Editor: Rekha Saraswat
-
Upload
editor-rekha-saraswat -
Category
Documents
-
view
252 -
download
6
description
Transcript of Editor: Rekha Saraswat
THE RADICAL HUMANISTJULY 2014Vol. 78 No 3 Rs. 20/month
(Since April 1949)Formerly : Independent India
(April 1937- March 1949)
532
Founder Editor: M.N. Roy
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
The Radical Humanist
Monthly journal of the
Indian Renaissance InstituteDevoted to the development of the
Renaissance Movement; and for promotion of
human rights, scientific-temper, rational
thinking and a humanist view of life.
Founder Editor:
M.N. Roy
Editor:
Dr. Rekha Saraswat
Contributory Editors:
Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. R.M. Pal,
Professor Rama Kundu
Publisher and Printer:
Mr. N.D. Pancholi
Send articles to: Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8,
Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India,
Ph. 91-121-2620690, 09719333011
E-mail articles at: [email protected]
Send Subscription / Donation Cheques in
favour of The Radical Humanist to:
Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber
Number 111 (Near Post Office), Supreme Court
of India, New Delhi, 110001, India
Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836,
09811944600
Please Note: Authors will bear sole
accountability for corroborating the facts that
they give in their write-ups. Neither IRI / the
Publisher nor the Editor of this journal will be
responsible for testing the validity and
authenticity of statements & information cited by
the authors. Also, sometimes some articles
published in this journal may carry opinions not
similar to the Radical Humanist philosophy; but
they would be entertained here if the need is felt
to debate and discuss upon them.
—Rekha Saraswat
Vol. 78 Number 4 July 2014
www.theradicalhumanist.com
1. From the Editor’s Desk:
Our Democratic Illiteracy defined in Kejriwal's
Defeat!!
—Rekha Saraswat 1
2. From the Writings of M.N. Roy:
Historical Role of Islam: The Mission of Islam 2
3. Guests’ Section:
Unconditional Basic Income for all Indians
—R.K.A. Subrahmanya 4
Who bothers about Political Cleansing?
—S.N. Shukla 6
4. Current Affairs’ Section:
Umbrage Against Activists; Switching over to
Hindi?India too passive on Iraq
—Kuldip Nayar 9
Ideological Cronies under Late Capitalism;
Lumpenisation of Rural Youth
—K.S. Chalam 14
5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:
Untenable Arguments on the Abrogation Article
370 of Constitution of India
—K. Pratap Reddy 19
6. Academicians' Section:
Authentic Interpreter of Cultural and Spiritual
Heritage
—Ashok K. Chaudhury 21
7. Book Review Section:
Policies from Paris
—Dipavali Sen 29
8. Humanist News Section: 32
a) C.F.D. National Conference; b) 83rdAnnual
Conference of Rationalist Association of India &
18th Biennial Conference of A.P. Rationalist
Association c) Citizens sign against IB Report on
Movements for Secular Democracy d) Civil
society groups assert freedom of expression,
Contents
From The Editor's Desk:
Our Democratic Illiteracy:defined in Kejriwal's Defeat!
Who lost this time? The Indian citizen! Who won
this time? The money, might and media triad, as
always!
Why could Kejriwal not win the people’s faith this
time? Because we Indian voters could not build our
faith in our own selves!
On his part, he could not wave the magic wand and
bring all our troubles to a logical end in Delhi,
when given a chance..
Rather, to our surprise, he began seeking answers
from us for our tribulations. We had depended upon
him to solve our problems as we are culturally
accustomed to do in our democratic monarchy!!
And thus, Delhi served as a fiasco for him!
He could not do wonders for us there. On top of it,
his leaving the C.M. chair was not a sacrifice but an
act of cowardice according to us.
We expected him to steer our boat through the
scum of politics and give us relief in our daily lives,
by hook or by crook. He chose to do neither.
He neither had the aura nor the arrogance of a ruler.
We missed both in him!
We sought in him the authority of a sovereign and
the enigma of a leader!! He was capable of neither!
When we began ridiculing his simplicity we
actually were ridiculing our own worth!
His muffler, his coughs, his chappals – we didn’t
want to identify with any of them because we have
had enough of these in our own lives.
