Advani to release report about black money today
CPI(M) accuses Congress, BJP of 'political match-fixing'
PM, Sonia, Rahul to campaign in Maharashtra
Jaya, aiming to be a kingmaker
| NDA to pursue black money issue if voted to power: Advani | |||||||
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"In 1964, we said we would make India a nuclear weapons state and the assurance was fulfilled in 1998 despite opposition from America, China and even Manmohan Singh," Advani told reporters here.
"Our track record shows that we did what we had promised," Advani said.
He parried questions on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remarks that Advani had the "unique ability to combine strength in words and weakness in action".
"This is a different issue asked in a different manner. I am talking about building a national consensus on the black money issue," he quipped.
Advani vowed the NDA would proactively pursue the black money issue, which he said, would top the 100-day programme of the alliance, if voted to power.
"I think black money is linked up with security also. It indicates that the money is being utilised for terror activities," he said. PTI
Ghost of Nandigram looming, CPM in Nayachar bindExpressindia.com - Apr 8, 2009 Kolkata After receiving consent from the Union Cabinet for setting up Nayachar chemical hub, a section of CPM leaders, including Commerce and Industries ... Buddha dares TC to stop PCPIR project at NayacharIndopia - Apr 11, 2009 They (TC) have misled the people at Nandigram and now that we have decided to set up the PCPIR project at Nayachar, they claimed that they will stop it," ... Land in place for NayacharCalcutta Telegraph - Apr 12, 2009 Calcutta, April 12: The Bengal government will not acquire any additional land at Nayachar for the proposed chemical hub. The part of the Nayachar land in ... Chemical hub at Nayachar in Bengal gets official clearanceIndopia - Apr 6, 2009 Kolkata , Apr 6 The proposed chemical hub project at Nayachar in West Bengal has received official clearance from the Centre, state&aposs Industry Secretary ... Clearance of the proposed PCPIR soon Economic Times Leftist intellectuals root for Third FrontHindu - 3 hours ago ... detail the Tatas pulling out their Nano project from Singur and the opposition-sponsored agitations against the chemical hub in Nandigram and Nayachar. ... Left intellectuals make a pitch for Third Front Times of India Fleeing from nature, Nayachar residents see hope in industryTimes of India - Apr 5, 2009 Afterwards, the government will restrict the flow and do everything from making this island drift away," said Molla, who's been a Nayachar resident for 25 ... Nayachar sees more people, not investorsThe Statesman - Apr 4, 2009 KOLKATA, April 4: Nayachar, the site for the proposed chemical hub is yet to see an influx of investors but according to police report the number of ... Mukherjee supports Nayachar chemical hubThaindian.com - Apr 12, 2009 Later, the government chose Nayachar near Haldia, and the centre gave the nod. The Trinamool Congress has entered into a seat sharing agreement with the ... Nandigram set to flare up again over chemical hubBusiness Standard - Apr 8, 2009 This is because Nayachar is only 50 square kilometres (sq km) in size and the PCPIR will cover 250 sq km, including the 61 sq km now under existing chemical ... Govt chalks out Nayachar security planTimes of India - Apr 1, 2009 KOLKATA: Worried that security concerns may pose a further hindrance for the proposed PCPIR at Nayachar, a number of senior police officers have been sent ... |
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In Gic Nainital,Tara CHANDRA Tripathi suggested us to read and understand Muktibodh.
We means, his closest disciples, me, Mohan and Rakesh.
I had just landed in GIC passing my High School Exams from Dineshpur Zila Parishad High school.
I had never heard about Dhumil or Muktibodh, Nagarjun or Agyeya or Trilochan.
We were, though, aware of the works of SUKANTA Bhattachary in Bengali in the Refugee colonies in the Terai.
We knew the most modern Hindi Poet was NIRALA as we knew about Premchand as well.
It was during 1973-75 span of the time when we were also experimenting with GAZA, LSD, Hunting, Tracking, Adventure, Marxism and Sexology!
We were wild TEENAGERS and we GIC Boys were tough RIVALS of CRST College.
But Tripathi was a very TOUGH teacher! Since he had chosen us, we had to follow him. Later, he captured me and Mohan, putting us in his RESIDENCE.
We read DAS CAPITAL, Psychoanalysis and MUKTIBODH in the same time span.
We were reading RED BOOK and Communist Manifesto as we were reading Chand KAA MUNH TEDA HAI, SATAH SE Upar Uthata AADMI and Kamayani: EK PUNARVICHAR!
We were puzzled with the poem, ANDHERE ME means In the DARK. In this long poem armed with Nirala`s romantic Aesthetics and DICTION, he analysed the MIDDLE CLASS Psyche, which we had to ENCOUNTER in day to day life!
PAHLE TAYA KARO KIS OR HO TUM ( First you have to decide your SIDE) was a MOTTO for us as we considered us as committed.
We were trying to understand the Fantasy, ILLUSION and REALITY as we had to read the ESCAPIST poems of DUSHYANTA Kumar as CHALO Kahin AUR CHALEN Yehan DARAKHTON KE SAAYE ME DHUP Lgati hai( let us move ELSEWHERE as we feel the HEAT under the SHADOW of the TREE here!)
BRAHMARAKSHASH was the favourite poem of Mr Tripathi and we dared to IDENTIFY him with the BRAHMORAKSHASH who never spared us in his quest of knowledge and Truth. Even today, he rings his disciples and enquires about the FIRE within us!
It was rather good, that we red Modern Indian Poetry with World Poetry, Classics and PHILOSOPHY as guided by Triapathi.
We would spend the night walking on Mal Road up and down amidst SNOWFALL discussing the DILEMMA of our COMMITMENT and Ideology!
My surroundings Post Modern in SHINING FREESENSEX India rather sends me in the Past on unknown TIME MACHINE!
I would not have quoted Muktibodh as I intended to focus on Nayachar PCPIR near HALDIA, the shifted venue of NANDIGRAM CHEMICAL hub as the MARXISTS are pledging TEN LAC Jobs from the DEATH Machine. I have read an exposure by our scientist friend ABHI DUTT Majumdar. At the same time, Pashupati Mahato has written an article on Lalgarh Insurrection, Indigenous and Aboriginal communities, the BRAHMIN Front and MISINFORMATION Campaign against the FOREST people branding them as MAOISTS and creating a GROUND of GENOCIDE and REPRESSION once again.
The subject deals with the GREATEST Bourgeoisie of the world. We hated it and now we have become the part and parcel of it. Demographic adjustment of the RULING BRAHAMINICAL ZIONIST MARXIST HEGEMONY has HINDUIZED more the BENGALIES than the RSS did in North India. Our people do live in the ILLUSION that they happen to be also the part of the Mainstream Brahaminical society as the OBC making the RULING Class an INVINCIBLE ELECTORAL MAJORITY as well as the MANUSMRITI Gestapo! The ROOTS of FOLK uprooted and the RURAL world destroyed. In reality, we are subjected to INFINITE Persecution, Displacement and destruction!But we BENGALIES overwhelmed by BANGLA MONOPOLISTIC BRAHAMINICAL nationalty, consider MASS DESTRUCTION as the best way of DEVELOPMENT, SALVATION and LIBERATION. We never care to empower ourselves armed with the demas of our ancestors and INDIGENOUS Legacy and History. We may not mobilise or organise as we are the MOST SUBORDINATED People engaged to CELEBRATE all the VEDIC Festivals!
Our friend, Journalist JAI NARAYAN just pointed out at RAJNANDGAON, whereto MUKTIBODH belonged originally! JAI told that it is quite a COINCIDENCE that the HOME of MUKTIBODH is STRUCK by MAOIST VIOLENCE.
This very comment sent me back IN THE DARK, ANDHERE ME, written by Muktibodh and I am writing about MUKTIBODH with a remote HOPE that it may help us to UNDERSTAND the GREAT BENGAL Bourgeoisie !
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Dalit Literature - 'Dalit' literally meaning 'the oppressed' is now used widely to mean the most backward sections of the society who were considered 'untouchable' by the upper castes; while the Dalits have their traditional literature, the term 'Dalit literature' applies chefly to the contemporary writing done by educated Dalits; a great corpus of such writing that reflects Dalit life, history, anger, celebration of identity and aspirations is now available, especially in Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil, besides anthologies of translations in English; Dalit literature also implies a new subversive politics alongwith a new perception of life and society, just like 'Black literature'.
Muktibodh - (Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, 1917-1969); a pioneer of modern Hindi poetry and fiction author of 'Chand ka Munh Teda Hai' and 'Bhuri Bhuri Khak Dhul Muktibodh Granthavali' (complete works) published in 5 volumes.
Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Born | November 13, 1917(1917-11-13) Shyorpur, Gwalior district[1],  India |
| Died | September 11, 1964 (aged 46) Rajnandgaon District, Chhattisgarh, India |
| Occupation | writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, political critic |
Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh (गजानन माधव मुक्तिबोध) (November 13, 1917 – September 11, 1964)[1] was one of the most prominent Hindi poets, essayist, literary and political critic, and fiction writers of the 20th century[2]. He also remained assistant-editor of journals like, Naya Khun and Vasudha etc[2].
He is widely considered one of the pioneers of modern poetry in India[3], and doyen of Hindi poetry after, Surya Kant Tripathi 'Nirala'[4], and known as being a pioneer, the mainstay of Prayogvaad Progressivism movement of Hindi literature and it was also his work, which also marked the culmination of this literary movement and its evolution into the Nayi Kahani and Nayi Kavita Modernism in 1950s[5], his presence is equally important in the rise of 'New Criticism' in Indian literature.
He started out as an important poet, being published in the first three volumes of Tar Saptak, series of anthologies (1943), which marked a transition in Hindi literature, from the prevalent Chhayavaad movement; this led to the initiation of Prayogvaad Experimentalism in Hindi poetry, and developing along with Pragativaad Progressivism, eventually led to the creation of the 'Nayi Kahani' (New Story) movement, Modernism .
Brahmarakshas (ब्रह्मराक्षस) is considered his most influential work in experimental poems, noted for the use of archetypal imagery, and the stark depiction of the contemporary intellectual, who gets so lost in his own sense of perfectionism, unending calculations, and subjective interpretation of the external reality that soon he loses touch with the reality itself, and eventually dies and fades away like dead bird[6].
His work was deeply influenced by his viewpoints of Marxism, Socialism and Existentialism, and carried an innate expression of his deep discontent, heightened by his virulent imagery[7]. He continued to show his progressive streak even after the disintegration of the Progressive Writers' Movement after 1953; and, through the rest of his career, he along with writers like, Yashpal, continued his ideological fight against modernist and formalist trends in Hindi literature[8].
He is best known for his long poems:Brahma-rakshasa (ब्रह्मराक्षस), Chand ka Muh Teda hai (The Moon Wears a Crooked Smile) (चाँद का मुहँ टेढ़ा है)[9], Andhere Mein (In the Dark) (अंधेरे में) and Bhuri Bhuri Khak Dhul (The Brown Dry Dust) (भूरी भूरी ख़ाक धूल); his complete works extending to 6 volumes, were published in 1980, as Muktibodh Rachnavali.
'Sharadchandra Madhav Muktibodh' (1921-1985) a Marathi poet, novelist, and Marxist critic, winner of 1979, Sahitya Akademi Award in Marathi, was the younger brother of Muktibodh[10]
Contents[hide] |
Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh
A Single Shooting Star
A single shooting star
A distant star
shoots through the blue of space
Here, someone measures its speed,
records the rise and set.
But nothingness of space,
assumed to blue, must spell
an answer inaccessible.
To stretching scope
eye muscle's strain.
Astronomers describe
its pace and spatial shift;
account for its time concealed
in tunnels of shade.
Yet it tracks only itself,
oblivious to sketch
and sketcher, eye and scope.
With equal speed
another lone star seems
to move across the space
So in moving out of shades
of evil , reining self,
riding the void,
each star
becomes the image
seeing
its own fearless offspring---
because of this
I shall put faith in every man,
in every man's son.
| TWO SISTERS - The attitude to the serene musical deity is a mildly calculating one | ||
| Telling tales | ||
| Amit Chaudhuri | ||
"Lakshmi and Saraswati never inhabit the same house." This lovely, wise, slightly fatalistic Bengali saying — how old it is is worth speculating about — sums up a fair amount of the mood and trajectory of Bengali modernity. I have no clear memory of Saraswati Puja from my childhood, although the glittering, crowded, somewhat tacky suburban Durga Pujas in Bombay were an annual and anticipated observance; but I do recall the saying issuing as a ruminative aphorism from my mother when I was about 10 years old, and could just begin to make sense of it. It bears the curious, forbearing mark of indulgence that distinguishes the Hindu's relationship to his or her gods: a withdrawal of judgment, a suppression of condemnation. Why, after all, could Lakshmi and Saraswati not live in the same house, when it would have made things so much easier? We — the petitioners — won't go there, however; any more than a retired Bengali grandfather would ask his son to come back from California to look after him. A strange protectiveness, traditionally, characterizes the Hindu's love for his deities; it is, for instance, what makes the transference of the worshipper during the Durga Pujas from son and supplicant at the beginning of the festivities to notional, grieving father (as the visit to the paternal home comes to an end) both simple and logical. We don't comprehend our deities' behaviour any more than we do our childrens'; but we do know our emotions are implicated in their movements and disappearances, and so we're willing to give them a fair amount of leeway. We are, in other words, as bound to them by maya, the law of illusory, indefatigable attraction and desire, as we are to anything else. Of course, our household in Bombay was visibly blessed by Lakshmi, especially in comparison to the magical (to me as a child) houses in Shillong, Silchar, and even Calcutta, where different generations of relatives lived. Lakshmi may not have been worshipped in our apartment, but she was present among the company furniture in Cumballa Hill, and later in Malabar Hill and Cuffe Parade. What my mother meant, I suppose, was that people far less educated than my father — the people generically called 'businessmen' — had, under the taxation regime and the flourishing, parallel 'black' economy of those decades, greater wealth than he could ever aspire to. She was also expressing, through the saying, a typically Bengali ambivalence about entrepreneurship. This ambivalence has agitated and shaped Bengali bhadralok history in the form of what one might provisionally call the Mannian 'turn' — Mann, who had meticulously observed, in Europe, the transition from bourgeois order to daydreaming and the imagination, the courtship of Lakshmi to the pull of Saraswati, in works like Buddenbrooks and Tonio Kröger. This movement, in Bengal, is enacted everywhere from the 19th century onwards, most intriguingly in the family of the Tagores, the irrevocable unmooring of one part of that family from orthodoxy, its emergence, with Dwarkanath, into modern-day savvy entrepreneurship, and the momentous turn later towards speculative thought with Debendranath, and then, with Rabindranath and his brothers, towards the arts — towards the laconic veena-playing goddess — before its dissolution into ordinariness. The arc of these oscillations determine my father's life as well; born to a rich zamindari East Bengali family, his decision to pursue higher studies and his arrival at Scottish Church College in Calcutta in the Forties to study English literature could be explained by the ascent of Saraswati in his world of possibilities; the resolve later to change course, to travel to London in 1949 to take professional exams in taxation and accountancy might imply Lakshmi's reassertion in his destiny — although the regime of exams he took, the kind of work he did, the letters after his name, the fact that he was a bourgeois corporate professional rather than a 'businessman', singled him out, in my mother's mind and in the minds of many others, as equally a progeny of Saraswati's as he was an adherent of Lakshmi's. For Saraswati herself, at some point in history, had been domesticated by the Bengali upper middle class — both literally, as a brass figurine in the drawing room, and, more powerfully, as a metaphor for its own proprietorial but, in the end, ambiguous relationship with learning. All forms of examination-endorsed and institutional knowledge, management and finance included, would come to be her domain. Surely the gradations of meanings and nuances attached to these deities in the Bengali imagination tell us as much about the itinerary of this bourgeoisie, the arrival and vanishing of this population of men in white dhutis and black suits, as does Macaulay's grandiosely prophetic statement about his wish to create a "class who may be interpreters ... Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect"? I'm speaking, of course, of a time when the wealth available to the Bengali middle and upper classes was relatively limited, and certainly not guaranteed for all time: when Lakshmi, with the same mixture of indulgence and the faintest hint of reproach I mentioned earlier, was still called chanchala: the restive, fickle one. Evidence of her restiveness, her inability to abide in location or with one family for long, as well as the Mann-like self-destructive tenure of the Bengali bourgeoisie, can be found in the stories of companies like Martin Burn, and in the properties or old mansions on Elgin Road or in Ballygunge that are replaced monthly by new buildings. I'm referring to a history, then, whose features were formed before Hinduism's jubilant embrace of the inevitability of the free market in the wise, immovable figure of Ganesh: 'chanchala' belongs to a more inflected age, and she is, for all her charm, informed by middle-class self-doubt and uncertainty. Even as a child visiting this city, I was aware of the particular investment families had made in Saraswati, in exam results and tutorial classes — in the odd resonance of the words 'bhalo chhele', and, in special cases, 'jewel'. I, with my workaday marks, was no 'jewel'; but, in Bombay, it didn't seem to matter as much — we were more oppressed by sports and sex. It was only after I was 16, I think (such were the allocations of my vacations), that I witnessed an actual Saraswati Puja in Calcutta, with its perfume of khoi and bananas, and its weird domestic comedy of textbooks piled before the deity, and thin, distracted children laughing and submitting to her exercise books filled with the invocation, 'Om Saraswatyai namah'. Later, I'd see those same children — or those who'd once been like them — grown up and settled in some American suburb, elements of the familiar but publicized 'diaspora'. Very little of Saraswati's silent attentiveness, or her recondite interests, seemed to reside in these, her worshippers. Such encounters crystallized for me what I'd sense early on: that the Bengali fascination with the serene musical sister had long been a mildly calculating one, a route to her restless sibling without clearly admitting — to others but most crucially to themselves — that this route was being pursued. This explained the peculiar vocabulary of the Bengalis: why, for instance, 'qualifications' was used where 'education' should be — for instance, 'X has excellent qualifications', where one should say, 'X has had an excellent education'; as if learning and knowledge were, in the end, subordinate to eligibility. | ||
| amitchaudhuri@hotmail.com |
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090201/jsp/opinion/story_10466447.jsp
Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | November 13, 1917(1917-11-13) Shyorpur, Gwalior district[1], India |
| Died | September 11, 1964 (aged 46) Rajnandgaon District, Chhattisgarh, India |
| Occupation | writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, political critic |
Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh (गजानन माधव मुक्तिबोध) (November 13, 1917 – September 11, 1964)[1] was one of the most prominent Hindi poets, essayist, literary and political critic, and fiction writers of the 20th century[2]. He also remained assistant-editor of journals like, Naya Khun and Vasudha etc[2].
