Central Committee, was interviewed by Manoj C G of Indian Express. Maoists will not make the mistake of positional head on war with government forces like the LTTE, stated Azad. Report claims that Azad said, “All our plans, policies, strategy and tactics will be based entirely on the active involvement of the vast masses of people in this war of self-defense. The enemy class cannot decimate us without decimating the entire population in regions we control”. Ominous portends for the tribals caught as they are between the devil & the deep sea. Is Chidambaram sincere in his offer? He doesn’t say if security forces buildup will be halted, assault suspended, for talks to happen. He tells elsewhere that security forces will not fire unless fired upon. Who will know who fired first? A close look at what he said is warranted to see if his words inspire confidence. Do the actions on the ground validate those words?

Chidambaram : “I said, no, the army will not be called for these internal security operations. I said, if necessary, the special forces in the army, which is the commando unit, may have to be called in for a special situation.”

Responding to whether Army will be called this is what Chidambaram had said. The veil of secrecy under which government chooses to operate has frustrated many a RTI activists for even peacetime issues. Who is to know whether the units of Army employed in the jungles of remote districts are commando units, Signals Corp, Logistics unit, or plain infantry? What would be their numbers & role? Isn’t this straight & simple nitpicking?

Chidambaram : “I said we are wedded to a democratic republican form of government, so civil society has to choose whether we want this form of government or an armed liberation struggle and a dictatorship of the proletariat”.

While Maoists violence hits the headlines, the media is mostly blind to state violence, especially when it repressively forfeits the rights of the poor & marginalized in the ‘Development Game’. He cleverly changes the paradigm of choice to the form of government or the form of struggle and exhorts that this choice cannot be ducked. Real choice really lies between ‘enriching the rich at the cost of tribals’ or ‘enriching the tribals by ignoring the rich’. When the state betrays major sections of its populace, when instead of protecting it starts preying on them, then protests & opposition to it may take different forms. While state has promised several times in the past & present to redress injustices (take for instance Resettlement & Rehabilitation of people displaced by Projects & Dams), seldom have these commitments been met in full measure. He pleads utter helplessness about the well documented violence by Chhattisgarh state sponsored vigilante group – Salwa Judum. What civil activists have been pointing out is that poor tribals have no choice between the State violence and the Maoist violence. In this destructive game, tribals are forced to choose one or the other evil. If he is bereft of ideas other than using state terror, let him give a chance to Himanshu Kumar, who told Jyoti Punwani of TOI, “I can bring peace in a week. You withdraw your forces and provide the amenities that were stopped after Salwa Judum started: doctors, schools, aanganwadis”. Either way, whether Himanshu Kumar fails or succeeds, Chidambaram will be a winner. He should do this if he is honest about his protestations about the imperfections of our democracy. Chidambaram overlooks another blatant imperfection, ‘While the poor vote in hope for change, money bags have already preselected the candidates in election fray from among whom they will be choosing’. So whatever the outcome of elections, democracy works for the rich. A neat arrangement isn’t it?

Chidambaram : “I have made it very clear that anyone who is arrested by the police – State or Centre – must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours…… I have made a thorough investigation and, to my knowledge, there is not a single torture chamber under the control of the central agencies. If you think there is one, if you suspect there is one, let me know where it is, and I know how to locate it and dismantle it”.

It is one thing to make ‘clear’ and quite another that it is ensured. There are many things made ‘clear’ even in our constitution, which on oath he & his government are committed to defend, but still remain moth worn solemn pledges. Who knows if this is said only to fool public? Prime Minister had instructed his security detail to be sensitive to public concerns in the wake of tragedy at PGIMER-Chandigarh during his visit. Does anyone believe a different approach will take place next time? This culture of abject depravity in the organs of state can’t change so easily. I possess direct knowledge that in Pune not infrequently suspects are in Police custody without a formal arrest, so the question of producing them before the magistrate doesn’t arise. Admittedly at times this is done by few good policemen to avoid unnecessarily incarcerating a suspect by pressing a formal charge early when investigating a serious crime, but such cases are few. If Chidambaram can’t prevent such extra-judicial arrests in a metropolitan region like Pune, what can one make of his boast of making it clear to all police functionaries? Most city dwellers I know belonging to middleclass would prefer not to come in contact with the police. At the least they fear the uncivil behavior they may have to contend with. Yet, same persons are perfectly willing to let State feed tribals to same police & security forces. The lines about ‘torture chambers’ surreally seem to come out of the primer written by Donald Rumsfeld. Are central agencies practicing ‘rendition’ like CIA, by handing over prisoners for torture to state security agencies? What else one is to make of his categorical assurance only about central agencies? Is custodial torture a myth, a creation of delusional masses, despite several documented instances to the contrary?