We easily threw ink at him, we slapped him and we
tested his patience from every corner! He kept
saying sorry; he kept begging excuse!
Oh no, we realized that he was actually a common
man and, like us, if he could not save his own
dignity on the streets how could he be our savior!!
And the most important reason for his defeat was
the test that he wanted to put us to. We suddenly
realized that if we were expected to guide him to
solve our problems then we had to become
responsible towards the state, towards the society,
towards our neighbourhood and towards our own
selves. We wanted to do nothing of that sort.
We wanted twenty four hours electricity supply in
our homes and offices with bills reduced to the
minimum without reducing its usage and stopping
its pilferage.
We wanted regular water supply in our taps paying
least or no charges for it without controlling our
habits of wasting it.
We wanted regular hikes in our salaries with least
attendance in our work-places without external
checks and internal discipline.
Above all, we wanted a corruption-free state and
society without curtailing our own desires to earn
beyond our legal income for leading comfortable
lives and to pay more than the official charges for a
hassle-free delivery of goods and services to us.
How-so-ever vulnerable and gullible we, the
common people, may appear to be, we are not so
simple and innocent that we will harm our own
life-pattern of survival for a mission that is only
worthy of sermonizing and advocating as a noble
utopia upon others to follow!!
Let us keep blaming Kejriwal, Rahul and after
some time, Modi, one after the other for their
follies.
We are content with what we are and as we are;
democracy or no democracy!!
1
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Rekha Saraswat
From the Writings of M.N. Roy:
Historical Role of IslamChapter III
Social and Historical Background of
Islam
In the beginning, the Arab collected his
tribute according to his peculiar code of
law and morality. But, in course of time, he
discovered that trade would be more profitable than
robbery. Of all the Arab tribes, the Koreish were
the first to exchange the turbulent for the peaceful
but more profitable profession. They inhabited the
coastline of the Red Sea and commanded the
Abyssinian trade long before the Asiatic traffic also
came their way. In the earlier centuries of the
Christian era, the capital of the Koreish tribe,
Mecca, had become the point where the important
trade routes from south to north and east to west
intersected. At Yemen, on the Arabian Sea, the
Koreish caravans took over the commodities from
India; at a point near modern Aden, their precious
burden was increased by the African riches from
Abyssinia. The journey northwards terminated at
the busy marts of Damascus, where corn and
manufactured articles were brought with the
exchange of aromatics, pearls, precious stones,
tusks etc. The lucrative exchanger diffused plenty
of riches in the streets of Mecca. When, later, the
east-west trade-route also passed through Mecca,
the prosperity of the Koreish became unbounded,
and their ambition proportionately grew.
But other Arabian tribes, jealous of their freedom,
and envious of the prosperity of the Koreish, stood
faithfully by their traditional codes of law and
morality, whose profane origin was no longer
admitted. They were raised to the nobility of
offensive and defensive warfare, on the authority of
tribal Gods. The old national pastime of robbery
which had previously been played at the expense
and unwary strangers, turned out to be ruinous to
the new national occupation of trade. Termination
of the tribal feuds became an essential condition for
further political progress. The task of establishing
unity, by the logic of historical events, developed
upon those who controlled the economic forces
making for the historically necessary goal. The
Koreish appeared as the chosen people of history.
In the midst of their ceaseless feuds, all the Arabian
tribes worshipped and sacrificed at the temple of
Caaba near Mecca. The Koreish had seized the
control of the seat of national worship, and the
sacerdotal office of great power and extensive
privilege had been capture by the Hashemites – the
most important family of the tribe. The Hashemites
therefore, commanded national respect and
veneration, in addition to the opulence derived
from trade. Eventually, a scion of the Hashemite
family issued the call for unity in the form of a new
religion which denied all gods but one.