He is widely considered one of the pioneers of modern poetry in India[3], and doyen of Hindi poetry after, Surya Kant Tripathi 'Nirala'[4], and known as being a pioneer, the mainstay of Prayogvaad Progressivism movement of Hindi literature and it was also his work, which also marked the culmination of this literary movement and its evolution into the Nayi Kahani and Nayi Kavita Modernism in 1950s[5], his presence is equally important in the rise of 'New Criticism' in Indian literature.
He started out as an important poet, being published in the first three volumes of Tar Saptak, series of anthologies (1943), which marked a transition in Hindi literature, from the prevalent Chhayavaad movement; this led to the initiation of Prayogvaad Experimentalism in Hindi poetry, and developing along with Pragativaad Progressivism, eventually led to the creation of the 'Nayi Kahani' (New Story) movement, Modernism .
Brahmarakshas (ब्रह्मराक्षस) is considered his most influential work in experimental poems, noted for the use of archetypal imagery, and the stark depiction of the contemporary intellectual, who gets so lost in his own sense of perfectionism, unending calculations, and subjective interpretation of the external reality that soon he loses touch with the reality itself, and eventually dies and fades away like dead bird[6].
His work was deeply influenced by his viewpoints of Marxism, Socialism and Existentialism, and carried an innate expression of his deep discontent, heightened by his virulent imagery[7]. He continued to show his progressive streak even after the disintegration of the Progressive Writers' Movement after 1953; and, through the rest of his career, he along with writers like, Yashpal, continued his ideological fight against modernist and formalist trends in Hindi literature[8].
He is best known for his long poems:Brahma-rakshasa (ब्रह्मराक्षस), Chand ka Muh Teda hai (The Moon Wears a Crooked Smile) (चाँद का मुहँ टेढ़ा है)[9], Andhere Mein (In the Dark) (अंधेरे में) and Bhuri Bhuri Khak Dhul (The Brown Dry Dust) (भूरी भूरी ख़ाक धूल); his complete works extending to 6 volumes, were published in 1980, as Muktibodh Rachnavali.
'Sharadchandra Madhav Muktibodh' (1921-1985) a Marathi poet, novelist, and Marxist critic, winner of 1979, Sahitya Akademi Award in Marathi, was the younger brother of Muktibodh[10]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Works
His first individual book was published in 1964, when he was on his death-bed: Chand Ka Muh Teda Hai (चाँद का मुहँ टेढ़ा है)[5]. Although Muktibodh could not manage to get his works published, as a book in his lifetime, he was one of the contributing poets to the first three volumes of Tar Saptak, a series of path-breaking poetry anthologies, edited by Ajneya.
He is today considered a bridge between the Progressive movement in Hindi poetry and the Nayi Kavita (Modern Poetry) movement[2].
Muktibodh made a name for himself in the field of criticism as well, with his strong views on the upper caste influence on the disintegration of Bhakti movement in India, which he viewed a lower caste uprising against the hegemony upper caste[11]. In literary criticism, he wrote a critical work on Kamayani of literary doyen, Jaishankar Prasad titled: Kamayani, Ek Punarvichar[2].
Ek Sahityik ki Diary, first written for his column in the weekly Naya Khun, and later continued in the journal Vasudha, published from Jabalpur (1957-60), offers a glimpse of his literary and socio-political criticism, and insights into his way of thinking, and was first published in 1964. It is most noted for the article, Teesra Kshana (Third Moment), where he shows his preference for the hypothesis of three successive stages in the creative process, of inspiration, impersonalization and expression, rather than a single moment of inspiration[12][13]
[edit] Media
| (चाँद का मुहँ टेढ़ा है) | The wind's sari border quivers bullets pierce empty |
| – Muktibodh[9] |
A Hindi feature film, Satah Se Uthata Aadmi (Arising from the Surface), with script and dialogues by him, was directed by veteran film director, Mani Kaul, and shown at Cannes Film Festival in 1981[15]. In 2004, "Brahmarakshas ka Shishya", a dramatizaton of Muktibodh's story, was presented in New Delhi by Soumyabrata Choudhury[16][17].
His novel, Vipatra has also been made into an audio book for the blind[18].
[edit] Legacy
His brilliance was recognized by the literary world after the posthumous publication of Chand Ka Munh Tedha Hai, the first collection of his poems, in the early 1960s. Ever since, the book has run into several editions, and is recognized as a modern classic. In his memory, Madhya Pradesh Sahitya Parishad, has instituted the annual MuktiBodh Puraskar.
In 2004, 'Muktibodh Smarak', a memorial was set up at the 'Triveni Sangrahalaya' in Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, along with fellow poets of Chhattisgarh, Padumlal Punnalal Bakshi and Baldeo Prasad Mishra.[19][20]
[edit] Bibliography
- Chand ka Muh Teda Hai - (Anthology of Poems), 1964, Bharatiya Jnanpith.
- Kath Ka Sapna (Anthology of Short stories), 1967, Bharatiya Jnanpith.
- Satah Se Uthta Admi (Anthology of Short stories), 1971, Bharatiya Jnanpith
- Nayi Kavita ka Atmasangharsh tatha anya Nibandha (Essays), 1964, Visvabharati Prakashan.
- Ek Sahityik ki Dairy (Essays), 1964, Bharatiya Jnanpith.
- Vipatra (Novel), 1970, Bharatiya Jnanpith.[5]
- Naye sahitya ka saundarya-shastra, 1971, Radhakrishna Prakashan.
- Kamayani: Ek punarvichar, 1973, Sahitya Bharti.
- Bhuri Bhuri Khak Dhul - (Anthology of Poems), 1980, New Delhi, Rajkamal Publications.
- Muktibodh Rachnavali, Edited by Nemichandra Jain, (Complete Works) 6 Vols., 1980, New Delhi, Rajkamal Publications.
- Samiksha ki samasyain, 1982, New Delhi, Rajkamal Publications.
- Pratinidhi kavitayein, edited by Ashoka Vajapeyi. 1984, Rajkamal Prakashan.
- In the Dark: Andhere Mein, translated by Krishna Baldev Vaid. 2001, Rainbow Publishers. ISBN 8186962425. (ISBN 81-86962-42-5.).
- Dabre Par Sooraj ka Bimb, 2002, National Book Trust. ISBN 8123738803.[21]
- Muktibodh Ki Kavitayen (Anthology of Poems), 2004, Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 8126006749.
[edit] Further reading
- Soviet Literature, by Soi͡uz pisateleĭ, USSSR. 1947, Foreign Languages Publishing House, p 144-147.
- Muktibodh ka sahitya: Ek anusilana, by Shashi Sharma, 1977, Indraprastha Prakashan.
- Muktibodh: Vicharak, kavi aura Kathakar, by Surendra Pratap, 1978, National Publishing House. [1]
- Muktibodh: Sankalpatmaka kavita, by Jagdish Kumar, 1981, Nachiketa Prakashan.
- Muktibodh ka Sahitya-vivek aur unki Kavita, by Lallan Ray, 1982, Manthan Pub.
- Muktibodh ki atmakatha, by Vishnuchandra Sharma, 1984, Radhakrishna Prakashan. (Biography)
- Paya Patra Tumhara: Gajanan Madhava Muktibodh aur Nemichandra Jain ke bich Patra-vyavahar, (1942-1964), Edited by Nemichandra Jain. 1984, Rajkamal Prashan[22]
- Muktibodh: Yuga chetana aur Abhivyakti, by Alok Gupta, 1985, Giranar Prakashan.
- Jatil samvedana ke kavi Muktibodh, by Alok Gupta, 1993, Parsva Prakashan.
- Pratibaddhata aur Muktibodh ka Kavya, by Prabhat Tripathi. 1990, Vagdevi Prakashan. ISBN 8185127271.
- Muktibodh ka shilpa-saushthava, by Madhu Srvastav, 1992, Janardan Prakashan.
- Muktibodh kavi aura kavya, by Madan Gulati. 1994, C.D. Publication.
- Muktibodh: Muktikami chetana ke kavi, by Ajay Shukla, 1994, Sanjay Book Centre.
- Muktibodha ki kavya Bhasha, by Kshama Shankar Pandey, 1995, Shilpi Prakashan.
- Muktibodh ki kavita mem yathartha-bodha, by Sashibala Sharma, Sabda aura Sabda Pub.
- Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh: Srjana aur Shilpa, by Ranjit Sinha, 1995, Jay Bharati Prakashan.
- Muktibodh ki kavitaon se guzarate hue, by Anup Sharma, 1996, Sahitya Bhavan Pvt. Ltd.
- Muktibodha vichar aur Kavita, by Devendra Kumar Jain, 1998, Takshasila Prakashan.
- Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh Ke Kavya Mein Samajik Chintan, by Yuvraj Sontakke, New Delhi, New Bhartiya Book Corporation. 2000.
- Muktibodha-kavya: Janavadi chetana ke sandarbha main, by Premalata Casavala. (Socialism in the poetic works of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh), 2001, Adhara Prakashan, ISBN 8176750387.
- Muktibodh ki Kavya Bhasha, by Sanat Kumar, 2001, Chintan Prakashan, Kanpur. (Study of the poetic works of Muktibodh).
- Naash Devta and Kal Aur Aaj, poems by Muktibodh (Hindi)
- A Single Shooting Star, a poem by Muktibodh (Translated to English)
- Brahma Rakshas Ka Shishya, a story by Muktibodh
- Muktibodh ki Kavyaprakriya, by Ashok Chakradhar.
- Muktibodh ki Kavitai, by Ashok Chakradhar, 1975.
- Muktibodh ki Samishai, by Ashok Chakradhar.
- Lives and Works of Great Hindi Poets, by Manohar Bandopadhyay, 1994, B.R. Pub. House, ISBN 8170187869. Page 149.
- Muktibodh ki Nivadak kavita, by Sharadchandra Madhav Muktibodh, 1993, Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 8172014961. (Younger brother)
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b Biography and Works of Muktibodh
- ^ a b c d Muktibodh Profile www.abhivyakti-hindi.org.
- ^ Muktibodh Sahitya Akademi Official website.
- ^ Resurrection of Kumar Vikal The Tribune, September 10, 2000.
- ^ a b c Indian Poets - Hindi
- ^ Experimentalism Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology: An Anthology, by K. M. George, 1992, Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 8172013248. Page 161-162.
- ^ Muktibodh -Brahmarakshas Modern Indian Literature: An Anthology, by K. M. George, 1992, Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 8172013248. Page 621.
- ^ Issues in Literature Janwadi Lekhak Sangh.
- ^ a b Literary Resurrections www.himalmag.com, October 2001.
- ^ NOTES 12 www.ciil-ebooks.net.
- ^ Dalit "According to Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh: the Bhakti movement began as a revolt of the lower castes/lower classes against the upper castes/upper classes; it drew people from all castes/classes but the egalitarian agenda was generally raised by the lower caste saints; and, when the movement was taken over by the upper castes, the entire movement disintegrated."
- ^ Dairies Encyclopaedia of Indian literature vol. 2, 1988, Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 8126011947. Page 1017 .
- ^ Ek Sahityik ki Diary Encyclopaedia of Indian literature vol. 2, 1988, Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 8126011947. Page 1138.
- ^ चाँद का मुहँ टेढ़ा है
- ^ Films presented in Cannes 1981 Cannes Film Festival Official website.
- ^ Calendar of Events - October 2004 India Habitat Centre website.
- ^ Brahmarakshas ka Shishya Text www.abhivyakti-hindi.org.
- ^ #194 Muktibodh - Viptara Blind Relief Association.
- ^ History Rajnandgaon Official website.
- ^ The Muktibodh Smarak at Triveni Sangrahalaya is at coordinates 21°05′32″N 81°01′40″E / 21.092136°N 81.027751°E / 21.092136; 81.027751 (Muktibodh Smarak)
- ^ Muktibodh Books
- ^ Books by Muktibodh www.lib.virginia.edu.
[edit] External links
so, is anyone here familiar with the poetry of muktibodh?
edit: "only one" to "only very few"
I'm extremely glad to know that Muktibodh has generated and evoked some interest and appreciation even in your literary circle. I had read one of his poems Chand ka muh tedha hai (The Face of the Moon is Crooked), which is a powerful long poem penned by Muktibodh, more than 15 years back. However, I still remember that this poem revolves around the destiny, predicament and the hollowness of the psyche of a typical middle class person who is aware that he is a thorough materialist as well as individualist, suffused with greedy, selfish and immoral leanings but he is still unable or rather unwilling to come out of the rut he is enmeshed in.
�The Moon Wears a Crooked Smile� is undoubtedly one of the most gripping specimens of Modern Hindi poetry. The Hindi original of this poem has been translated by Karni Pal Bhati. The translated version retains the visual and rhe�torical force of the original, delivered in a contemporary free-verse idiom. Here is an extract (unfortunately, I do not have the full version):
The wind�s sari border quivers bullets pierce empty nests on the fig-tree
Bald detective of pale moonlight wander the city streets
penetrating its many secret woes in multiangular corners...
and further on:
Her lips turn dark
Suspended on
a sculpted torso in a harijan temple
greying thatch-roofs
gnarled banyan roots
misty ghosts of lime-smeared rags
arrested in
blouses
petticoats
tattered bedsheets
The lustful eye of the bald crooked moon...
I would also like to share some more information about Muktibodh, which has been culled from various sources.
Muktibodh (Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, 1917-1969) was a pioneer of modern Hindi poetry. Muktibodh as a phenomenon in the world of Hindi poetry emerged after the mid-sixties. In those days he was known as a Tar Saptak poet. (Tar Saptak was an influential literary journal, launched in 1943, associated with a spirit of experimentalism in Hindi poetry, which, in turn, shaped the New Poetry or Nayi Kavita) In the 1950s, he was a significant poet, but not very well known. From 1950 to 1962, it was Agyeya who presided over Hindi poetry.
Muktibodh came on the scene after the mid-60s. He was a great departure. In social awareness and political commitment he pioneered a new trend. He was basically a narrative poet. The structure of his poems is epic in spirit. He is still known for his long poems. His first book was published in 1964, when he was on his death-bed, by the young poets, Shrikant Verma and Ashok Vajpeyi: Chand Ka Muh Teda Hai ( The Face of the Moon is Crooked). The very title is shocking, a slap on the face of romantic refinement.