Chidambaram : “…………..beyond prevailing upon the states to change their attitude towards law enforcement, beyond urging them, nudging them, prevailing upon them, there is not much I can do. It falls entirely within the jurisdiction of the state chief ministers to meet the requirements of the Constitution, justice and fair play”. ……“All this was possible in two and a half months because we had broadly asserted control over these areas and, for reasons that I do not know, while the Maoists were indulging in acts of violence here and there, they did not interfere with what we were doing on the ground. At least in these districts”.

A rare admission slips in that Maoists didn’t interfere in the activation of PDS, distribution of free ration to BPL families and Old age pensions etc. in Jharkhand that is under president’s rule. He claims these measures have redressed people’s grievances. What stops centre from replicating this model in other states? Activists like Himanshu Kumar are demanding exactly that. But there Chidambaram pleads utter helplessness behind List-II of the constitution. A virtual admission that state governments (obviously, Non Congress) are the problem. The constitution was not a hindrance when Bihar was put under president’s rule in 2005 by sending a cabinet resolution in an unholy rush at midnight to Kalam for signing in Moscow where he was on a state visit. A decision that was struck down as patently unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Collusion with the very state governments by the center for a well coordinated assault on Maoists doesn’t pose a problem, but collaboration for implementing welfare schemes and making administration work does. Some strange logic it may seem. Or is it?

Chidambaram : “I think these MOUs have been signed over a period of time with different governments, long before Maoist violence escalated to this level”.

The point is that most of these MOUs signed by State Government are guarded like Swiss bank accounts. Advocate Sudha Bhardwaj, an activist with Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, told of how repeated attempts by RTI activists to obtain copies have been zealously thwarted by state government. What is this secrecy in a matter that should have been transparent & placed in public domain without even asking? It is these opaque ways of functioning that help enrich political class (Madhu Koda) & companies (Illegal mining in Orissa worth hundreds of billions) at the expense of poor tribals. When tribals started resisting their illegal eviction from their lands for mining to begin, problems erupted and now the centre is coming to the rescue of states to finish the agenda once & for all. Chidambaram first alludes to a ‘sinister design’ theory & then denies it, but that is exactly what has happened with the state sponsored Salwa Judum movement, which he says even he decried to the Chief Minister.

Chidambaram : “That’s not a bad argument! Why don’t the people elect someone worthy? I can understand they elect him the first time, why do they elect him the second time if he’s corrupt or a knave?”

When confronted with facts that Land acquisition act, SEZ act, Rehabilitation Bill etc. came under scrutiny only when poor revolted against the patent injustice meted out to them, Chidambaram glibly answers that people should elect better legislators. When elections require support of moneybags & musclemen, can good people ever hope to get elected? Can poor ever hope to have their true representative elected? Can they expect their representative to remain loyal to them resisting the temptation to be co-opted by the establishment?

Chidambaram : “There’s nothing wrong with the mining plan itself. The point is, we don’t enforce what we lay down. People get away with impunity by cheating or bribing or violating the plan because the executive is weak”. “The vigilance commission; the information commission; the consumer court; the environment court; the court of law, the CAG, the legislature. More than anyone else, the legislature. Why don’t they exercise their powers? Why do they feel emasculated and enfeebled?”

Thank you Mr. Chidambaram for telling us that. It took a public spirited activist like Rabi Das again to file a PIL in Supreme Court and get an order halting some 64 illegal mining operations in Keonjhar, Sundargarh & other districts in Orissa. This theft of national wealth took place not without the active connivance of various organs of state. It may amount to some INR 700 Billion according to Das. You are the executive Mr. Home Minister and only thing that you do is pointing fingers at every other organ of the state and lament weakness of the corrupt executive. You are present in the legislature too. You should not be asking those questions, you should be answering them.

Chidambaram : “As far as police picking up wrong people goes, I ask, why did the judge remand them? The judge then failed in his duty. …… The point is, I can’t sit here in far away Delhi and say release someone who the police is producing before the magistrate in West Bengal.”

True, the judge may have failed in putting 14 innocent women in custody in Lalgarh. But it was also the failure of the executive to arrest those women on trumpeted charges. He finds himself in far away Delhi to undo the wrong and yet believes that his instructions to police to follow the rule of law will be obeyed. When Chhatradhar Mahato, who led the People’s committee against police atrocities in Lalgarh, was arrested on 26th September, Director General of Police (DGP-West Bengal) Bhupindar Singh announced that the tribal leader had an LIC policy worth Rs. 10 million, a house in Mayurbhanj – Orissa, and owned illegal arms. Two months later it turns out that his LIC policy has shrunk to anemic INR 77 thousand, land he owns is measly 4 bighas, and the state CID is still hunting for the house in Mayurbhanj. This is the credibility of the highest ranking police official in the state. Another case is of the detention under patently trumpeted charges of Dr. Binayak Sen that continued even under Chidambaram’s reign for at least 6 months when he was deaf to the entreaties for releasing him on bail by several eminent persons. He needed bail on health grounds. But a Pune based builder, Avinash Bhosale, who was arrested for bringing in very expensive items in his personal baggage without paying duty by Mumbai Customs, obtained bail from a night magistrate at lightning speed without spending even minutes in jail. Or Manu Sharma, son of powerful Congress leader Venod Sharma, who is in jail for murdering model Jessica Lal in a bar, got bail for family reasons only to land in another brawl at another bar this week. This shame of Manu’s parole happens in Delhi within few kilometers from Chidambaram.