The severe monotheism of Mohammad not only
echoed the yearning for unity on the part of a
people torn asunder by internecine feuds; it was
also destined to find a ready response from the
neighbouring nations tormented by the intolerance
of the Catholic Church. The religious life of the
people of Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine
and Egypt had been hopelessly confused by the
conflicts of Magian Mysticism, Jewish
2
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
M.N. Roy
conservatism and Christian bigotry. Rigid rites and
rituals had taken the place of religion; hypocritical
ceremonies had taken away devotion; dogmatic
theology had prosecuted faith; and God had disappeared
in a confused crowd of angels, saints and apostles. The
stringent cry of the new religion - “There is but one God”
– softened by great toleration, subject to this
fundamental creed, was enthusiastically hailed by the
distressed multitudes searching for the secure anchor of
a simple faith in the stormy sea of social disintegration,
intellectual bankruptcy and spiritual chaos. The historic
cry was raised by the caravan traders of Arabia who had
stood outside the ruinous conflict of arms and beliefs,
had prospered economically, and progressed in spirit,
while their older and more civilized neighbours had
stagnated, decayed and disintegrated. The propagation
of the stern belief in the Oneness of God prepared the
ground for the rise of a military State which unified all
the social functions – religious, civil, judicial and
administrative. The Unitarianism of the Saracens laid
the foundation of a new social order which rose
magnificently out of the ruins of the antique civilisation.
Such a creed was sure to attract the attention of the
multitudes barbarously persecuted for religious
heterodoxy. The new faith allowed freedom of
conscience to all who placed themselves under its
protection. Islam rose as a protection against religious
persecution and refuge for the oppressed.
The accommodating nature, cosmopolitan spirit,
democratic policy and the monotheistic creed of
Islam were the creation of the geographical
position of the land of its birth. Surrounded with
countries oppressed by native despotism or
devastated by foreign invasions, Arabia maintained
her freedom. The persecuted sects from Egypt and
Persia as well as from Christendom fled to the free
and hospitable desert where they could profess
what they thought, and practise what they
professed. When the Empire of the Assyrians was
conquered by the Persians, and the altars of
Babylon subverted by the Magis, the Sabian priests
retired to the neighbouring desert with their ancient
faith and the precious knowledge of astronomy.
Previously, Assyrian invasion had driven many a
devout son of Israel in the same hospitable
wilderness. All the Hebrew prophets, down to John
the Baptist, lived, meditated and preached in the
depth of the Arabian Desert. The invasion of
Alexander having avenged the wrong done to the
Assyrians, the more orthodox disciple of Zoroaster,
who did not wish to desecrate the purity of their
faith by the toleration of Greek idolatry, migrated
to the free atmosphere of the Arabian Desert to join
hands with the Babylonian adversaries.
Gnosticism and Manichaeanism – those hybrids of
oriental mystic cults – Greek metaphysics and
Christian Gospel, all thrived luxuriantly on the
sandy soil of free Arabia. Finally, Catholic
orthodoxy drove to the same smelting pot of
Arabian hospitality the Nestorian Jacobite and
Eutychian heretics who preferred the simplicity of
the Gospel to the idolatry of the orthodox Church.
Continued..............
[Publisher’s Note: This book, first published in
1939, was written when Roy was in jail in the early
thirties under a sentence of twelve years rigorous
imprisonment, later reduced to six, for ‘conspiring
to deprive’ the king-Emperor of his sovereignty in
India. Looking back at events in the intervening
period, one might wish that this book had been read
more widely in the decade before the Indian
sub-continent became independent and at the same
time partitioned into two States. A better
knowledge and more objective understanding of
the history of Islam on the part of Muslim as well as
non-Muslim India might have prevented much of
the later tragic developments and human suffering.
But it is never too late for knowledge and
understanding to undo the harm that the lack of
them has done. Hence, this small book on the
historical role of Islam, in East and West, may itself
have a historical role to play, apart from its
intrinsic value as a scholarly treatise, beautifully
written, on a fascinating chapter of human history.]