While Agyeya was opposed to the leftist movement, the whole decade after the 60s was dominated by poets with leftist leanings. It is strange but true that Muktibodh was the forerunner as well as the culmination of the whole movement. Indeed, his historical moment came after the mid-60s after his death and ironically Muktibodh could not see the impact his poetry had.
Pranesh
a little more about muktibodh from my recollections of the talk: he was from a marathi family that lived in madhya pradesh and he himself complained into his 20s that his hindi was not as fluent as he would have liked. yet after his death he has become the hindi poet that all hindi poets and poetry readers have to take account of. apparently his younger brother became a giant of marathi poetry. i've discovered that his last long poem has been translated by one of my favorite novelists, krishna baldev vaid. i'll be trying to track this down this summer (along with the original).
| QUOTE |
| apparently his younger brother became a giant of marathi poetry. |
That was Sharadchandra Muktibodh. I must admit I don't recall reading any of his poetry.
| QUOTE |
| "A lonely, loony moon/sat on an empty park bench/mooning, / shunned by science, god and Muktibodh;/ science found dark empty craters without waters/ moon does not figure in any of man's prayers/ an upset Muktibodh wrote the moon's face is crooked;/ the early morning walkers went round and round the bench/ called the police to clear the suspicious object/ and the moon fled.'' Thus went the two-page Hindi poem of Ajay Kumar Jha as he read the piece over a small wood fire, on a dark, winter morning. A half-moon witnessed the event from the skies and seemed to shiver as a cold wind swept by. Ajay has a good tenor and sounded like Amitabh Bachchan voicing his father's famous lines from Madhushala. Ajay Kumar Jha and Pankaj Kumar Jha are brothers and have been employed by a security agency to look after our housing society. As usual, Lachman Singh was the first to make friends with the Jhas, who started off at Hazaribagh and landed at Kolkata where Ajay's father took up "school-masteri'' as bhaiyas are wont to describe a school teacher's job. Ajay is a graduate from Surendranath College in Kolkata while his younger brother, Pankaj, has finished 12th, and between themselves earn Rs 6,000 a month. |
I must say this celebrated exponent of free-verse ("mukta chanda") in Hindi is not an easy poet to follow...for one, despite using free verse and small lines...he is inclined to use the bombast and sophistication which a lot of traditional Hindi poets and writers indulged in...his poems are full of tongue-twisters in shuddha Hindi ("raktaalok-snaat-purush," "pushp-taare-shvet,""gahan rahasyamay andhkar-dvani-sa,""shat-dhvani-sangam-sangeet"...)...so one must be prepared for that...also, he has some complex (dark? a lot of "moon images"...) thought processes at work in his poems...
There is a sense of the 'visceral' in his poems, some cynicism, plenty of introspection -- and some great imagery in places.
From "Chand Ka Munh Tedha Hai"
Nagar ke beechobeech
aadhi raat...andhere ki kaali syah
shilaon se bani hui diwalon ke gheron par,
ahaaton ke kaanch-tukde-jame-hue
oonche-oonche kandhon par, siron par
chandni ki faili hui sanwlayi jhaalaren.
...
Bargad ki daal ek
sadak ke ek ore latakti hai is tarah
mano aadmi ke janam ke bahut pehle,
prthvi ki chaati par
jangli mammoth ki soond rahi ho
...
and from "Brahmrakshas"
...
Sumeri-Babyloni jan-kathaon se
madhur vaidik richaon tak
va tab se aaj tak ke sutra
chandas, mantra, theorem,
sab premiyon tak
ki Marx, Engels, Russel, Toyenbee
ki Heidegger va Spengler, Satre, Gandhi bhi
sabhi ke siddhanton ka
naya vyakhyan karta vah
nahata brahmarakshas, shyam
praktan bavdi ki un ghani gehraeeyon me shunya
...
Sorry if this was a digression to the thread supposed to be meant for Muktibodh Sr.
Ajneya, Muktibodh, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, Raghuvir Sahay, Kedarnath Singh, Chandrakant Deotale and others
Ajneya / Agyeya (1911–1987) --- Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan Ajneya is a pioneer of modern trends in the realm of Indian poetry. In literature, Hindi moved from a phase of revivalist cultural nationalism in the 1910s to mainstream Gandhian nationalism in the 1920s and the early 1930s. Over the following two decades Hindi, while firmly rooted in native ground, opened up and responded to various international literary movements by going through phases of Romanticism (Chhayavad, represented by the poets Nirala, Mahadevi Varma etc.), Modernism (Prayogvad, represented by Ajneya and the Tar Saptak poets) and, later, Progressivism (Pragativad, represented by Muktibodh and others). Through these greatly speeded up and therefore sometimes apparently contrary stages of development, Hindi came abreast of contemporary literary trends and movements sweeping the world. Ajneya bought experimentalism (prayogvaad) in the Hindi literature. Tar Saptak was an influential literary publication-series, launched in 1943, associated with a spirit of experimentalism in Hindi poetry, which, in turn, shaped the New Poetry or Nayi Kavita. In the 1950s, Muktibodh was a significant poet, but not very well known. From 1950 to mid-1960s, it was Ajneya who presided over Hindi poetry. The most prominent exponent of the 'Nayi kavita' (New Poetry) movement in Hindi, he edited the 'Tar Saptaks'. Ajneya edited many literary journals and also launched his own Hindi weekly, Dinaman, thus establishing new standards in the field of Hindi journalism. Ajneya has to his credit sixteen volumes of poetry, three novels, travelogues and several volumes of short stories and essays. Amongst the most well-known of his poetry anthologies are Aangan Ke Paar Dvaar, Chakranta-Shila, Kitni Naavon Mein Kitni Baar, Hari Ghaas Par Kshan-bhar, Indradhanu Raunde Hue ye etc. His major prose works include Shekhar : Ek Jeevani. Agyeya was an extensive traveller, and in course of his travels held visiting positions at various institutions around the world. He received numerous honours such as the Sahitya Akademi award, Jnanpith award, Bharatbharati award and the international Golden Wreath award for poetry.
Shamsher Bahadur Singh (1911-93) --- Shamsher Bahadur Singh was born in Dehradun. He was associated with Kahani, Naya Sahitya, Maya, Naya Path and Manohar Kahaniyan, in editorial positions. He edited the Urdu - Hindi Kosh for Delhi University (1965-77). He headed the Premchand Srijan-Pith, Vikram University (1981-85). His poetry-collections include Kuchh Kavitayen, Kuchh Aur Kavitayen, Chuka Bhi Nahin Hun Main, Itne Pas Apne and Bat Bolegi. He received the Madhya Pradesh Sahitya Kala Parishad Tulsi Puraskar (1979) and the Sahitya Akademi award (1977) for his work Chuka Bhi Hun Nahin Main.
Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh (1917-64) ---- Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh's first book was published in 1964, when he was on his death-bed : Chand Ka Muh Teda Hai ( The Face of the Moon is Crooked). Bhuri Bhuri Khak Dhul is another work of poetry by Muktibodh. Kath Ka Sapna and Satah Se Uthta Admi are collections of short stories and Vipatra is his novel. Muktibodh Granthavali ( Complete Works) has been published in five volumes. Muktibodh was the forerunner as well as the culmination of the whole progressive movement in Hindi poetry.
Kunwar Narayan (b. 1927) --- Kunwar Narayan was born in Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh. He received a Master's degree in English literature from Lucknow University. He is a businessman by profession. He has served as Vice-chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Academy in 1976-79 and as a member of the editorial board of Naya Pratik ( The New Symbol), a monthly magazine edited by S. H. Vatsyayan, during 1975-78. Among his important works are Chakravyooh (Poetry), Teesra Saptak (Poetry), Parivesh Hum Tum (Poetry), Koi Doosra Naheen (Poetry), Atmajayee (Epic), Akaron Ke Aas-Paas (Short Stories) and Aaj Aur Aaj Se Pehley (Criticism). Among the honours he has received are Hindustani Academy Award, Prem Chand Award, Tulsi Award, Vyas Samman, Kumarn Asan Award and Sahitya Akademi Award (1995). Address : S-371,Greater Kailash, New Delhi 110 048.
Raghuvir Sahay (1929–1990) --- Raghuvir Sahay was born in Lucknow. His was a versatile personality in Hindi --- poet, translator, short-story writer and journalist. He was the editor of the weekly Dinaman. His books of poems include Log Bhool Gaye Hain (They Have Forgotten, 1982), which brought him the Sahitya Akademi Award (1984), Atmahatya Ke Viruddh, Hanso Hanso Jaldi Hanso and Seedhiyon Par Dhoop Hein.
Shrikant Verma (1931-86) --- Shrikant Verma was born in Bilaspur, Madhya Pradesh. He received an M.A. in Hindi from Nagpur University. He moved then to Delhi, where he worked in journalism and politics. In 1976 he became an elected member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. During the late 1970s and early 1980s he was an official and spokesman of the Congress (I) Party. He published nearly twenty books in Hindi. His important collections of poetry are Jalsaghar ( The Pleasure Dome; 1973) and Magadh ( 1984 ). His honours include visits to the Iowa International Writing Program (1970-71 and 1978), and the Madhya Pradesh Government's Tulsi Puraskar in 1976.
Kedarnath Singh (b. 1934) --- Kedarnath Singh was born in Chakia in the Ballia District of Uttar Pradesh. He studied at the Benaras Hindu University where he received his Master's degree in 1956 and doctorate in 1964. He taught at various colleges in Benaras, Gorakhpur and Pandrauna, before moving to Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, as Professor of Hindi in 1978. He retired as the Head of Department in 1999 and was appointed Professor Emeritus by the University. He has published several books of poetry, works of prose, poetry translation and criticism. Among his works are Abhi Bilkul Abhi (Poetry), Zamin Pak Rahi Hai (Poetry), Yahan Se Dekho (Poetry), Akal Mein Saras (Poetry), Uttar Kabir aur Anya Kavitayen (Poetry), Kalpana Aur Chhayavaad (Critical Essays), Mere Samay Ke Shabd (Critical Essays), Adhunik Hindi Kavita Mein Bimb Vidhan (Research) and Pratinidhi Kavitaen ( Selected Poems). He has edited an anthology of Hindi poetry after 1960 for the Sahitya Akademi and has translated into Hindi the poetry of Brecht, Baudelaire and Rilke. In the cultural hub of Benaras, he was associated with the Progressive Writers' Movement. The honours and awards Kedarnath has received include Kumaran Asan Award (1980), Delhi Hindi Academy Samman, Nirala Puraskar, Vyas Samman and Sahitya Akademi Award (1989). Address : A 88/3 SFS Flats Saket, New Delhi - 110017.
Chandrakant Deotale (b. 1936) --- Chandrakant Deotale was born in Jaulkhera, Betul district, Uttar Pradesh. He taught literature in Government colleges of Madhya Pradesh. Among his publications are Haddiyon Men Chhipa Jvar, Deewaron Par Khoon Se, Roshni Ke Maidan Ki Taraf and Bhookhand Tap Raha Hai. Among the awards and honours he has received are Muktibodh Fellowship, Makhanlal Chaturvedi Puraskar and Shikhar Samman.
Dhumil (1936-75) --- Sudama Pandeya 'Dhumil' was born in a village of Varanasi district (Uttar Pradesh). He obtained a Diploma in 'Electrical Engineering' from ITI, Varanasi and worked as an Instructor in the same Institute. Sansad Se Sadak Tak and Kal Sunna Mujhe are two of his poetry collections. Kal Sunana Mujhe was honoured with Sahitya Akademi Award (1979).
Vinodkumar Shukla (1937) --- Vinod Kumar Shukla has more than twenty publications to his credit, including Laghbhag Jaihind (poetry), Vah Aadmi Naya Garam Coat Pahankar Chalagaya Vichar Ki Tarah (poetry), Nauker Ki Kameej (novel) and Perh Par Kamra (short stories). Vinod Kumar is the recipient of several awards including Shikhar Samman (1995), Muktibodh Fellowship, Raza Puraskar, Raghuvir Sahay Smriti Puraskar and the Sahitya Akademi Award (1999).
Ashok Vajpeyi (b. 1941) --- Ashok Vajpeyi was born in Durg. He acquired a Postgraduate degree from Delhi University. He was a civil servant by profession. He edited journals like Poorvagraha, Kavita Asia and Bahuvachan. He was the first Vice chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University. Among his works are Shahar Ab Bhi Sambhavna Hai (Poetry), Ek Patang Anant Mein (Poetry), Agar Itne Se (Poetry), Tatpurush (Poetry), Kahin Nahin Vahin (Poetry), Ghaas Mein Dubaka Akash (Poetry), Tinka Tinka (Poetry), Bahuri Akela (Poetry), Philhal (Critical Essay), Samay Se Bahar (critical essay) and Thodi Si Jagah (Selected Love Poems). The awards and honours received by him include Dayawati Modi Kavi Shikhar Samman and Sahitya Akademi Award (1994) for Kahin Nahin Wahin (Poetry). Address : A4,First Floor, New Friends Colony, Dr.C.V.Raman Marg, New Delhi 110065.
Leeladhar Jagoori (b. 1944) --- Leeladhar Jagoori was a teacher by profession. He has several publications to his credit including Shankha Mukhi Shikharon Par, Natak Jari Hai, Is Yatra Men, Raat Ab Bhi Maujud Hai, Bachi Hui Prithvi Par and Anubhav Ke Aakash Mein Chand. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award (1997) for Anubhav Ke Aakash Mein Chand (Poetry). Address : Jagoori Sadan, Joshiyara, Uttarkashi, Uttaranchl.
Mangalesh Dabral (b. 1948) --- Mangalesh Dabral was born in Kafalpani, Tehri Garhwal. He is a poet, a journalist and a translator. He works with Jansatta, the Hindi daily published by the Indian Express Group. Mangalesh has published several collections of poems including Pahar Par Lalten (1981), Ghar Ka Rasta (1988) and Ham Jo Dekhate Hain (1995). He has also published a travel Dairy, Ek Bar Iowa (1996) and a collection of articles, Lekhak Ki Roti (1998). Awards and honours received by him include Omprakash Smriti Samman (1982), Shrikant Verma Puraskar (1989), Shamsher Samman (1995), Pahal Samman (1996) and Sahitya Akademi award (2000) for Hum Jo Dekhte Hain (Poetry).. He has translated from English into Hindi works of Berlolt Brecht, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Yannis Ritsos, Ernesto Cardenal, Pablo Neruda, Dora Gaben, Stanca Pencheva, Zbigniew Herbert etc. Travelled and gave poetry readings in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Russia. Visited Iowa city as fellow of International Writing Programme at the University of Iowa. Address : 337 Nirman Apartments, Mayur Vihar I, Delhi 110 091.
Arun Kamal (b. 1954) --- Arun Kamal was born in Nasariganj, Rohtas (Bihar). He is a Professor in the Department of English, Science College, Patna University. He has several publications to his credit, including Apni Keval Dhar and Naye Ilake Mein. He is also the author of Kavita Aur Samay (Poetry and Time) – a collection of literary essays. He is the recipient of Bharat Bhusan Agrawal award and Soviet Land Nehru award. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award (1998) for his poetry collection, Naye Ilake Mein. Address : 4, 'Maitry' - Shanti Bhavan, R. Das Road, Patna - 800004. E-mail: arunkamal123@rediffmail.com
Teji Grover (b. 1955) --- Teji Grover has published several collections of poetry including Lo Kaha Sanbari and one novel, Neela. Teji has translated a choice of Swedish poets into Hindi, working together with the Swedish writer Lars Andersson;The collection has been published by Vani Prakashan (2001) --- Barf ki Khusboo (The Fragrance of Snow). In 1989, she received the Bharat Bhushan Aggrawal Award for young Hindi poets. She lives in Hoshangabad.
Gagan Gill (b. 1959) --- Gagan Gill was born in New Delhi and received an M.A. in English from the University of Delhi. She works as a journalist in Hindi and Punjabi, and has been the literary editor of the Hindi Sunday Observer and the Hindi editor of the Telegraph. Her first work, Ek Din Lautegi Ladaki (The Girl Will Return One Day), appeared in 1989. Other publications of Gagan include Andhere me Buddha, Yah akanksha samay nahin and Thapak thapak dil thapak thapak.
Udayan Vajpeyi (b. 1960) ---Udayan Vajpeyi was born in Bhopal. He is a doctor by profession; teaches physiology. He is the author of several books.