Chidambaram : “It underscores my point that organs of government in this country are not functioning. There’s too much stasis, too much incompetence. The theoretical construct is not wrong, the practice is.”

One can only agree with him here by adding : There is too much graft, too much patronage, too much legislation, …….. and too little action to correct all this. There is a wide disconnect between words & action. If the practice is wrong, then it should be changed. If the organs of state are not functioning as they should, then that must be changed – in a hurry, in an Operation State Clean UP. A tribal lives a meager economic existence. She can’t live by highfaluting theoretical constructs. She needs, work, She needs food – education – health services – shelter, above all she needs peace & safety. She needs these now. That is where Chidambaram, who is part of the executive that touches the life of citizens pervasively, pleads helplessness. It sets alarm bells ringing. The very same organs of state seem to be working right now like a well oiled machine in Orissa , Karnataka, West Bengal, etc. apart from Chhattisgarh. It may not be Operation Green Hunt that is denied by Chidambaram, but it could very well be ‘Operation Tribal Hunt’ as described by Bhai Vaidya – a veteran socialist leader in Pune or a photo journalist from central India Javed Iqbal.

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Bombay Stock Exchange gives thumbs up to Operation Green Hunt

What is the truth behind operation Green Hunt? Is the official narrative to be trusted that it aims to crush the Maoist menace so that welfare & development schemes may be rushed in to tribals? Or are the activists working in tribal areas for umpteen years to be believed that it is a grand strategy to dispossess the tribals of their ancestral lands in the name combating Maoists? The answer to this vexing issue is to be found in the behavior of BSE PSU index on Friday last (6^th November09). BSE PSU index tracks the market’s perceptions of Public Sector Undertakings. Stock markets are supposedly prescient about the functioning of the economy & the future of companies operating within it. Whole range of events unfolding elsewhere in the economy & the polity that have an impact on the prospects of a company are factored into its share price by operators on stock exchanges. BSE PSU index rose 3.91% on that day. Remarkable, but not extraordinary considering that the government had announced a sale of some stake in PSUs. Sensex, the bellwether index of Bombay Stock exchange, itself had a pretty modest outing in the field rising only 0.6%. An extraordinary event was the performance of NMDC (10% rise), MMTC (20% rise), Hindustan Copper (10% rise) etc. The market cap or the notional worth (Number of outstanding shares x market price/share) of NMDC rose by Rs. 120 Billion & of MMTC by Rs. 300 Billion. Why were these companies worth so much more overnight? The answer lies in their business. National Mineral Development Corporation is in the business of “exploration of wide range of minerals including iron ore, copper, rock phosphate, lime stone, dolomite, gypsum, bentonite, magnesite, diamond, tin, tungsten, graphite, beach sands etc“. Minerals & Metals Trading Corporation on the other hand boasts of managing with “commendable élan the bulk operations spread across far – flung areas in the mineral rich states of the country and by exporting minerals from all the major ports of India“. The third company, Hindustan Copper, modestly claims that “It has the distinction of being India’s only vertically integrated copper producing company encompassing mining, beneficiation, smelting, refining and casting of refined copper metal“. So this troika straddles the mineral wealth of the country – and they are currently owned by “We the People of India…….” Turning to the other side of the story, the State of Chhattisgarh
is home to 28 varieties of minerals including diamonds as per the Mining.pdf document available on its official website. It lists Coal, Tin, Iron Ore, Bauxite, Limestone, Dolomite, Corundum, Alexandrite, Beryl, Garnet, diamonds, gold among others minerals. Now a very tight coupling is complete. On one hand is a state extremely rich in minerals. On the other you have companies best placed to exploit those treasures. The only irritant is that the minerals are buried deep below the lands that for millennia have belonged to tribals. The minerals can be got out if the tribals can be got off that land. The stock market has given resounding thumbs up to operation green hunt because it knows it will vacate the mineral rich lands of the nuisance of tribals. It is happy at the twin gravy train UPA-II government has set rolling for it. First it is unlocking the mineral wealth. Then it has started the process of eventual privatization of public assets by selling stake in PSUs – bit by bit. A grand scheme of defrauding ‘We the people of India…..‘ So Bastar & Bombay are interconnected after all. It is the misfortune of Bastar, but lady luck is smiling on BSE.