3
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Guests' Section:
Unconditional Basic Income forall Indians
Livemint, a usually conservative
newspaper, in a recent issue, has
advocated the idea of introducing a scheme for
providing universal basic income for all Indians
scheme in India. The news paper article has
advocated introduction of the scheme on grounds
of equity. It says: “There are good reasons to
pursue the idea in India, the primary one being
equity. There is a strong case to provide UBI to all
Indians, a significant number of whom do not have
a regular source of income. The second reason,
which is equally important, is the damage that a
bloated government is inflicting on the Indian
economy. A vast number of “welfare schemes”,
“flagship programmes” and the like eat into a huge
amount of government revenue. In fact, the reason
why India is in such dire fiscal straits is the
explosion of such programmes and the money that
has to be borrowed to keep them running. The
macroeconomic consequences have been
devastating. If a lump-sum is handed out to every
Indian family, this flab can be cut easily.”
The idea that “building an effective minimum
income to all residents should be accepted as a
major challenge for social security policy” was
mooted by a committee appointed by the ILO to
chalk out the future of social security in the twenty
first century. The committee stated: “In the view of
the majority, a national minimum is essential to
meet what should be regarded as the first and
certainly an imperative challenge for any good
system of social security: the responsibility for the
disadvantaged and the under privileged. Where
people are deprived of income decent housing and
decent environment, opportunities to participate
fully in the life of the country in which they live,
and above all else, are deprived of self respect, they
cannot be said to be experiencing an acceptable
quality of life. Poverty is multi dimensional and so
normally are its causes. We are not arguing that a
minimum income is a solution to the problem of
poverty. A whole battery of services is needed to
help different groups of poor people to become full
participating members of society. But a minimum
income should be provided with other forms of
help when such help is appropriate. “
This idea has since gained momentum.
In Europe, the European Citizens’ Initiative has
asked European Commission to encourage
cooperation among the member States to explore
the possibility of introducing an Unconditional
Basic Income as a tool to improve their respective
social Security systems. The European
Commission has accepted the initiative of the
citizens to campaign for an Unconditional Basic
Income. The campaign was started on 14th Jan
2013. It aims to collect the statements of 500
million citizens in support of the demand. If they
are able to collect the required number statements
the European Commission will be required to
examine the proposal and to place it before the
European Parliament.
The main objectives of the Initiative is “to offer, in
the long run, to each person in the EU the
unconditional right as an individual, to having
his/her material needs met to ensure a life of
dignity as stated by the EU treaties, and to
empower participation in society supported by
4
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
R.K.A. Subrahmanya
the introduction of the UBI. In the short term, initiatives
such as “pilot-studies “(Art 156 TFEU) and
examination of different models of UBI (EP
resolution 2010/2039(INI) §44) should be
promoted by the EU.”
(The Initiative should reach 500 million citizens
within the European Union and collect one million
statements of support with minimum numbers
required for at least 7 member states. 20 member
states are already participating in this initiative by
Jan 14, 2014).
(Unconditional Basic Income has been defined to
mean “emancipatory universal, individual,
unconditional, income high enough to ensure an
existence in dignity and participation in society.
An Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) or Citizen’s
Income is a guaranteed income, given to all in
addition to any other income they might receive.
By advancing equality and economic participation
while enabling simpler welfare systems, UBI leads
to a fairer and more efficient society. )
In the meantime a German artist called Enno
Schmidt has initiated a basic income movement in
Switzerland. He says that “the basic income would
provide some dignity and security to the poor,
especially Europe’s underemployed and
unemployed. It would also, he said, help unleash
creativity and entrepreneurialism: Switzerland’s
workers would feel empowered to work the way
they wanted to, rather than the way they had to just
to get by. He even went so far as to compare it to a
civil rights movement, like women’s suffrage or
ending slavery.”
There is a similar scheme in China called Urban
“Minimum Living Standards Scheme” MLSS. The
MLSS is a social assistance programme initially
focused on the chronically poor, but later extended
to the long-term unemployed. The extension of the
MLSS led to a rise in the number of beneficiaries
from 2.6 million in 1999 to 20.6 million in 2002,
although long-term poor migrants remain
excluded. There has also been a broadening of the
MLSS, focused initially on mainly income
transfers, but later including education and health
exemptions, community work, and housing.
Having regard to these facts there seems to be a
case of introducing a scheme for payment of a
minimum income to all citizens who are below the
poverty line in replacement of the existing cash
benefits.