Anamika (b. 1961) --- Anamika, who holds a doctoral degree in Donne criticism through the ages and did her post-doctoral research on the treatment of love and death in post-war American women poets, is a Lecturer in English at Satyawati College, Delhi. She has authored several collections of poems, novelettes and a collection of short stories. Her works include Samay Ke Shahar Mein,1989, Beejakshar, 1992, Anushtup, 1998, Kavita Mein Aurat, 2000 and Khurduri Hatheliyan, 2005. She has also done several translations, including works of Octavio Paz and Girish Karnad. The awards and honours she has received include Bharat Bhushan Award for Poetry (1996), the Girija Mathur Samman (1998), the Sahityakar Samman (1998), the Parampara Samman (2001) and the Sahityasetu Samman (2004).
Shailendra Chauhan
To what is the poet responsible? Can poetry involve itself with politics? Or is it an autonomous, aesthetic object? While there can be no hard-and-fast rules, poetry that ignores the historical relationship between the self and society becomes lifeless.
A QUESTION I should like to ask myself today is: If poetry makes us more conscious of the essence of our day-to-day existence, of life's complexities and meaning, does it have an effect upon action, even political action? One would confirm that this is a very old idea; and that one cannot deny the truth of the statement that there is an eventual effect on our actions, whether social or political. And if poetry may influence politics, we could say that poetry is politics, and so this poetry is not poetry at all, it is just not good for anything.
But life is reminiscence, and therefore our poetry too is reminiscence. This memory, this terrible sepulchre which we have inherited, and carry inside us, will not leave one alone, ever. And the poet will ask: Who is that child crying, why, without a mouth? Along with that eternal equation of rich and poor, the splintered dilemma of day and night, of peace and war. Can poetry ever help to solve it? Can poetry ever turn the world and the workings of the world into song?
Familiar as I am with a little of Indian English poetry and the poetry written in Hindi, Marathi and Bengali would I be wrong to conclude that most of our poets are encased in a private world of their own invention, where they cultivate certain delusions? For example, in their superiority to practical life, the belief in the autonomy of their poetry, and their innermost desire to resist change formally, intellectually and emotionally. The dilemma of narcissism, of too much self, I should think, deviates from the direction of true poetry that should find a sense of relation between self and other, the inner and outer world, the personal and social worlds. John Berger, in The Success and Failure of Pablo Picasso, writes perceptively about this dilemma of modern artists. I like to quote:
They are far away and unseen - so that at home most people are protected from the contradictions of their own system: those very contradictions from which all development must come.
Many of our poets (those who live in a bureaucratic of academic world) elevate the artist to the ethereal, where we deny the connections between self and other, separating language from social relations. We revere this isolated human being (our artist, our poet) and treat his imagination as something he has inherited, a gift from God, as though there were no logical relationship, or historical relationship between the self and the world. We are then aware that we write without any real sense of community or audience.
That is probably why the poetry of many Indian English poets fails, when these poets prefer to live abroad, "exiled" by their own choosing. Such a poet, humanly, would be very lonely. But what will this loneliness mean to his art? It will mean he will begin to write longingly about the country he abandoned; or write patronisingly on the values he grew up with. Later, he is sure to run out of subjects or themes. He might not run out of emotion or feelings but he will, one feels, run out of subjects to hold them.
Clearly, the great poets of Latin American and Eastern Europe live inside history, as is the case with our poets writing in their respective regional languages, and their imaginations are vitalised by that deeper perspective. In comparison, much of Indian poetry in English appears lifeless, stuck in the mire of trifling intimacies, without the arms of history and tradition. Frankly, I should like to write such a poetry, a poetry which comes out of the ashes of our own culture. However, to cultivate this relationship between the social and the personal doesn't seem easy. One is afraid that such writing could bring in a measure of self-consciousness to it because of a loss of moral poise.
However, with his stance of resigned defiance, was often against the idea of the poet as thinker. In his words: "In truth neither Shakespeare nor Dante did any real thinking - that was not their job." What appears as thought in a poet is no more than the emotional equivalent of thoughts prevalent in his time. As far as poetry is concerned, whether these thoughts were part of a great philosophy or not is indifferent, so long as they express some permanent human impulse. At the same time, poetry should have the freedom to express in any way appropriate to it the diversity of human experience. We may take this further to say that a poet is responsible to his conscience, to his sense of what is right and wrong, that comes from both knowledge and judgment. To locate the relation of poetry to social action is difficult. Perhaps this has never been done; so it is not possible to define what that relation is. But this is true: that poetry has some effect upon conduct, in so far as it affects our emotions. To what extent then, is the poetry, say of someone like Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, an effect?
Poetry has the right to judge. One feels one has the right to make such a statement. One can infer that our right to judge is fed by the obsequious ways of our politicians, who must ingratiate themselves with a mass electorate. This is evident because our public men may think and feel like the emperor Aurangzeb, but there are none who would talk like him in front of their public audiences.
Poets, probably, watch the game of politics from the sidelines. We are spectators, when we are poets: not players. Although the view from the sidelines enables us to see clearly much that is blurred to the players, it also distorts vision in certain ways. And our poet, the spectator, easily assumes toward the players an attitude of condescension, inclining toward disdain.
So, a great danger we encounter, as poets, away from direct participation in the affairs of the community, is that we take ourselves easily as the guardians of moral purity. I could say: Politics is dirty and the government is a fraud; but I, as a poet, am clean, my aims honourable. I have better things to do than politics, and no time to waste on plotters and schemers. Politics can only distract me from those better things, remove me from the better people who do those better things, and probably splash me with mud and blood in the end.
So let a poet not be snug in his belief that he is the upholder of his society's (or of his country's) morals. This is wrong. Let not this vanity lead to a sort of ranting, a protest that could ultimately veer him away from the true poetry that is his goal. In one of my own poems, there are three lines which say:
Any time my Government breaks its promises, a line of this poem is dragged along the wide, clean streets of New Delhi...
Maybe this is an example of what I referred to, i.e., of my stand as a guardian of moral behaviour. In stating this I do seem to suffer from a small sense of guilt - a guilt that our educated middle-class carry with them when they go on to criticise the government for whatever ails our people. And yet, no world would perhaps exist unless poetry (out of all the arts) creates it for us. And this poetry has its source within every person who lives.
Therefore, I don't think it would be out of place to say that the poet who doesn't see what is happening around him is dead; and the poet who only sees reality around him is also dead. The poet who is only irrational will only be understood by himself and his closest friend or lover, and this is very sad. The poet who is all reason will even be understood by fools, and this is also terribly sad. So poetry will not stand by hard and fast rules, by good and evil; but it will be there and cannot be defeated.
In the end, two alternatives come to mind when one thinks of the responsibility of poets. First, is it right to put such a burden on a man of imagination and dreams, on a poet? Secondly, is there no other class of individuals (I should say, intellectuals like scientists, philosophers and statesmen) who might also be held responsible?
Poetry is a deep, inner calling in man; from it came liturgy, the Vedas and Psalms, and the content of religions. The poet confronted nature's phenomena and in the early ages called himself a priest, to safeguard his vocation. In the same way, to defend his poetry, the poet of the modern age accepts the honour from the masses. Today's social poet is still a member of the earliest order of priests. In the old days he made his pact with darkness, today he must speak and interpret the light.
Dossier 5-6: Move towards state sponsored Islamisation in Bangladesh
Sultana Kamal (Published: December 1988 - May 1989)
Download RTF Document Discussion of the loss of the original identity of Bangladesh after a a war of independence fought by Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians against communalism and religious fanaticism.
On 7th June 1988, the members of the controversially elected parliament of Bangladesh passed the Constitution (8th Amendment) Bill imposing Islam as the state religion of the country which broke away from another religious-based country - Pakistan - only 17 years ago. The four pillars of the Constitution of Bangladesh originally were nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism. Secularism and socialism were dropped from the Constitution in 1977 to be replaced by 'total faith in Allah' and 'social justice'. By having Islam as the state religion, the nation-state which was created through a war of independence fought by Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians against communalism and religious fanaticism thus lost its original identity.
The main reason for declaring Islam the state religion has been said to be because of the statistical fact that there is an overwhelming majority of Muslims, and without Islam as the state religion the majority of the population was not able to establish its identity of nationhood, independence and sovereignty. It has also been said by government leaders that the move has been initiated with a view to curbing the alarming growth of fundamentalism, with particular reference to the politics of Jamat-e-Islami which is a strong opposition party notable for its religious fanaticism. But, encouraged by the passing of the Bill, the anti-Bangladesh Islam-loving fundamentalist groups have quickly come out of their shells and have called for the declaration of Bangladesh as an Islamic Republic to complete their rehabilitation. In one of his public speeches right after passing the Bill, the President has very clearly declared that no law that is repugnant to the principles of the Qur'an and Hadiths shall be effective any further in Bangladesh.
The government leaders insist that Islam is in danger in the hands of both the fundamentalists and the socialists, and hence it has to be saved. But in fact, Islam as the religion and creed of the majority has always been in a place of natural prominence and dominance in Bangladesh. Even in its secular days, Islam has been the dominant religion in state functions. Today every state function is preceded by recitations from the Qur'an. Bangladesh television broadcasts Azan regularly and other Islamic rituals are also performed by government ministers and functionaries as public duties. Women announcers and newsreaders are made to cover their heads during the month of Ramadan while performing. The President himself performs Haj every year using public funds as part of his state duties.
Even the first elected President of secular Bangladesh had on several occasions to insist that Bangladesh's secularism was not Godless atheism. It was he who had entered Bangladesh in the Organisation of Islamic Countries at its summit in 1973. His going to Rabat shows the strength of Islamic sentiment prevailing in newborn Bangladesh. The rajakars and albadars, the religious fanatic groups and killers of the Bengali intellectuals, students and freedom fighters were set free without trial by him. These facts establish the fact that Islam was never in danger in Bangladesh, and that pro-Islamic sentiment never disappeared from the country to give way to secularism. The capitalist-imperialist forces which were defeated in the liberation war did not lose any time in reaping material benefits from the situation. By eliminating the pro-socialist and secular faction of the then ruling party - Awami League - they began the process of recapturing Bangladesh.
Bangladesh was liberated from Pakistan after 24 years of colonial relationship at a point of extreme violence on the part of the Pakistani military rulers and the religion traders. But even after liberation, secularism was not allowed to grow and take root in this country. The Islamisation process that had begun immediately after liberation was first given credibility by the post-1975 rulers as steps to regain national identity which they alleged was lost in secularism and socialism. They did not even anticipate any protest from the people of Bangladesh when dropping these two pillars from the Constitution in 1977. It is interesting to note that in Bangladesh the pro-socialist government had to fall within four years to moderate-right military forces which lasted for about seven years, only to fall to extreme-right military rulers who have managed to stay in power for seven years with very faint indications of leaving soon. But this government had to face the severest opposition from the people of the country. Apparently this has been the most unpopular government, which has plunged Bangladesh into a chronic condition of total political instability, economic crisis, unprecedented lawlessness, corruption, violence, frustration, hopelessness and drug addiction in the youth and no sense of direction for the future. In Bangladesh, the present government is faced with a situation which it is not able to control. The opposition parties which are essentially bourgeois in character have also failed so far in making any move that is even to their advantage. Very clearly, people have shown no confidence both in the ruling government and also in the system of bourgeois politics.
From the above it may be said that the main reasons for the continued crisis in Bangladesh are a) inability on the part of the government to solve the problems of the people and b) the absence of a political force able to replace or topple the present regime in a fruitful way.
In the rural areas the process of pauperisation is pushing more and more people below the poverty line. With practically no education, medical care, security and above all food, their situation is going out of control of the government. The concessional treatment of World Bank prescribed land reforms and rural credit programmes is not able to help much. Due to its capitalist-patriarchal nature, women in all sectors are being pushed back despite the rhetoric of women's development being supported and sponsored by the government. But many of the women who had to come out to work after 1972 as the male earners in their families were killed during the war feel quite strongly about their rights in society. There are other women's groups working for women's liberation and for obvious reasons would not like to give in to this pressure. The international women's movement and the United Nations' support for women's demands have widened the scope for educated women to increase their organisational and bargaining power. The present capitalist-military-patriarchal government apprehends serious opposition from the women's groups and definitely senses a 'silent anger' in the masses. Therefore religion has to be invoked in the interest of their own survival and preservation of dominance. The following summary of the nature of capitalist development in Bangladesh will make the picture clearer.
When Pakistan was created in 1947 there was no organised Bengali Muslim bourgeoisie in the country. The then Pakistani government encouraged the development of a free capitalist economy and the economy of the then East Pakistan was brought under the total control of the West wing. In the sixties, mainly for political reasons, they took the initiative to create a Bengali bourgeoisie in East Pakistan. As a result a number of rich families were born. Their role in the nationalist movements was always oscillating. During the liberation war in 1971, most of them naturally took the role of silent spectators, many even co-operated with the Pakistani military junta.
Right after liberation, the development of this Bengali rich class was thwarted, mainly due to nationalism in the field of trade and industry. Some of the influential members of the then ruling party - the Awami League - never approved of secularism or socialism and, in collaboration with national and international capitalist forces, succeeded in weakening the pro-socialist elements in the party and set the Bangladesh economy to develop along capitalist lines. A group of people inside and outside the party was allowed to thrive through plunder and exploitation. Gradually this particular group took control of the country's economy as well as politics. Upstarts and plunderers may be anything but patriots. And that it why it became so much easier for the capitalist-imperialist forces and their local agents to control and direct the situation to their advantage.
After the change over in 1975 these were the people who came into power. They were open supporters of a free economy and immediately after coming to power they started to denationalise all the nationalised industries. Later on, along with changes in politics from time to time, this process has only been intensified and expedited. The public sector was curtailed in order to foster the private sector. The effort to establish a free economy in the country still continues.
Because of the distinctive historical background of capitalist development in the country and also due to a very weak position in the world capitalist system, the development of capitalism in Bangladesh possesses a very special character. The features of its character may be described as follows:
a) The state performs a direct and principle role in fostering the development of a group of specially favoured capitalists.
b) Imperialism plays a very significant role in this process through the state and through other agents such as multinationals, NGOs etc.
c) The process of capitalist development in this country is not similar to that of the classical Western development of capital.
By its very nature of being dependent on imperialism and the state, this type of capitalism does not bring any effective change in the existing system. Therefore, Bangladesh is only creating a handful of new rich. On the other hand, because of continued despotic rule in Bangladesh, we experience formation of a military-civil-bureaucratic capital. The imperialist forces, the new big rich class and the military-civil-bureaucratic capital form a close relationship with each other and act as complementary forces for their own development. (M.M Akash 44)
In fact, this is a unified process. The profit that is extorted by this exploiting class by direct or indirect imperialist assistance, state co-operation, exploitation of the people, hoarding, black marketeering, speculation, indenting and other business and trades, is not being invested in any productive sector. Some of it is being reinvested, mainly in unproductive sectors, and some in welfare activities. Most of the profit is smuggled out of the country and spent in luxurious consumption. In fact, parasitism is an essential characteristic of bureaucratic state capitalism. And the state here gradually comes under the direct control of those new monied classes who are by nature agents of imperialist interests. As a result, Bangladesh has become totally bankrupt and 90% of its budget must come from foreign aid.
This special trend of capitalist development in Bangladesh has intensified the crisis of the people. It has also strengthened neo-colonial exploitation and has contained the pre-capitalist production relation from passing on to another stage. This in effect has created dissatisfaction in the minds of that faction of the bourgeoisie who are interested in productive investment.
The patriarchal-capitalist nature of the state continually pushes women of all classes to stand back and protest. Women are continually being pushed out of work and employment in the rural sector. In the urban areas in the name of culture and tradition, women are being discouraged from taking up jobs that are supposed to be meant for males. The state is not taking any responsibility for looking after children's development in any field. Rather, mothers are vigorously urged to give society worthy citizens and the technique suggested for that is strict birth control practices. More and more women are expressing their resentment at the existing system and women's movement workers are very clearly demanding a more egalitarian social structure. All these dynamics working together are pushing Bangladesh towards even greater disaster or social revolution.
Now this intensification of social conflict within the country has to be diverted as far as possible into a channel which is innocuous from the point of the view of the vested interest groups. The stirring up of antagonism along communal, chauvinistic (favouring one religion over another and doing it through the state) lines is a convenient method of directing attention away from the genuine problems, from class struggle and women's struggle for an egalitarian social structure. The present government of Bangladesh has very cleverly held the line of Islamisation for its own survival. Introduction and implementation of Islamic laws will extend the power of the state to interfere with people's personal life and hence exercise more control over them. The family laws of Bangladesh will have sacrificed the 1961 Ordinance which brought at least some equality to women in marriage, divorce and in restricting polygamy. The facilities provided to women through the family courts will be taken away.