Lyrical Scribe.

No one has a monopoly over truth. Truth has many facets. Facets that don’t find expression in the media need to be told with vigour. It is not a privilege but duty of the media to give voice to the most dispossessed. Such reporting strengthens democracy by helping to reach benefits of growth to reach all. Press is therefore called the fourth estate – the 4^th leg of parliamentary democracy. Yet, time & again we find mainstream media not only reporting official narrative without questioning, but even supporting it with unabashed enthusiasm. Sample this piece by Sankarshan Thakur in Raipur for The Telegraph : “Vishwa Ranjan is a poet and a pragmatist, a palpably split persona who can sing the eloquent song of injustices done to tribals and, in the next breath, bluntly set out the imperatives of crushing the Maoist surge”. “His is a finely articulated position on reasons and requirements — he can understand, he says, why the Maoists have been able to make a base for themselves in Bastar and expand, but isn’t willing to accept their strategy of redressing wrongs“. One would imagine that Vishwa Ranjan is being honoured & felicitated for his accomplishments. But, No! He is the DGP of Chhattisgarh (“chief executive officer of Green Hunt“, as he is approvingly called by the scribe) & Thakur is there to find out what is happening there in the wake of ‘operation green hunt’. Thakur should have been skewering the top cop with some tough questions to get at the bottom of what exactly is going on. He should also be doing that to activists & social organizations that have expressed serious apprehensions about government’s motives & repercussions of its actions on the tribals. What he is doing instead is singing paeans to the man whose actions will have serious consequences for the region. This is what is going on in the name of reporting. Reader be aware!

Democracy for Sale

Hindu editorial, Journalism for sale, Says, “in 2009 the free, fair, and democratic attributes of these elections have been compromised as never before by the large-scale, illegal, and scandalous use of money power — which, to a considerable extent, involved recycled dirty money garnered through corruption in executive and legislative office“. Distribution of money to voters is not new, though the scale this time was unprecedented. What is of more interest is the role played by media as pointed out by P Sainath, the well known journalist & author, in his article “The medium, message and the money“. “Sainath’s article exposes the phenomenon of ‘coverage packages’ exploding across India’s most industrialised State during the recent Assembly election. Candidates paid newspapers different rates for well-differentiated and streamlined packages of news coverage. Those who could not or would not pay for the packages tended to be blacked out. The Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists has, on the basis of a sample survey conducted in West Godavari district, estimated that newspapers across the State netted Rs. 350 crore to Rs. 400 crore through editorial coverage sold to candidates during the 2009 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections“.

Figment of Imagination

Palaniappan Chidambaram would have the nation believe from the IPS academy in Hyderabad that operation green hunt is a ‘media invention‘. He further added “There is no such operation. The Green Hunt or whatever is a pure invention of the media. The state governments are carrying out counter-insurgency measures against Naxalites wherever it is necessary. The Central government is providing assistance by way of central paramilitary forces, intelligence sharing and technical help“. He obviously wants to downplay the seriousness of it all by terming what is going on is all routine. Serious note has been taken by many researchers, activists, thinkers of the biggest exercise so far to dispossess the tribals of their mineral rich lands everywhere, but more particularly at the moment in Chhattisgarh. His artifice is a classic attempt at disguising extra-ordinary events as common. Mercifully the media has not accepted in this case the official line from the man in charge of internal security of the country. Soumitra Bose reporting for Times of India writes, “Despite home minister P Chidambaram’s assertion in Hyderabad on Friday that Operation Green Hunt against the Maoists was a `media creation,’ preparations are on in the rebel-hit areas of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh to mount such an operation. Special forces belonging to Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) are being flown in to Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra where a few companies of the CRPF are already in place. Besides, other paramilitary forces and police personnel would be there to help the elite force“. He has also raised a crucial point, “However, the big question is: where are the Maoists and how to identify them in the thick jungles of Gadchiroli“, which has made many people concerned about the heavy toll of lives that innocent tribals will have to bear.

Science is concerned

It is heartening that students of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore are concerned about the fate of our fellow tribals in far away Chhattisgarh. On 7^th November they organized a seminar, “The War Within : The Maoists, The Tribals and The State“. The title is very apt too as it shows the tribals caught between the State & the Maoists. Ramchandra Guha, the noted historian & sociologist, pointed out that “the tribals were the most dispossessed people in the history of India“. Sudeep Chakravarti, a journalist & author of the book The Red Sun travels in the Naxalite country, commented that “the state is deeply disconnected with its own people“.

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