[Sri R.K.A. Subrahmanya, former Accountant
General in Assam Orissa, Tamilnadu and Kerala
was Addl Secretary in the Union Ministry of Labor
in 1979. He was Chairman of the Central Board of
Trustees of the EPFO, the Standing Committee of
the ESIC and the Central Board of Workers
Education and represented the Government of
India in the International Labor Conferences held
in Geneva for four years. He was the Chairman of
the Study Group on Social Security set up by the
National Commission on Labor. He was awarded a
Medal of Merit for his contribution to the cause of
social security by the International Social Security
Association in the year 2000. He is the Secretary
General of Social Security Association of India
since 1991. He may be contacted at: 573, 10th
cross, J.P.Nagar, IIIPhase, Bangalore 560078,
Telephone/Fax No.:91-080 -658 0797
[email protected]; [email protected]]
5
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Dear Friends,
Your article for the RH should be emailed to me at: [email protected]. Or posted at:C-8, Defence
Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P. Please send a passport size photograph and your brief resume if it is
being sent for the first time to the RH. A note whether it has also been published elsewhere or is being
sent exclusively for the RH should also be attached with it. — Rekha Saraswat
Who bothers about PoliticalCleansing?
The unanimous Resolution adopted by the
Parliament in 1997 at the time of Golden
Jubilee of Independence began with the resolve,
“That meaningful electoral reforms be carried out
so that our Parliament and other Legislative bodies
be balanced and effective instruments of
democracy; further that political life and process
be free of the adverse impact on governance of
undesirable extraneous factors including
criminalization.” While the successive
governments and Lok Sabhas did nothing in the last
17 years to implement the said Resolution, the
Supreme Court took the first major step towards
much needed political cleansing by striking down
on 10.7.2013 in its judgment in the writ petitions
filed by Lok Prahari and Lily Thomas, in that
order, the 62 years old prima facie obnoxious
provision in Section 8(4) of the Representation of
the People Act, 1951 which permitted even murder
convicts to continue as “Hon’ble” members of
Parliament/State Legislature.
Thereafter, while considering the recommendation
of the Law Commission that disqualification for
membership of Parliament/State Legislature
should be effective, subject to certain safeguards,
upon framing of charges, the Supreme Court
passed an interim order dated 10.3.2014 in the WP
(Civil) No. 536 of 2011 (Public Interest Foundation
& Ors. Vs. UoI & Another) to the following effect:
“11. Presently, we feel that a direction may be
issued in respect of MPs/MLAs who have charges
framed against them for conclusion of the trial
expeditiously to ensure the maintenance of probity
of public office. 12. We, accordingly, direct that in
relation to sitting MPs and MLAs who have
charges framed against them for the offences which
are specified in Section 8(1), 8(2) and 8(3) of the
RP Act, the trial shall be concluded as speedily and
expeditiously as may be possible and in no case
later than one year from the date of the framing of
charge(s). In such cases, as far as possible, the trial
shall be conducted on a day-to-day basis. If for
some extraordinary circumstances the concerned
court is being not able to conclude the trial within
one year from the date of framing of charge(s), such
court would submit the report to the Chief Justice
of the respective High Court indicating special
reasons for not adhering to the above time limit and
delay in conclusion of the trial. In such situation,
the Chief Justice may issue appropriate directions
to the concerned court extending the time for
conclusion of the trial. 13. List the matter after six
months.”
Thereafter, during the campaign for the recent Lok
Sabha elections the present Prime Minister also
said that he would request the Supreme Court to
fast track criminal cases against MPs to rid the
Parliament of criminal elements. After assuming
office he again emphasized the urgent need to
cleanse Parliament of members with tainted record
through judicial intervention and exhorted the
newly elected MPs to get criminal cases against
them expedited so that they are absolved of the taint
in case they were wrongly implicated. Obviously, it
is too much to expect they will invite their own
nemesis.
However, despite this, the aforesaid directions of
the Supreme Court and the PM’s exhortation seem
to have had little impact on expediting disposal of
the criminal cases against the sitting
MPs/MLAs/MLCs. This is apparent from the fact
that neither the Central and State Governments nor
6
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
S.N. Shukla
the Election Commission of India (ECI) even has
the details of such cases in which charges have
been framed. In the absence of this vital
information monitoring compliance of the
Supreme Court direction and requisite action on the
part of the concerned authorities in this regard is
just not possible.