This perfectly suits the imperialistic and neo-colonial designs of the capitalist system. After the liberation of Bangladesh along secular and socialist lines and due to the Russian presence in Afghanistan, the American imperialist bloc maintained their links with this continent mainly through Pakistan via Saudi Arabia. After the changeover in 1975, they started channelling their aid and assistance of Bangladesh through Saudi Arabia and encouraged growth and strengthening of pro-Islamic feeling in order to regain and renew their influence in this territory. Fundamentalism seems on the surface a national phenomenon, but in fact it is very much related to imperialism and neo-colonialism. Most of the people of Bangladesh feel that this country has a long cultural tradition of peaceful living together of people of different religions and that glorification of one's own religion against the others' only upsets the harmony. Islamisation of Bangladesh has been criticised as the government's way of using fundamentalism to suppress all progressive political movements. Fundamentalism has the power to glorify the past, to mystify the present, so that people forget to look for a future.
However, it appears that the government has received more wrath than praise from the people by declaring Islam as the state religion. Had it been the long cherished hope of the majority they would have expressed it by welcoming the step. On the contrary: the leading students groups, progressive intellectuals, teachers, painters, doctors, lawyers, theatre artists and many other groups registered their protest immediately after the passing of the Bill. Women's groups have very strongly expressed their feelings against the Bill by organising processions, meetings and rallies and also by regular protests in newspapers and journals. United Women's Forum and Naripokkho organised protest rallies on the day the Bill was proposed. Naripokkho has also brought a writ petition challenging the Bill, but for obvious reasons the hearing is being delayed.
The most important thing is that people have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Bill and have repeatedly pledged to resist it.
This paper was prepared for the exchange programme of Women Living Under Muslim Laws and ISIS-WICCE.
20th August-5th December 1988.
by Piash Karim
A COLLECTIVE linguistic awareness, as experienced and articulated by the Bengali middle class, was a major point of departure around which Bengali nationalism in this territory evolved. The mainstream historical narrative of our national liberation struggle, originating in the language movement and coming to fruition in 1971, testifies to the way the language issue was deployed in the middle-class consciousness. This narrative, of course, obscures, among other things, a plethora of struggles that took place until 1950, including the revolutionary movements carried out by the peasants of Hajong and Santal nations (discussed in volume II of Badruddin Umar's extraordinary study of the language movement) as precursors to national liberation. The failure to make the connection between peasant uprisings and the national liberation war is not a simple question of textual bias. It is rooted into the actual trajectory through which the Bengali middle-class national liberation sensibilities unfolded. If the language movement and the peasant rebellions, along with other working class movements, could be connected under a radical class hegemony into an organic struggle of national liberation, the history of this part of the world would have been phenomenally different.
One point needs to be added here. There is no reason, Benedict Anderson's Eurocentric narrative notwithstanding, why a nation inevitably has to be formed on a common linguistic awareness. Language is only one of the possible markers on which a nation is imagined and lived. A common geographical space (or an imagined geography), a collective memory, or a common religiosity (no matter how loosely its adherents may subscribe to the sacred-profane dichotomy inherent in it), with or without a common linguistic thread, may also be the bases of a national identity. No universal, trans-historical language-nation nexus, but the concrete materiality of the history of a nation which brings the language factor to the fore.
Language was a significant point of inauguration for Bengali nationalism within the political boundary of the Pakistani state. As a rallying point of democratic resistance against the Pakistani political- economy-ideology that revealed its colonial character almost at its very moment of birth, language became the primary signifier of Bengali nationhood. That nationalist discourse, as any average student of Bengali history should know, grew mature with increasing senses of economic, political, and cultural deprivation by various segments of the Bengali population, the strengthening of the Bengali middle class as a coherent social category, the inability of the Pakistani state to maintain its hegemonic grip, and the hegemonic ability of the Bengali bourgeoisie (without getting into the debates on the bourgeoisie character of the middle class leadership) to mobilise the popular-national classes under its leadership. The fact that all these dynamics, again, were linguistically constructed, mediated, and accessed is of central interest for theory of knowledge, but that is not the focus of my essay.
It is true that the language-based nationalism is relatively compatible with the emancipatory political agenda to which many of us on the Left subscribe. In opposition to the failed articulation of a religion-based nationalism by the Pakistani state and right wing political forces, language-based nationalism offers more this worldly, secular, and democratic possibilities. Many of us still believe that secularism, not as an 'Objective' Grand Narrative that vainly attempts to exile imagination and mythology from life (after all, as Horkheimer and Adorno reminded us, myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology) by producing a totalising, futile dichotomy between the secular and the non-secular, but as a historically and materially specific discourse with formulations about the separation between the state and religious institutionality, is something worth fighting for.
But, as any nationalism is not without its pitfalls, a language-based nationalism is not without its inherent problems. Nationalism can be a two-edged sword, as thinkers from Franz Fanon to Serajul Islam Chowdhury have recognised. Nationalism may be a site of opposition to chauvinism, colonialism, or imperialism. But nationalism, let's not forget, can also become ideological justifications for all these oppressive institutions and practices. One doesn't have to succumb to a teleological faith in historical progress to ascertain that language-based nationalism is a step forward from its religion-based counterpart. But it is also equally true that like any other form of identity, linguistic identity also includes some at the expense of others. And when that inclusion/exclusion process, inherent in any identity formation, becomes embodied in a nation state, it has more disastrous consequences for the excluded. The point will become more obvious if one draws a parallel between national identities and another concrete site of identity, let's say, gender. Within the present historical-material context, there is no realistic possibility in the foreseeable future that women, oppressed under patriarchy, will vanish all non-female members of society by establishing an exclusively female state, political economy, military-industrial complex, and hegemonic ideology. But a nation state, established in the name of a hitherto oppressed nation, has done that many times in recent history by implementing its own policies of domination, de jure or de facto segregation, ethnic cleansing, including expulsion and genocide.
The point is, thus, not to replace one form of nationalism by another, a chauvinist nationalism with an apparently anti-chauvinist one, as a permanent solution. The latter, if history is any guide, may easily collapse into the former. It is only an eventual supersession of nationalism by a new configuration of international alliance through which the democratic integrity of national identities can be protected. Keeping the national liberation sensibilities alive without being trapped into the straightjacket of nationalism is a practical possibility that deserves our close attention.
The dominant nationalist discourse, whether in its Bengali or Bangladeshi, in its secular or quasi-religious forms, lacks the willingness and ability to accomplish this supersession. Hence their failure to come to terms with the fact that Bangladesh is a pluri-national state with multiplicity of national identities within its boundaries. Recognising this multiplicity is not about a shallow celebration of cultural diversity. Something way more serious, way more desperate is at stake here. In the first and last instances, it is about democratic ownership of economic, political, and cultural resources by all people living in Bangladesh in non-hierarchical, equal settings.
But it is not only the asymmetrical relationship with its others, the subjugated languages and nations, through which a language-based nationalism like Bengali nationalism can ascertain itself. As if in a striking parallel with Horkheimer's and Adorno's argument that the domination of nature by human beings and the domination of nature within human beings are interlinked, the domination of one linguistic identity over the others seem to be connected with the internal domination within a specific language community.
As Bakhtin showed, every language contains certain centripetal forces which act to render it monoglossic and unitary. But simultaneously, as any language is lived over diverse social positions, it becomes an interacting, at times a contested fusion of different language users. This is how heteroglossic, centrifugal forces persist in any language. In this sense, every language, to use Volosinov's term, is always multi-accentual. Bakhtin, thanks to the bureaucratic authoritarianism of Stalinism and post-Stalinism, was never able to push this argument to its political logic by developing a critique of the monoglossic theory of politics and language promoted by the official Soviet Marxism (Stalin himself, curiously, formulated a theory of unitary, contest-free language, not unconnected, by the way, with a unitary, contest-free, monolgic version of Marxism),
Although Bangla language, like any other language, as lived and spoken in diverse social sites, is unavoidably heterglossic, the hegemonic ideology of the written Bangle text, produced and consumed by the educated middle class, tends towards a monoglossic centre. This textual Bangla is a continuation of the Sanskritised Bangla produced by the ideological state apparatus of the Fort William College, through a specific colonial-class-communal route. It is through this high Bangla textuality that modernity, ultimately a lopsided, thus disabling interpretation of our collective reality, made its appearance in Bangla language and literature. This monoglossic centre of Bangla language remains tragically divorced from the ways in which language is produced and experienced by the multitude of our language community.
Posing a deconstructive challenge to this textual Bangla, something that Akhtaruzza-man Iliyas did so brilliantly and skilfully in his two memorable novels, is not a sheer intellectual exercise either. This is an unmistakably political task. If Bangla, as a language, needs to embody the lived experiences of different classes, regions, genders (yes, language can also be gendered; patriarchal language oppresses and silences its non-patriarchal margins) and other social collectivities, it has to be able to discharge its heterogeneous energy with full vigour. Its multi-accentual, democratic possibilities have to be released and radicalized. An authentic, plurivocal, open-textured democracy cannot sustain itself without opening up these polymorphous possibilities. This is a position misrecognised not only by the hegemonic secular-nationalist intelligentsia, but by a large part of the political and intellectual Left. Maybe it is through continuing to raise polyphonic yet collective voices to recognise language as a site of serious political struggle that we can acknowledge our debt to Bangla language on this February 21.
Piash Karim teaches sociology at BRAC University
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Lalgarh Movement – Mass uprising of tribal people in West Bengal
April 12: Report of the All-India Fact-Finding Team on Lalgarh
April 12: Lalgarh movement: building infrastructure in the face of government apathy and terror
April 12: Funds misuse at the root of Adivasi stir: Bankura DM
April 12: Police and Harmad Vahini try to enter Lalgarh - a factfinding report
April 7: Armed Lalgarh adivasis descend on Kolkata
April 6: Violence imminent in Lalgarh over pretext of holding elections
April 3: Lalgarh decides to boycott General Elections
Purulia tribals march in solidarity with Lalgarh
Mar 21: Gorkhaland and Lalgarh: dialogues, parallels, and a challenge to mainstream parties
Latest Articles on Sanhati
April 3, 2009
On agriculture, opposition to land acquisition and the parliamentary elections - Shamik Sarkar. Journal
Jindal SEZ at Salboni: A First-hand Report - Suvarup Saha and Koel Das. Journal
The Morichjhanpi massacre: When tigers became citizens, refugees "tiger-food" - Front Page
A photo essay on the de-industrialization of Bengal: Real estate SEZs over the ruins of factories - Articles
"Only the idiots are committing suicide" - Articles
HDI Oscars: slumdogs versus millionaires - Articles
Nayachar chemical hub: Citizens' panel slams govt - News
March 21, 2009
Gorkhaland and Lalgarh: dialogues, parallels, and a challenge to mainstream parties - Koustav De, Sanhati. Journal
Capitalism Beyond the Crisis - Amartya Sen's article, and a critique - Articles
Unnayan - A discussion on the concept of Development with Dignity - Articles
World Bank report: stop NREGA, promote migration and clustered growth - Front Page
A psychological study of India's Partition, and some surprising results - Articles
Who are the real enemies of Pakistan? - Rai Chaudhuri's Column
Recent court rulings pertaining to civil liberties - News
Reaching out to the back rows: questions on primary education - Articles
Report on India's first airport city (Andal Airetropolis) from Adhikar - Campaign Literature
The Infogen scam and employee rights on the IT landscape - News
March 3, 2009
Reflections on Language Martyrs' Day/Black Day - Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri's column
Tribal Peoples Committee of Purulia district hold meeting for basic rights in solidarity with Lalgarh - Campaign Literature
The shark has pretty teeth: the State vs. Binayak Sen - Resistance News
India makes a place for Dirty Harry - General Articles
Sri Lanka: A Besieged Society - World Articles
Poverty behind the tiger - General Articles
Land reforms in reverse gear? - Resistance News
February 24, 2009
Working Paper: Current crisis regime and impact on class struggle in India - Articles
Inflexibility and falsifiability in economics, and the failure of rigid worldviews - Articles
Documentary from Canvas on monopolistic aggression in retail, Bengal - Campaign Literature
Few jobs for Muslims in Bengal; housing and banking discrimination - Articles
Reports on police firing in Dumka, Jharkhand: the site of a controversial power and dam project - News
NREGA implementation countrywide: the first two years - Articles
NREGA activists Bhukhan Singh and Niyamat Ansari arrested in Jharkhand - News
February 9, 2009
Factory closures and plight of workers: A comprehensive report on Bengal's industrial condition - Journal
77 days in jail: political notes from an imprisoned worker under Left Front ruled Bengal - Journal
A report from the Save Naihati Industrial Area Forum - Journal
Booklet on the Bengal and Indian government's new agricultural policies - Subhendu Dasgupta. Campaign Literature.
Government cannot arm people in Naxal-hit areas: Supreme Court - Resistance News
January 23, 2009
Death of small businesses in Bengal and India: a comprehensive study of retail monopoly - Journal
Urban beautification: 5000 Dalits to be evicted from century-old community in Belgachhia, Howrah - Front Page
North Bengal - when the cup inebriates - News
Dankuni says goodbye to DLF - News
900 landholders reject land acquisition at Andal Aerotropolis project - News
For older articles, click below.
Report of the All-India Fact-Finding Team on Lalgarh
Fact-finding team: Amit Bhaduri, economist, Professor emeritus, JNU; Madhu Bhaduri, womens' rights activist, IFS, former ambassador to Vietnam; Vidya Das, adivasi rights activist, Agragamee, Kashipur, Orissa; Gautam Navlakha, PUDR, consulting editor, EPW; Colin Gonsalves, supreme court lawyer, Human rights law network; Aseem Srivastava, economist, writer, activist; Kaustav Banerjee, economist, CSD, Delhi; Budhaditya Das, student, DU; Manika Bora, student, JNU; Sudipta, human rights activist, Adhikar, Asansol, West Bengal
A photo essay on the de-industrialization of Bengal: Real estate SEZs over the ruins of factories
The real story behind the much-hyped industrialization of West Bengal is one of continuous de-industrialization, land grab and conversion to real estate. This essay captures the emerging Shriram Hitec city in Hind Motors. Included is an article on industries in the Barackpur-Kanchrapara belt.
The Morichjhanpi massacre: When tigers became citizens, refugees "tiger-food"
The massacre in Marichjhapi, which took place under CPIM rule in Bengal between January 26 and May 16, 1979, has few parallels in the history of independent India. It holds fair comparison with the Jalianwala Bag massacre perpetrated by the British. The level of police brutality was horrific. The entire island of refugees was put under economic blockade from January, after the Left had come to power the previous year promising to champion the cause of the refugees. The blockade first starved out the population, and then the killings began.
West Bengal Policy Reversal and the Marichjhapi Massacre by Ross Mallick
When tigers became citizens, refugees "tiger-food" by Annu Jalais
Capitalism Beyond the Crisis - Amartya Sen's article, and a critique
Capitalism Beyond the Crisis - Amartya Sen, Feb 15 2009
The Use and Abuse of Trust - comments on Sen's Capitalism Beyond the Crisis
World Bank report: stop NREGA, promote migration and clustered growth
1. World Bank roots for urbanisation, migration - March 13, 2009
2. Migration to urban areas is good, says World Bank - March 13, 2009
3. Encourage clustered economic growth, World Bank tells India - March 13, 2009
4. NREGA is a barrier to economic development: World Bank - March 15, 2009
5. World Bank to clear $2.6 bn loan for India soon - March 15, 2009
Various schemes of the Indian government like NREGA, watershed programmes and schemes for development of small and medium towns are acting as "policy barriers to internal mobility", the bank said in its 'World Development Report' 2009.
Gorkhaland and Lalgarh: dialogues, parallels, and a challenge to mainstream parties
By Koustav De, Sanhati
(1) The Gorkhaland movement: A short background (2) Gorkhaland leadership extends hand of solidarity for Lalgarh movement (3) Exchanging views: A challenge to vote equations (4) The State's divisive tactics (5) Looking forward
Working Paper: Current crisis regime and impact on class struggle in India
This paper has been produced by Gurgaon Workers News, February 2009.