Vide application dated 19.5.2014 this writer had
sought from the CPIO of the Election Commission
of India details of present MPs against whom
charges have been framed for offences u/s 8(1) (2)
& (3) of the RP Act 1951, and action taken on the
directions contained on the order dated 10.3.2014
of the Apex Court in the aforesaid WP. In his reply
dated 20.6.2014 he CPIO has informed that the
information sought about the MPs against whom
charges have been framed is not available in the
Commission. The disclosures made by the sitting
MPs in this regard in the affidavit in Form 26 are
available in the scanned copies of their affidavits
uploaded on the website of the Chief Electoral
Officers with a hyperlink to ECI website. As
regards action taken on the directions dated
10.3.2014 of the Apex Court, a letter has been sent
on 18.6.2014 to the Secretary, Legislative
Department, Ministry of Law & Justice for
informing the Commission as to whether the said
order has been brought to the notice of all
concerned for compliance, and for sending to the
Commission a copy of the instructions issued in
this regard. Apparently, even after more than 3
months the ECI has no information about the
action taken by the Ministry for ensuring
compliance of the Supreme Court directions for
disposal of such cases within a year.
Similar information was also sought vide
application dated 30.5.2014 from the CPIO of the
Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law &
Justice. Strangely, the CPIO wrongly transferred
the application to the Registrar of the Supreme
Court for appropriate action on the specious plea
that “the subject matter of the application pertains
to Supreme Court of India”, even though it is for
the Ministry to ensure compliance of the directions
of the Supreme Court and the applicant had also
sought photocopies of the letters sent by the
department to the state government and other
authorities for compliance of these directions.
Apparently, the department has done nothing in
this regard and, still worse, does not even consider
it necessary to see that the prosecuting authorities
ensure that the directions of the Apex Court and the
pious declarations of the PM are honoured in a time
bound manner.
Vide application dated 2.4.2014 this writer had also
sought from the PIO of Home Department of UP
Government information against sitting
MLAs/MLCs against whom charges had been
framed by the Court till December 2012 and also
action taken on the directions given by the Apex
Court in the PIL by Public Interest Foundation &
Others for disposing of such cases within a year.
The PIO simply transferred the application to the
Principal Secretary, Vidhan Sabha UP and the PIO
UP DGP office after one and a half month as
against within 5 days stipulated in the RTI Act.
Apparently, the Home Department had not acted on
the Apex Court directions till then, which shows
the seriousness of state government about ensuring
compliance of the directions of the highest court.
The State Information Commission has also failed
to act till now to take any action against the PIO u/s
20 of the RTI Act despite complaint dated
15.5.2014. So much for the respect the
Commission has for the Act, which it is supposed to
enforce, and for the orders of the Supreme Court in
such an important matter like this.
The PIO of Vidhan Sabha Sachivalaya vide his
reply dated 11.6.2014 returned the application to
the PIO of the Home Department saying that
Vidhan Sabha Sachivalaya has no
information/record about criminal cases against the
members and does not possess the information
sought in the application.
The PIO of the DGP Office, vide his letter dated
7.6.2014 transferred the writer’s application to the
PIOs of the Zonal IGs and asked the applicant to
7
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
contact the PIOs of the Zonal IGs for getting the
information. The Zonal IGs in turn transferred the
application to their range DIGs asking the applicant
to contact PIOs of the range DIGs who ultimately
transferred it to the SSP/SP of the districts asking
the applicant to contact their PIOs to get the
information. However, not one has furnished the
desired information till now. Thus instead of the
home department or the DGP taking any action to
ensure compliance of the Apex Court directives for
disposal within a year of cases against
MPs/MLAs/MLCs in which charges have been
framed the applicant is being made to run from
pillar to post to get details of such cases. This is a
classic case of archaic working of the state
government even in this computer age. The proper
course of action would have been that soon after
coming to know about the directions of the Apex
Court the state government should have sent them
to the DGP who should have asked the District
Police Chiefs by email to furnish the same by
email. Apparently, the concerned authorities did
not consider it necessary to act with diligence and
promptitude in the matter as it concerns “Hon’ble”
under trial members of the state legislature whom
they dare not touch. As a result, even more than 3
months after the order of the Supreme Court the
state government is blissfully unaware of the
criminal cases against their MLAs/MLCs in which
charges were framed more than a year ago.
No wonder that despite State Legislative Assembly
having 188 MLAs with criminal cases, not one has
been disqualified upon conviction after the
landmark historic decision of the Supreme Court in
July 2013. Likewise, except for the initial
disqualification of the 3 MPs (Sarvashri Lalu
Prasad Yadav, Jagdish Sharma and Rashid
Masood) no MP has been convicted thereafter to
attract disqualification even though the previous
Lok Sabha had 162 MPs with criminal cases
against them and the present Lok Sabha has 53 MPs
against whom charges have been framed and face
disqualification if convicted.
The replies of the Public Information Officers of
the Central and State Government and the Election
Commission of India show the indifference and
callousness of the concerned authorities to ensure
that the commendable initiative of the Apex Court
for cleansing the Temples of the Democracy bears
desired fruit at the earliest and the PM’s promise of
taint free Parliament by 2015 is fulfilled. With this
attitude and approach of the powers that be, even
top Judiciary can hardly help the country.
[S.N. Shukla, retired IAS is an advocate and
General Secretary of Lok Prahari, Lucknow. He
may be contacted at: [email protected]]
8
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
The Radical Humanist Rates Of Advertisement/Insertion
Journal Size:18cm x 24cm-Print Area:15cm x 20cm
Ordinary Special Ordinary Special
Second Back Cover Rs. 2,500 Rs. 3,000 Third Back Cover Rs. 2,500 Rs. 3,000
Last Cover Rs. 3,000 Rs. 3,500
Ordinary Page:
Full Page Rs. 2,000 Rs. 2,500 Half Page Rs. 1,000 Rs. 1,500
Quarter page Rs. 600 Rs. 900
For One Year 2nd
Back Cover Rs. 20,000 Rs. 30,000 3rd
Back Cover Rs. 20,000 Rs. 30,000
Last Cover Rs. 25,000 Rs. 30,000
Ordinary Page: Full Page Rs. 15,000 Rs. 20,000 Half Page Rs. 10,000 Rs. 15,000
Quarter Page Rs.6,000 Rs. 9,000
Current Affairs:
Umbrage Against Activists
Democracy and personal liberty should
never be taken for granted. This is a
warning that the imposition of the Emergency gave
39 years ago when the then Prime Minister, Mrs
Indira Gandhi, furtively extinguished the lights of
freedom on the night of June 25-26 to save her skin.
The Allahabad High Court had disqualified her as
an MP for six years for using official machinery
during her election campaign. Instead of stepping
down, she suspended the Constitution, imposed
Press censorship and constricted personal freedom.
More than 100,000 people were detained without
trial and all the opposition members, including
Jayaprakash Narayan who had led the movement
against her corrupt government, were put behind
bars. The worst was that she destroyed the
institutions which still have not regained their
health.
The lesson to learn is to have a transparent
government which can rule within the precincts of
the constitution. A strong government means an
effective government, not one person rule, which
negates the very parliamentary democracy that we
have preferred to the presidential form. People are
the masters and anything done to silence their say
goes against the very grain of our republic’s
democratic, pluralistic and egalitarian ideals.
Those who violated these principles were punished
when elections were held in 1977. Even a tall
person like Mrs Gandhi was defeated at the polls.
To know all this is important so that it does not
happen again. Yet some signs are starting to be
visible to remind us of those days when we see the
working of the governments. One of its wings, the
Intelligence Bureau (IB) has leaked out certain
passages of a report which alleges that the activities
of Non Governmental Organisations (NGO’s) have
brought down the rate of growth by two to three per
cent.
I cannot blame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
government because the report was obviously
prepared during the Congress rule of former Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh. But top bureaucrats are
responsible in putting across such information that
tarnishes the image of those who are working at the
grassroots. Some of the names mentioned in the
report are people of integrity and I, as an activist,
know them personally. Their defense that the
government has circulated “a cock and bull story”
is understandable because they have given years of
their lives to work for the welfare of people in rural
areas.