1. The character of the Shining India after the crash 1991
2. Landmarks of the current crisis in India. a) The Crisis Blow b) The state's reaction
3. Margins of the crisis regime in India a) The Social Unrest of the Rural World b) The Energy Crunch c) The Industrial Impasse d) The political consequences for the crisis regime
4. New frame-work and potentials for proletarian unrest
Comprehensive documentary from Canvas on monopolistic aggression in retail, Bengal
Canvas Documentary on Big capital monopoly in retail, Bengal [Google Video, 47 mins, Bengali]
This documentary covers the continuous conversion of industrial land into real estate, and the monopolistic assault on retail in Bengal that threatens to render countless workers jobless. Contents: (1) Interviews with small traders, analysts, and activists (2) South City Mall (3) Barrackpore Nonachandanpukur Bazaar (4) Save Park Circus Market Committee (5) Panihati retailers (6) Gariahat hawkers (7) Bolpur retailers samiti (8) Voices against Metro Cash and Carry
Factory closures and plight of workers: A comprehensive summary of Bengal's industrial condition
Contents:
Section 1: Abstract
Section 2: Voices from below
Section 3: Sickness Profiles: National Tannery, Kolay Biscuit, Eastern Paper Mill and 14 others.
Section 4: Regional Roundup of Industrial Belts: Eastern fringes, B.T. Road, Dum-Dum Lake Town, Jadavpur-Tollygunj, Taratala, Beleghata
Section 5: Factsheets: Industrial policy summary, Efforts to combat sickness, Survey of 500 sick industries, Rajarhat township, "Excess" industrial land.
Section 6: Summary
Death of small businesses in Bengal and India: a comprehensive study of retail monopoly
By Siddhartha Mitra and Debarshi Das, Sanhati. Translated from a FAMA study
Contents: 1. Introduction: the old versus the new market: the politics of change 2. The attempt to control small businesses 3. How the attack on small businesses has already impacted the rest of the world 4. What is the current situation of small scale retail in India 5. How this is all going to change 6. The death of small businesses and the false promise of new employment 7. Farmer suicides 8. Procuring the crops – the farmers are left out 9. Impact on the environment 10. That is why there is Nandigram, Khammam, Posco 11. Let us walk together
Click here for Bengali documentary on this material, produced by Canvas
Urban beautification: 5000 Dalits to be evicted from century-old community in Belgachhia, Howrah
They informed us that their predecessors have been staying in that area for more than 100 years.
A collection of essays on the Mumbai terror attacks, 2008
Click here to read collection [PDF, English, 62 KB] »
(1) Introduction - Shabnam Hashmi and Ram Puniyani (2) Terror: the aftermath - Anand Patwardhan (3) As the fires die: the terror of the aftermath - Biju Mathew (4) Hotel Taj: Icon of whose India? - Gnani Sankaran (5) Why the United States got it wrong - P. Sainath (6) The Monster in the Mirror - Arundhati Roy (7) Counter: Terrorism must not kill democracy - Praful Bidwai (8) Handling queries: democratic responses. Antuley remarks and the aftermath - Ram Puniyani (9) Need for a thorough investigation - Raveena Hansa (10) Terrorism, rule of law, and humna rights - K.G.Balakrishnan (11) Acts of terror and Terrorising Act: Unfolding Indian tragedy - Sukla Sen (12) Our politicians are still not listening - Colin Gonsalves (13) India's new anti-terror laws are draconian, say activists - Praful Bidwai (14) Terrorism: are stronger laws the answer? - Prashant Bhushan
Forest Rights Act: general issues of implementation and performance of various states
Constant updates on the Forest Rights Act are available on forestrightsact.com
In December 2006, Parliament passed the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act. This historic legislation marks the first time in India's history that a law has been passed recognising the rights of forest communities. Implementation of the Act is an unfolding political struggle.
1. General issues in implementation across states
2. Detailed updates from various states as of December 2008
30 years of destitution: India's largest energy hub and the people of Singrauli, U.P.
"Singrauli will turn into Singapore," - Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, 2008
Across the nation, up to 60,000,000 people are estimated to have been displaced by power, irrigation, mining and other development projects since independence.
Return of the terror law: Implications for peoples movements and a petition
Sign petition to demand repeal of draconian laws
Implications for peoples movements
Press Release from Kolkata activists: deep anguish over laws - Dec 24, 2008
Acts of Terror and Terrorising Act – Unfolding Indian Tragedy - Dec 19, 2008
Double-barrel strike on terror - Dec 16, 2008
Airport cities: The new paradigm
One of the aspects of neoliberal accumulation in India and Bengal has been the steady creation of real estate enclaves, hubs, and gated cities. A new chapter in this process is the impending concept of airport cities, with the usual promises of job creation, downstream employment, and development. An idea imported from highly developed nations, the aerotropolis, as it is called, will demand the creation of attendent SEZs and the provision of infrastructure like water and electricity by local taxpayers. A land acquisition notice for an airport city in Andal (Burdwan, West Bengal) was served in December 2008.
Notes from a ghost town: a day in the Naihati industrial region, Bengal
By Parimal Bhattacharya, Dec 2008
Every night, at 11 pm, Moumita Pan waits in the dark with her schoolbooks for the electric light to come on. A student of Class XI, she has to race through her studies before the light goes out again at two in the morning. Moumita is the only girl in the workers' quarters of the Jenson and Nicholson plant at Naihati, closed since 2004, who has cleared the Madhyamik and has not dropped out yet.
16,632 farmer suicides in India in 2007
Suicides by farmers of Maharashtra crossed the 4,000-mark in 2007, for the third time in four years, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). As many as 4,238 farmers of the State took their lives that year, the latest for which data are available, accounting for a fourth of 16,632 farmer suicides in the country.
Ominous developments in Orissa: Sangh Parivar critic arrested for writing book
Writing against Sangh Parivar and Brahmanism is 'inflamatory' or 'War agaisnt State' - The Orissa police proves it by arresting a Bhubaneswar based critic of Brahmanism and RSS. Mr.Lenin Kumar, editor, Nishan was arrested day before yesterdey for writing the book '"Dharma Naanre Kandhamalare Rakta Nadi".
Anti-mining and anti-SEZ struggles in Salem, Tamil Nadu: A summary
Salem, in Tamil Nadu, South India, is the scene of mining operations and an impending SEZ site. Various players, from SAIL to the Jindals to the infamous Vedanta corporation, are vying for mining rights in the area. An IT SEZ is on the cards. Local struggle is developing.
The Global Economic Crisis: a five-part study
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. This series will also appear parallely on Radicalnotes
The global economic crisis currently underway is, by all accounts, the deepest economic crisis of world capitalism since the Great Depression. It is necessary for the international working class to understand various aspects of this crisis: how it developed, who were the players involved, what were the instruments used during the build-up and what are it's consequences for the working people of the world. This understanding is necessary to formulate a socialist, i.e., working class, response to these earth shaking events. In a series of posts here on Radical Notes, I will share my understanding of the on-going crisis as part of the larger collective attempt to come to grips with the current conjuncture from a socialist perspective, to understand both the problems and the possibilities that it opens up.
Dispossession of weavers in Varanasi and the need for an artisans movement
Varanasi in North India, which employed 700,000 people in handloom a decade back, now employs only 250,000, with 47 reported cases of suicide. In the face of liberalization, silk cloth imports, indiscriminate mechanization, loose control over cheap imitations, rising price of silk, etc. weavers, like other artisans, are being dispossessed. This article discusses the inefficacy of existing government schemes, and suggests ways forward, stressing the need for an artisans' movement in the country.
Political Economy of Contemporary India: Some Comments on Partha Chatterjee's theoretical framework
Dipankar Basu and Debarshi Das, Sanhati. Open for comments.
Sifting through the divergent viewpoints thrown up by attempts to make sense of the recent political history of West Bengal, one is led to the conclusion that the tumultuous events have taken many, if not most, by surprise. With the benefit of hindsight one can probably say this: a combination of an insensitive state power, an arrogant ruling party, lapping-it-up corporate interests, and cheerleaders-of-corporate-sector-doubling-up-as-media orchestrated a veritable assault – a perfect storm. Yet the peasantry, initially without the guiding hand of a political party – indeed at times against the writ of the party – fought on. Through this episode Indian political economy seems to have stumbled upon the peasantry while it was looking for a short-cut to economic growth through SEZs.
Probing the politics of the annual destitution of 4 million in Damodar valley flooding
By Santanu Sengupta, Sanhati. Translated from ShramikShakti Newsletter: August 2008. Open for comments.
The lower Damodar river valley in West Bengal is the home of the Damodar Valley Corporation or DVC, the first multipurpose river valley project of independent India, whose stated aims are flood control, irrigation and generation and distribution of electricity. It is also the site of horrendous annual flooding that has brought ruin to over 4 million people for over a generation. This article probes the disparity between the stated objectives of the project and its performance, and the dangerous politics of big dams that has wreaked havoc on the lives of millions in Bengal.
Statement on Singur from Sanhati
October 12, 2008
Months of unflinching resistance by the people of Singur, especially landless labourers and marginal farmers, against the unjust and violent farm land acquisition by the West Bengal government has finally forced Tata Motors to withdraw its small car project from that area.
A list of exploitative companies in North India, and what they do
This is a small but typical list of companies in the Gurgaon area of North India, which commit flagrant violations of existing labor laws and get away with impunity. Their practices are listed below, in the form of first-person reports from workers, gleaned from Gurgaon Workers News. In most cases the minimum wage for industrial helpers of Rs. 3510 is not paid. If it is paid, then the working-times are way beyond the fixed 8-hours day and 6-days week. In most cases the over-time exceeds the legal restriction – maximum 50 hours in three months - and is paid at single rate, though according to the labour law it should be paid double. Hardly any workers receive the Provident Fund (PF), nor do they get ESI, medical insurance, which they are entitled to by law.
Farewell to the Tatas: Costs and benefits of the Tata-Singur Project, a detailed dissection of the deal
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. Open for comments
Costs: the total cost of the Tata-Singur project incurred by the exchequer, and hence ultimately the tax payers, will be approximately be Rs. 3000 crores on a net present value basis when we add up the costs pertaining to the land subsidy, the tax holidays, the soft loan, the real estate gift and the subsidized electricity using an interest rate of 11%. This is about 58% of the total realized industrial investment in the state of West Bengal in 2007.
Responsible corporates? The crimes of the Tatas enumerated
Introduction 1. Helping Killer Carbide - the Dow Chemicals nexus 2. Bypassing Democracy (a) Dictating Indian Policy (b) Holding on to Corporatocracy (c) Business with Military Junta 3. Desecrating Tribal Lands (a) Parched Earth Tactics (b) Chrome Poisoning (c) Luxury Resort in Tiger Country 4. Violence and Massacres (a) Gua Massacre (b) Kalinganagar Massacre (c) Singur Oppression 5. Toxic Dumping (a) Saline waste (b) Hell on Earth (c) Mountains of Waste, Jugsalai (d) Joda Mines (e) Coal Slurry Dumping 6. Hazardous Incidents (a) Founder's Day Fire 7. Strong Anti-Labour Policies (a) Worker Suicides (b) Sub-contracting and Fostering Insecurity (c) Lay-offs (d) Union busting (e) Killings 8. A Historical Record as Collaborators of British Imperialism (a) Drug Running (b) Empress Mills (c) Fueling British Expansionism (9) Tatas opposed by the people
The US financial crisis: locating the real locus of the debate with Rick Wolff
By Rick Wolff
In US capitalism's greatest financial crisis since the 1930s Depression, status-quo ideology swirls. The goal is to keep this crisis under control, to prevent it from challenging capitalism itself. One method is to keep public debate from raising the issue of whether and how class changes — basic economic system changes — might be the best "solution." Right, center, and even most left commentators exert that ideological control, some consciously and some not. Hence the debates where those demanding "more or better government regulation" of financial markets shout down those who still "have more confidence in private enterprise and free markets." Both sides limit the public discussion to more vs less state intervention to "save the economy." Then too we have quarrels over details of state intervention: politicians "want to help foreclosure victims too" or "want to limit financiers' pay packages" or want to "weed out bad apples in the finance industry" while spokespersons of various financial enterprises struggle to shape the details to their particular interests.
Who committed the real violence at Graziano Transmissioni?
Who committed the real violence at Graziano Transmissioni? - Kavita Krishnan
Graziano Workers Solidarity Forum formed
Hidden Costs of the Tata-Singur Agreement
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. Open for comments.
The Tata Group of Companies is one of the largest business conglomerates in India today with about 100 large companies in its fold. With the might of the Indian State firmly behind it, monopoly capital in India has started a move to aggressively acquire foreign assets. This short note examines the true character of agreements like the one `struck' between the TML and the West Bengal government. It is important to understand how such `agreements' look like under a neo-liberal regime.
The dislocation of 15 million fishworkers and environmental degradation: an introduction to ongoing changes in Coastal Zone Regulations
By Suvarup Saha, Sanhati. Open for comments.
Coastal Zone Regulations in India are currently being changed and manipulated. It is necessary to examine these changes closely and understand the political and economic currents that motivate them. The 8200 km long coastline of India provides livelihood to 15 million people and is one of the richest environments in the world - changes and amendments in protective regulations thus have widespread effects, effects which are being swept under the carpet by political parties, from the right to the parliamentary Left. This is an introduction to the issue.
Perspectives on the U.S. financial crisis
The U.S. financial crisis: some views from Monthly Review
The Greed Fallacy: By Arthur MacEwan, Dollars and Sense
Hard Truths About the Bailout
Free market ideology is far from finished: By Naomi Klein
Crisis of Capitalism and the Left: By Emir Sader
Understanding the demand for Gorkhaland : An introductory note
Open for comments
Voices for a separate state of Gorkhaland are once again echoing in the hills of Darjeeling and the surrounding areas. These developments are certainly disturbing for the uninformed Bengalis – they fail to understand why such a picturesque and otherwise "peaceful" place would like to secede from their province. They also feel sad at the thought of losing something so beautiful, something to be proud of. Sometimes, there is the knee-jerk reaction among some of them – a refusal to part with the region. With the state government and the mainstream media purposely continuing to feed on this ignorance and pride, it becomes important to put together a historical account of the developments in Darjeeling and thereby address questions regarding the right to self-determination of the people staying in this region. The hope is that such an introductory account of the evolving situation in Darjeeling would help the democratic-minded people to come to a rational decision.
Tales from the Gorkha region: crimes, oppression, and the fading memory of Baburam Dewan
By Siddhartha Mitra, Sanhati. Translated from ShramikShakti, June 2008
"Son, do not feel ashamed about my death; instead, feel proud of it, because this self-sacrifice of mine is for the greater good of the 6000 workers of the Chongtong tea-estate. We are still able to provide ourselves with two meals a day; but the thought of the frightening situation of the others in the tea-garden is making me unbearably anxious
– these were the words the Baburam Dewan wrote to his son in a letter just before he took his own life.
The ongoing Singur siege: populist, social democratic, and horizontal responses to neo-liberalism
By Kuver Sinha, Sanhati. Open for comments
There is an ongoing siege in Singur, West Bengal, the site of the Tata Nano project. The Trinamul Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, has demanded that of all the land acquired by the State Government using the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, 400 acres be returned to farmers who had been unwilling to sell. The Krishi Jomi Jibon Raksha Committee or KJJRC (Save Farmland Committee) is the broad umbrella organization carrying out the struggle. Various civil society groups have rallied behind this call, as have landed farmers, landless labourers, and sharecroppers of the area.
Public health privatisation in Bengal
By Indira Chakravarthy, Guest Contributor.
As a complement to Dipankar Basu's piece on the "achievements" of the CPM government in West Bengal on the economic and social fronts (http://sanhati.com/front-page/857/), I would like to share a few facts/concerns about the health status of common people in W Bengal. Using publicly available data, Dipankar had demonstrated that West Bengal's growth story was rather unspectacular when compared to other Indian states. Now, I would like to raise a related but different question: has even this below-average "economic growth" translated into improvements in the social sector for the common people?
A history of the brutal Rajarhat land acquisition, Bengal's new IT hub
By Santanu Sengupta, Sanhati. Translated from Rajarhaat - Uponogorir Ontorale Arto Manuher Kanna
Rajarhaat, near Kolkata, is Bengal's new IT hub and a hotspot for real estate investment. Within no time Rajarhat has become the hotbed of real estate investments with companies like DLF, Keppel Land, Unitech group, Singapore-based Ascendas, Vedic Realty, etc. coming in. Land prices have soared. The first phase of DLF's Rs 280 crore (Rs 2.80 billion) IT project has been operational since 2005 and a second IT park is on the cards. Wipro, Infosys, IBM - all the major IT houses are in operation here, on subsidized lands. A wireless hub is in the offing. Contrasting with Singur-Nandigram, official state versions have given the picture that Rajarhat's land acquisition from the mid 1990's onwards has been peaceful. This is an acount of the immense bloodshed that lay behind this acquisition, in a decade when the civil society and media wasn't interested.
'Testing' Time for a 'Civil' Nuclear Deal: Reflections ahead of the NSG meet
By P.K. Sundaram, Guest Contributor. August 20, 2008. Open for comments.
India's desperate diplomacy prior to the NSG meet on August 21-22, 2008 reveals the not-so-hidden truth about the deal – at a time when there is a need for renewed focus on disarmament, India rehabilitates nuclear energy corporates in order to circumvent nonproliferation regime and secure its right to conduct nuclear tests. And it finds supports from the Bush nuclear strategy bent on reducing nonproliferation into counterproliferation.
We have no value - sharecroppers and labourers in the ongoing Singur crisis
Reporting from Singur – Shamik Sarkar, Sanhati. 19th August, 2008. Comments enabled.
It has been over a year and a half that 997 acres have been sealed off by Tata's fences here. But many landowning farmers have not accepted compensation. In the last week of July, 2008, the Krishi Jomi Jibon Jibika Raksha Committee (Committee for saving farmland, life, and livelihood) gave the call to "outsiders working in Tata's plant" to leave Singur, "to protect the rights of unwilling farmers, Bargadars, and agricultural workers". After that, Trinamul leader Mamata Banerjee declared that there would be a continuous blockade of the project from August 24th. The pressure of the movement forced workers who had been coming to the site from outside to stop.
What is the state of workers in the new industrial zones of Tamil Nadu?
This conversation with a worker from Tamil Nadu, appeared in Shramik Istahar, May 2008. It has been translated by Koel Das, Sanhati.
I was conversing with Sudhakarda. Sudhakar Raut, originally from Orissa, used to work in a reputed private engineering factory in West Bengal. He lost his job after being victimized in a lock-out while fighting against the injustice of the factory owner. I met him a couple of days back when he talked about his experiences over the last one year.
Flashpoint Chengara - landless Dalits, the Left Democratic Front, and terror
A historic land struggle has been unfolding at Chengara in Pathanamthitta district, Kerala, involving about 7500 families, which includes all sections of landless people, the majority of them being Dalits and Adivasis. Landless people have claimed land in the Chengara estate, a rubber plantation, which had been leased to the Harrison Malayalam Plantation by the government of Kerala. At present, the lease is invalid and the property has lapsed back to the government. The landless people who have flocked there from all parts of Kerala demand that this government land be redistributed to them. These marginalised people have thereby demanded a say in what must be done with government land in Kerala: given the present political and economic climate, the likelihood is that this land will be taken over by the state only to be assigned unconditionally, or with minimum conditions, to the multi-nationals.
Dynamics of rural proletariat: labour shortage in agriculture, NREGA, aspirations, and the nouveau riche
Introduction: rural proletariat in Haryana and Punjab
Aspirations within misery: labour shortage in agriculture
The NREGA and the control of rural proletariat
The teenage guns of the nouveau riche
Is tenant eviction at the heart of the Bengal government's new agrarian thinking?
By Shubhendu Dasgupta. Translated by Debarshi Das, Sanhati
One of the many aspects of the land reform programme was security for tenants. Those land owners who would not cultivate the land themselves, would lease out the same to the tenants. This is called tenancy cultivation – or "barga" cultivation in Bengal. Those who would lease in the land on barga cultivation would be called "bargadars".
Aspects of Nuclear Power
1. Nuclear Reactor Hazards : Ongoing dangers of operating nuclear technology in the 21st century
2. Nuclear Power: no solution to climate change
3. Pros and cons of nuclear power
4. The nuclear 'solution' to climate change
5. The Nuclear crisis in France
Nuclear Deal, 'National Interest' and the Indian Left
By P.K. Sundaram, Guest Contributor. Open for comments.
It is the Indian Left's concurrence, rather than its disagreement, with the idea of a nuclear future (including nuclear weapons) that has made its case weak and inaudible to the larger masses.
Fighting Neoliberalism: Does West Bengal Show the Way?
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. Open for comments.
Mindless economic growth through unfettered operations of the "free" market, that is often portrayed in the mainstream media as a panacea for all of India's economic problems, has now been shown to be seriously flawed as a sensible strategy for economic development. Active, pro-people state intervention through sound policies is essential for making any meaningful dent on the problems facing our country today; and this includes, if historical experience is anything to go by, even the achievement of sustainable, broad-based economic growth. In every known case of successful industrialization and economic development, be it England or Continental Europe or USA or Japan or the East Asian tigers, the State has played a pro-active role in directing investments, mobilizing resources to finance that investment, protecting fledgling industries from undue competition from abroad, and so on; it is, therefore, inconceivable that any state, or the country for that matter, can make that transition without State intervention through effective policies for agriculture and industry. State governments subscribing to this viewpoint would claim to have put this political philosophy into practice, especially the one in West Bengal.
Behind the IAEA Safeguards Agreement: What the Nuclear Deal Entails
By M.V. Ramana, Guest Contributor.
With the submission of the safeguards agreement to the IAEA and the challenge to the government from the left parties, there is now renewed widespread debate about the nuclear agreement with United States. Much of the debate on the deal has been between what can be broadly called the nuclear hawks and the nuclear nationalists. The nuclear hawks believe India's nuclear programme is a great success and more than able to take care of itself. They see the deal as imposing unnecessary constraints on the programme and making more difficult the creation of the large nuclear arsenal, including thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs), that they believe is essential for India to be a 'great power.'
The Indo-US Nuclear Pact and the Hoax of Nuclear Power
The Indo-US Nuclear Pact and the Hoax of Nuclear Power - By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri
India's Nuclear History: A Brief Outline
Choosing the Wrong Future: The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal - By Andrew Lichterman and M.V. Ramana
Wrong Ends, Means, and Needs: Behind the U.S. Nuclear Deal With India - By Zia Mian and M. V. Ramana
Class Struggle and Resistance in Zimbabwe
1. Revolutionaries, resistance and crisis in Zimbabwe – Munyaradzi Gwisai
2. His Excellency Comrade Robert: How Mugabe's ZANU clique rose to power – Stephen O'Brien
3. No to a government of national unity! Only united mass action will defeat Mugabe! – International Socialist Organisation of Zimbabwe
Click here to read Class Struggle & Resistance in Zimbabwe [PDF, 400 KB] »
Liberalism Betrayed? The Maoist Electoral Victory in Nepal
By Saroj Giri, Sanhati. Open for comments.
The workers chanted "Allende, the people are defending you: hit the reactionaries hard." The mood of the masses was militant. They were waiting for a lead that never came. - Tariq Ali, Allende's Chile
Is the Maoist victory in the Constituent Assembly elections in Nepal a challenge to the liberal consensus and hegemony or is it its expansion, or worse, its intensification, co-opting the Maoists in the process? It could be either, mostly depending on which way events unfold in the coming days. The 'meaning' of the Maoist victory calls for a critical examination even as it promises an interesting and politically salient expose of the intricacies and dangers of trying to beat liberal democracy in its own game. Liberals, both left-wing and right-wing ones, have welcomed the Maoist victory though with caution and sometimes clenching their teeth, as a victory of the ballot over the bullet and a step forward for democracy and peace in Nepal. Those on the revolutionary left have however hardly allowed their pleasant surprise at the results to underestimate the enormous risks of 'right-wing deviation' and capitulation that the present path entails for the Maoists.
The May 2008 Pogroms: xenophobia, evictions, liberalism, and democratic grassroots militancy in South Africa
By Richard Pithouse, Guest Contributor. Durban, 16 June 2008.
This essay examines the issues of xenophobia in present-day South Africa, in the light of the riots of May 2008. It starts by looking at eviction in the Harry Gwala settlement and the role of various poor people's movements like Abahlali baseMjondolo, Anti-Eviction Campaign, and the Landless People's Movement. It then looks at the riots, making the point that most areas under the control of militant organisations of the poor that have been in serious conflict with the state had no violence. The essay evaluates the ideas of Michael Neocosmos in theorizing xenophobia, coming to the conclusion that "For Neocosmos xenophobia and authoritarianism are a continuation of apartheid oppression that are, in the end, a product of liberalism. He proposes, against the state centric politics of liberalism, a recovery of popular emancipatory politics…[it] is the practical politics that was able to defend and shelter people targeted in the May pogroms, and has previously, although covertly, offered the same protection from the state…"
A man-made famine - India and the world in the Great Hunger of 2008
1. India's Emerging Food Security Crisis: The Consequences of the Neoliberal Assault on the Public Distribution System - Analytical Monthly Review
2. A man-made famine - Raj Patel, The Guardian
3. The World Food Crisis: Sources and Solutions - Fred Magdoff, Monthly Review
4. Manufacturing a Food Crisis - Walden Bellow, The Nation
5. Global food crisis: 'The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model' - Ian Angus, Socialist Voice
6. Soaring prices are causing hunger around the world - Washington Post Editorial
7. The World's Growing Food-Price Crisis - Time magazine
Corporate encroachment and the Panchayat elections: A rural montage
By Shamik Sarkar, Sanhati. Open for comments.
I. Beliya village, Haruda, and promises of development
II. Singur, its sharecroppers and laborers, and the Opposition
III. Corporate hands in rural Bengal
Human Rights Organization Masum under attack for coordinating People's Tribunal on Torture
June 12, 2008
Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) had organised a People's Tribunal on Torture (PTT) on 9-10 June. The police have started a case against MASUM claiming the tribunal to be illegal. On June 12 a huge police force raided MASUM's office (26 Guitendal Lane, Howrah 711101). To protest against this, a meeting has been planned at MASUM's office, today, on 13 June at 4pm. Please come and send this news to all.
Detailed report on incident from The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.
A brief overview of the Indian poverty debate
By Alita Nandi, Sanhati. Open for comments.
Click here to read the technical version of this article [PDF, English, 120KB] »
In the early 1990s various liberalisation policies had been introduced in India and India had started to experience higher growth rates (compared to pre-liberalisation period). The official poverty estimates published by the Planning Commission showed a decline in absolute poverty levels from 36% in 1993-94 to 26% in 1999-00. The question that became important at this juncture was, "Did the advantages of this high economic growth reach all echelons of society, in particular the 'poor'?" And so the official reports at this time showing a reduction in absolute poverty levels created a stir. Some old issues about poverty measurement and some new ones were brought into the foreground and heavily debated and discussed. Here I attempt to trace out the key issues of this debate.
Disadvantaged Social Classes in the Panchayat system: Social Democratic Half-truths
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. Open for Comments.
In a recent article in Macroscan, Jayati Ghosh (JG hereafter) has argued that West Bengal is a "pioneering state" with regard to panchayati raj institutions and other measures aimed at decentralization of state power in India. The author shows that when one uses the correct index in the analysis, these conclusions vanish into thin air - of the states studied, Maharashtra, for example, outperforms West Bengal in participation of disadvantaged classes in Panchayats, even though it has never had the benefit of a progressive, left-wing government. The author suggests that this may be due to a vibrant culture of grassroots social and political activism, nurtured and led in no small measure by the radical left.
Talk To Naxals; Focus On Development, Land Reform
By Suhit Sen, The Statesman
A team of experts constituted by the Planning Commission has cottoned on to something the Prime Minister doesn't seem to comprehend. It has pointed out that Left-wing extremism is not just - we could go further and say not at all - a law-and-order problem. It is a phenomenon that arises from a complete lack of development, desperate poverty and the dehumanisation that arises from it, and injustice and inequality. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh does not agree, of course - not long ago he had characterised extremism as the most virulent disease that afflicted India's body politic and Naxals as the Public Enemy Number 1. He should take time off his admittedly onerous duties to pore over the report.
On the Naxalite Movement: A Report with a Difference
An EPW commentary by Sumanta Banerjee on the recent Planning Commission Report, "which while meticulously arranging the latest facts and figures, rigorously examines the causes of the continuing economic exploitation and social discrimination in the adivasi and dalit-inhabited areas even after 60 years of independence. It is significant that this particular expert group was set up by the government in May 2006, in the background of increasing Naxalite activities in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa."
Tumi Maharaj Sadhu hole Aaj! - Real estate land-acquisition in HindMotors
Leaflet from Gana Udyog
B.L.R.O. Srirampore: I won't commit this to paper. However, there is one set of rules for common people, another for the Birlas. I can't do much from my chair. We are servants who obey government directives. Decisions come from much higher up.
(1) Land-acquisition in HindMotors for real-estate: A Timeline
(2) Background
Panchayat Election 2008 results and the future of the CPIM
By Pinaki Mitra, Sanhati. Open for comments.
This article analyses the reactions of the CPIM leadership to the recent election reversals, gleaning from the reactions certain classic maladies of the Party itself. It then looks back at the CPIM's history of compromises, ending with the dilemmas it now confronts.
People strike back at CPIM's neoliberal policies: Tremor after tremor at the Panchayat Elections
Panchayat Elections 2008 Final Tally:
Panchayat Samiti: Total - 329. LF - 189, Opposition - 131, No Result - 9.
Gram Panchayat: Total - 3220. LF - 1585, Opposition - 1498, No Result - 137.
Brutalized Singur and Nandigram vote out CPIM's anti-people policies
Enemies of the State - Women and men who choose the margins
Enemies of the State: Women and men who choose the margins - By Ashok Mitra
Mumbai's Rebels: Those Who Couldn't Remain Unmoved. Profiles of Anuradha Ghandy, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Shridhar Shrinivasan - By Bernard D'Mello
Nandigram from May 5-11, 2008 - APDR report
Factsheet on incidents regarding Nandigram from May 5 to 11, 2008 - APDR report
Government vs. CRPF: Lakshman Seth and his arm-twisting - May 12, 2008
Nandigram on the eve of the Panchayet Elections - A MASUM report
May 10, 2008. Click here for a cartoon of today's Nandigram!
On getting information of the continuing disturbances and police inaction in Nandigram, our fact finding team reached violence-torn Nandigram today and has gathered shocking information from the villagers. Since last night musclemen and goons alleged to be supporters of the largest ruling party CPI(M) flaunting red flags resorted to bloody violence in the area. These miscreants snatched away voter identity cards of many villagers and beat them mercilessly even on the mere suspicion of not being supporters of the ruling party.
They insist your show must be cancelled! - cultural coercion in a post-Nandigram Bengal
By Tapas Sinha. Translated by Suvarup Saha, Sanhati
The phonecall came on the 10th of April. One of the organizers of the Champdanga Theatre Festival was on the line. On the receiving end was thespian Koushik Sen, who has been active in the civil society movement of Nandigram.
Mahamichhil for Nandigram and reflections on the people's movement
Kolkata witnessed another Mahamichhil on May 9, 2008. To (a) protest against the reign of terror unleashed by the CPI(M) on the eve of the panchayat elections, aimed at cowing down voters all over the state, and (b) especially to condemn the atrocities being perpetrated by CPI(M) workers in collusion with the state police in Nandigram.
Who is Ajay TG? Political arrests and the tightening noose
Update May 12, 2008: PUDR condemnation statement, Petition of solidarity
The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) strongly condemns the arrest of Ajay TG, widely recognized film maker, journalist and human rights activist by the Chhattisgarh police in Raipur on 4 May 2008 and calls for his immediate release.
Bondimukti Committee members arrested for protesting political arrests
Bondimukti Committee members protesting against political arrests were attacked by police and have been fasting at College Square, Kolkata, from May 6 2008 in protest.
No choice for forgotten Santhals in Bengal
By Shyam Sundar Roy
About 500 voters, belonging to over 160 Santhal families living under Shiromoni gram panchayat in Midnapore Sadar block, do not know which party to vote for in the ensuing panchayat elections, as they say none of them are ready to help them.
From Chhattisgargh to Manipur: The many faces of Salwa Judum
Manipur will arm its civilians to fight militants: A Salwa Judum in the making? - May 3, 2008
Chhattisgargh's purification hunt - By Shubhranshu Choudhary
4 farmers commit suicide everyday in Chhattisgarh - the highest in the country - By Shubhranshu Choudhary
The Panchayat elections and self-empowerment of the rural poor
This is a translated version of a leaflet from the Krishak Committee (KC), written and distributed at the advent of Panchayat elections in West Bengal. The Sharamik Sangram Committee (SSC), a small fraternal organisation of the Krishak Commitee, leads the union at Hindustan Lever.
My Name is Radharani Ari and This is How My Consciousness Was Raised.
Honourable Chief Minister, I am the same Radharani Ari of Nandigram. How many more times will your cadres rape me?
Yes, I am the same person. The same Radharani Ari, resident of Nandigram Block, village – Gokulpur. Whether or not you remember me, I am not too sure, although by now the entire state of West Bengal has heard about me. I did not catch the limelight due to some creditable act of mine but on account of my misfortunes. I am a housewife of, by now infamous, Nandigram.
Looking back at Khejuri: Our men, their men – the straw men
This eyewitness account appeared in November 2007, and presents an alternative first-hand view of the highly publicised Khejuri camps. It has been translated by Atreyi Dasgupta, Sanhati.
…One of the little ones, when asked his name, immediately parroted, "We need industry, or else how can we have development". He was ten years old. His sister was just beside him, and she said, "We don't know how long we have to stay in this condition. If we ask these people, they say, everything will go back to normal in a few days. But where is that happening? You know didi, our friends in Nandigram told us that they have resumed their studies. What will we do?"
Will the "Great Indian Middle Class" show up, please?
By Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati. Comments enabled
Where is the "Great Indian Middle Class"? Where are those conspicuously-consuming, frequently-flying, gizmo-toting, big car-driving, globalized offsprings of our jet-setting "new economy"? Don't we see them all around us: living in highrises with blue-tiled swimming pools, with people living a few miles away getting water once in three days, shopping in glittering malls built on the land of evicted slums, driving around in Toyotas and Chevrolets on roads choked with traffic? From all accounts, and appearances, we have reached the heady days when the Indian middle class has finally arrived. They are the ones who supposedly constitute one of the biggest markets in the world, for whom multinational corporations are falling over one another to invest in India, for whom our governments' policies are directed, for whom roads and airports are built, for they ARE the "people" of India. This great middle class is our hope, the engine of growth for our economy. So - where is it?
Does Land Still Matter?
By D. Bandyopadhyay
The national economy is growing at double digit rates but neither industry nor non-agricultural activities in rural India provide livelihood for millions of rural workers. The annual growth of agricultural output decelerated from 3.08 per cent pa during 1980-81 to 1991-92 to 2.38 per cent pa during 1992-93 to 2003-04. It is this failure that underlies the spurt in rural violence that has highlighted once again the issue of the poors' access to land, water, and forests. It is gradually being recognised that further deterioration of economic, social, and political conditions of the rural poor can neither be arrested nor reversed without a significant policy shift towards a comprehensive land reform program.
Predatory Growth
By Amit Bhaduri
Over the last two decades or so, the two most populous, large countries in the world, China and India, have been growing at rates considerably higher than the world average. In recent years the growth rate of national product of China has been about three times, and that of India approximately two times that of the world average. This has led to a clever defence of globalisation by a former chief economist of IMF (Fisher, 2003). Although China and India feature as only two among some 150 countries for which data are available, he reminded us that together they account for the majority of the poor in the world. This means that, even if the rich and the poor countries of the world are not converging in terms of per capita income, the well above the average world rate of growth rate of these two large countries implies that the current phase of globalisation is reducing global inequality and poverty at a rate as never before.
Sibpur BESU - Coercion to join the SFI - Terror and the administration-police-criminal nexus
The political landscape in colleges across West Bengal is barren - the SFI wins mainly uncontested almost everywhere, through an intricate mechanism of nepotism, selection and campus terror.
The students of Sibpur BESU are facing an assault of the college administration- local goons-police. The Vice-chancellor Nikhil Ranjan Banerjea is orchestrating the assault, the aim of which is to terrorize students into joining or supporting the students' wing of the major ruling party. It is not an accident that all those who are being arrested by the police are distinguished by their non-allegiance to this students' organisation.
Stages of Revolution in the International Working Class Movement
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati (Open for comments)
This article attempts to throw some light on the following two questions: (1) How does the classical Marxist tradition conceptualize the relationship between the two stages of revolution: democratic and the socialist? (2) Does the democratic revolution lead to deepening and widening capitalism? Is capitalism necessary to develop the productive capacity of a society? The answer to the first question emerges from the idea of the "revolution of permanence" proposed by Marx in 1850, accepted, extended and enriched by Lenin as "uninterrupted revolution" and simultaneously developed by Trotsky as "permanent revolution". This theoretical development was brilliantly put into practice by Lenin between the February and October revolutions in Russia in 1917. The answer to the second question emerges clearly from the debates on the national and colonial question in the Second Congress of the Third International in 1920. From this debate what emerges is the idea of the democratic revolution led by the proletariat as the start of the process of non-capitalist path of the development of the productive capacity of society, moving towards the future socialist revolution. Rather than deepening and widening capitalism, the democratic revolution under the proletariat leads society in the opposite direction, in a socialist, i.e., proletarian direction. Promoting capitalism is not necessary for the development of the productive capacity of a country.
Civil Liberties under Attack: The "Maoist" Scare and Mithu Ghosh
Today we are witnessing the sharpest assault on democratic rights since Emergency. And as before, the reason is an upsurge from below, in the current case in resistance to the imposition of neoliberal policies. A most ominous event is the recent arrest, by the police of CPI(M)-led left front government, of Mithu Ghosh, an activist of Sharamik Sangram Committee (SSC) and Krishak Committee (KC), along with a senior leader of Nandigram movement and his son on 12th February, 2008 from Sonachuda, Nandigram West Bengal. An allegation of Maoist link under section 120B, 121, 121A and 153 of IPC was charged.
You see, we do back calculations here - Rural employment and Panchayet realities in Bengal
By Swati Bhattacharya. Translated by Debarshi Das, Sanhati
We want work, work, work, work and work. - Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister, West Bengal
Anukul Das was from Sonaga village, Gosaba Gram Panchayat (South 24 Parganas District, the Sunderban region). He demanded the right to work for minimum hundred days from Panchayat. Presently he is in the Andamans seeking work. His wife Shikha Das says, he got only nine days of work in two years. So, he went to submit the application for unemployment dole with some other villagers. Panchayat did not want to accept to application, hence they forcibly submitted it. A few days later, works started in the area, and they did not find any. They were allotted works in Rangabelia, about four kilometres away. Cost of travelling to and fro is twenty two rupees per day. One hour by boat, one more on foot. It was absurd to accept such a proposal. Panchayat members had told them openly: you complained about us, we will provide no work to you.
On the CPIM's draft political resolution
Capitalistic socialism: New Oxymoron - By Sankar Ray
Irony of recent history - A critique of the CPIM's draft political resolution - By Sankar Ray
Citizens' Report on Nandigram with specific stress on gender violence
As a result of an initiative by women's groups, organizations and individuals, an 11-member team of citizens from Kolkata comprising teachers, social activists, researchers and students visited Nandigram on November 24, 2007. Concerned about the repeated disruption of peace in the region, the team decided to go to the affected areas and talk to the local people with the objectives of expressing solidarity with the survivors of violence, documenting people's needs in the current circumstances, and drawing up recommendations. One of the chief aims was also to investigate the nature and range of sexual violence and its use as a political weapon, towards pre-empting further such occurrences of violence against women.
Click here to read Independent Citizens' Report on Nandigram [.doc, English 330KB] »
Nude mentally challenged patients - Bengal's public healthcare at a time of private bonanza
It has been argued that big capital investment in West Bengal "creates a wonderful opportunity to make much larger investments in public education, healthcare, public transport, environmental protection, and other public goods." (Amartya Sen). On the other hand, the argument has been made that a government with a neo-liberal mindset does not care about people who, because of their purchasing power, are outside the market. If the government has money, it will make malls and flyovers, at the cost of public health. The problem is not one of intention but definition.
The situation in a state mental hospital, a mere 6 km from the seat of government at Writers Building in Kolkata, displays the typically dysfunctional nature of public healthcare, amidst all the rhetoric of development.
Singur brutalizer gets medal, cadres get Nandigram land, cash incentives for officials: Laissez-faire in action
Friedmanite neo-liberalism advocates minimization of the involvement of the state. In reality, neo-liberal policies are imposed and facilitated by the state - from nepotism and incentives to disappearances and massacres.
1. Singur: IPS officer accused of torture awarded Seva medal by Chief Minister - March 3, 2008
2. Bengal govt to distribute vested Nandigram land to party supporters - February 27, 2008
3. Cash Incentives for Officials Who Take Initiative for Land Acquisition - February 2, 2008
Economic Growth: A Meaningless Obsession?
By Amit Bhaduri, B.N. Ganguly Memorial Lecture; CSDS, Delhi, November 2006.
We are living in India at a time when the media is continuously transmitting confusing, even conflicting, economic signals. If we restrict ourselves to the English language print as well as electronic media, our comfort level is likely to be high. The economy is growing at a high rate, the stock market is booming, our foreign reserve is at a comfortably high level, and freer trade is bringing to our doors a variety of goods and services simply unimaginable even a couple of decades ago as a mark of the benefits of globalization. What is more, we are daily reminded that India is poised economically and politically as an emergent world power.
Dankuni - Resistance to Massive Land Acquisition for Real Estate
The "development" process in West Bengal is taking place in a two stage mechanism - conversion of agricultural land into industrial land, and conversion of industrial land into real estate. Land acquisition in Dankuni clearly demonstrates how the aim of the "development" process is really the extraction of maximum profits by private enities from resources, in this case, land. Real estate provides the maximum profit, therefore functioning factories in Dankuni are being shut down to acquire land for a housing project by the powerful DLF group.
Agro-Science Fair in Bolagarh, West Bengal
The 'Agricultural Science Fair 2008' was organized by Bolagarh Gana-Bijnan Samiti on 25-26 January, 2008 at the Jeerat Colony High School in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, India. Extensive discussions and programs were carried out on the role of multinationals like Monsanto in promoting genetically modified seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers. Alternative bio-friendly methods of agriculture were discussed.
Anti-POSCO rally and program in Kolkata
February 13, 2008. Kolkata: A rally from College Square to Utkal Bhavan (an office of the Orissa govornment) took place and was followed by a mass-deputation in Utkal Bhavan against the proposed POSCO project in Jagatsingpur district, Orissa. The program was organised by 18 organizations. After a demonstration in front of Utkal Bhavan the protesters conveyed their solidarity to the POSCO movement in the form of a memorandum to the government of Orissa. The authorities at Utkal Bhavan received the memorandum on behalf of the government of Orissa. Afterwards, anti-POSCO activists including Biswajit Roy shared their experiences with political organisations and human rights activists at the Indian Radical Humanist Associations Hall in a discussion called Posco Ebong Tar Protirodh. Activists involved in the protest movement against illegal and extensive stone quarrying in Asansol and Birbhum were also present to express their solidarity to the people of Orissa and speak about the conditions in the regions where they work.
The 18 organisations which organised the program were: APDR, Chhatra-Chhatri Sanhati Mancha, Little Magazine Samannay Mancha, Lok Seba Sangh, Nandigram Ganahatya Birodhi Prochar Udyog, Sahanagarikder Jukta Mancha, Hawker Sangram Committee, TASAM, USDF, NAPM, Sanhati Udyog, PaschimBanga Khetmazoor Samiti, Ganamukti Parishad, Janasangharsha Samiti, West Bengal Gandhi Peace Foundation, Bondi Mukti Committee, West Bengal Government Employees Union, and National Fishworkers Federation.
Malnutrition death in Singur and the Nano-flyover syndrome
1. February 10, 2008 : Kalipada Majhi, a sharecropper rendered jobless in Singur after land acquisition, died from malnutrition.
2. In an article called The Nano-flyover Syndrome, Sunita Narain examines what subsidises the cheap Nano, and who actually pays.
Tall Claims: Employment generated by Haldia Petrochemicals
By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri and Purnendu Chakraborty
These articles calculate the actual employment figure in downstream units of HPL for 2005 to be less than 19,301. We are being asked to believe that, in 2 years, the figure has increased from less than 19,301 to 50,000+89,900, an increase of more than 7-fold. The figure of 89,900 is also suspiciously close to 89,895, which is the employment figure for ALL new projects implemented in the state between 1991-2002 (Source: Frontline). It seems that either 89,000 is a favourite number, or that all employment in the state has come from HPL.
Burma's Freedom Fighters: From Port Blair to a Kolkata Jail
February 4th, 2008, marks the tenth anniversary of the illegal detention of 34 Burmese freedom fighters in Bengal. The Solidarity Committee for Burma's Freedom Fighters, whose members include Ashok Mitra, Lakshmi Sehgal, and others, carried out a Dharna in protest.
Personal accounts of prisoners and press release of the protest are included.
Neoliberalism, the U.S. economic crisis, and the phases of capitalism
Neoliberal Globalization Is Not the Problem - By Rick Wolff
2008: The Demise of Neoliberal Globalization - By Immanuel Wallerstein
Putting the U.S. Economic Crisis in Perspective - By Leo Panitch
Some critiques of CPI(M)'s 19th Congress and stance on capitalism
On Jyoti Basu's Embrace of Capitalism as the Only Road to Industrialisation - By P.J. James
CPI(M)'s 19th Congress: The Social Democrats Stand Further Exposed - By K.N. Ramachandran
Study on Closed and Re-opened Tea Gardens in North Bengal
By Anuradha Talwar, Debashish Chakraborty, Sarmishtha Biswas
This study, dated September 2005, was conducted in the wake of the crisis in the tea industry in the Doars between 2002-2004.
Contents: (1) Conditions in re-opened gardens - wages, ration, hours of work, occupational health and safety, drinking water, electricity, housing, transport for school-children, medical facilities, creches, maternity benefits, fringe benefits, latrines and urinals (2) Conditions in closed and abandoned gardens (3) Workers' dues - tabled by tea estates, categorized under provident fund, gratuity, salary, and total dues (4) Opening agreements (5) Likely non-viability of plantations (6) Role of unions - CITU, UTUC, INTUC, WBTGEA (7) Role of government (8) Plantations Labour Act, 1951
Click here to read study on closed and re-opened ta gardens in North Bengal [PDF, English, 400 KB] »
ShramikShakti Newsletter - January-February 2008
Contents: (1) SEZs stopped in Goa (2) CPI(M) exults over the Nano (3) BJP in power in Gujrat and Himachal - effects on state and national politics (4) Dankuni - huge land acquisition plans (5) Civil society, Karl Marx, and the CPI(M) (6) Economic development and employment generation - a debate (part 2) (7) Vote-based front or unity of struggle? (8) Pollution of drinking water - in search of the source (9) Singur and the High Court verdict (10) Ganashakti's hypocrisy (11) GM crops - agricultural science meet in Bolagarh (12) Bolagarh - lessons from the polls (13) Movement in Kandi - protests against corruption in public distribution system and cal for permanent flood resistance measures (14) Benazir's death and contemporary Pakistan (15) HindMotors and the recent elections
Click here to read ShramikShakti January-February 2008 [PDF, Bengali, 612 KB] »
Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda
Click here to watch documentary: Buddha weeps in Jadugoda [Youtube video, six parts]
Click here for photos of affected children
Ragi Kana Ko Bonga Buru (Buddha weeps in Jadugoda) documents the devastating effects of uranium mining by Uranium Corporation of India Limited at Jadugoda, in Jharkhand. For the last thirty years, radioactive waste has been dumped into the rice fields of Adivasis. The complete disregard of the authorities to radioactive waste management rules wreaks havoc on the daily lives of villagers and children, with genetic deformities becoming quite common.
About director Shriprakash Prakash: Shriprakash has directed and produced many documentary films during the last 15 years. He is also the chief co-ordinator of Kritika, a group working in the Jharkhand region since 1990 in the areas of culture and communication. With his films he has attempted to capture the struggles and aspirations of indigenous local communities in Bihar and Jharkhand, and to give them a voice.
Kalboishekhi in Poush: The Aftermath of Nandigram
By Garga Chatterjee, Sanhati
The events in Nandigram have possibly changed the trajectory of contemporary political discourse for good. West Bengal's "leftist" government started a policy of forcibly acquiring land from peasants, dependents on soil and other communities that live off the soil. Incident after incident followed where discontented locals spontaneously organized, into Krishi Jami Raksha Committee, Bhumi Uchhed Protirodh Committee, Uchhed Birodhi Committee, and more.
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