Disparagingly, they are called ‘jholawalas’. This
tag has been linked with them because they carry
shoulder bags which have grams, a frugal meal for
their long sojourns in remote parts. The allegation
against them that their protests or agitations have
stalled economic growth carries no conviction
because they are conscientious objectors against
big dams, nuclear power stations and the likes.
Take Medha Patkar who is associated with the
opposition to the Narmada Dam. No doubt she had
the World Bank loan for the project cancelled, but
her objection was that you could not displace
people without giving them alternative
accommodation. The opposition to the dam
became so strong at one time that the government
appointed the Narmada Tribunal which said in its
9
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Kuldip Nayar
judgment that the people should be given an
equivalent site of land and a rehabilitation grant six
months before they are uprooted.
Gujarat, which is the main beneficiary, took the
responsibility of rehabilitating the displaced
persons. Initially land was given for land, but
subsequently cash awards were offered. Many took
it but today they are mere labourers because the
cash has not lasted for long. The new
announcement that the Narmada Dam would be
built to its original height and that the gates would
be installed amounts to the betrayal of the
understanding given that until the uprooted were
rehabilitated the dam’s height would not be raised.
Prime Minister Modi, hailing from Gujarat, may
not have anything to do with the decision that the
Narmada authorities have made. But he is bound to
be accused of giving his blessing for the additional
work. I recall that when the agitation against the
dam was at its height several Gujaratees told me
that the dam was their Kashmir. “If you do not
allow the dam to come up, we shall be forced to
take up guns as the separatists in Kashmir are
doing.”
The story of nuclear power station at
Koodamkulam in Tamil Nadu is no different.
Rightly, the people living in that area complained
that they did not want a nuclear plant in their midst
and they gave the example of Fukushima in Japan
where the radioactive nuclear fuel leaked into
surrounding areas. Still the plant has come up and is
working to its full capacity with all the hazards that
the inhabitants in that area face.
The point which emerges from such projects is that
the government cannot take people for granted and
that there is more to life than ends justifying the
means as they did in Communist China or
Communist Russia. But Mahatma Gandhi’s India
was different. Of course development is important
but it has to be balanced against the adverse fallout
affecting every individual.
India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, did
point out that there were two ways available to
build the future India: communist dictatorship or
democratic transparency and accountability. He
said that India had chosen the path of consensus,
which is an essential ingredient of a democratic
system.
I personally think that the costs of the project go up
and the delay in completion takes place because of
red tape-ism and corruption at every tier of
government, right up to the minister. The effort to
put the blame on NGOs is bound to go awry
because the media today is vigilant to expose the
scams even at the highest level. The Manmohan
Singh government was notorious for that. One
scandal after another would tumble out of its
cupboard. All the guilty have escaped punishment
because there is no accountability in the system.
In fact my fear is that the atmosphere of paranoia is
being built because some undemocratic steps are in
the offing. I hope they do not end up with another
Emergency, another era where dissent would be
construed as anti-national.
Switching over to Hindi?
I am convinced that the Narendra Modi
government is guided, if not goaded, by
the Hindi chauvinists. The Bhartiya Janata Party
(BJP) has several liberal leaders who realize that
the pace of switch over to Hindi would have to be
slow, keeping in mind unity in diversity.
Apparently, they do not have much say.
Within the very first fortnight of the Modi’s
regime, the central government offices have
received a circular that Hindi should be used on
social media. This is an entrance through the
backdoor. Non-Hindi speaking states spotted the
fugitive move and protested against it. New Delhi
readily withdrew its step and declared that the
circular was meant for the Hindi-speaking states.
This belated realization does not convince anyone.
I think the government was testing the waters.
When it found that what it considered an innocuous
10
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
step has evoked strong opposition, it changed its
stance. But the circular has done the damage. The
fears of non-Hindi speaking people have got
rekindled. And they are afraid of what may happen
tomorrow.
India has gone through large linguistic riots in the
late ‘50s and early ‘60s. At that time also the Home
Ministry had issued instructions to different
departments to make preparations for a switchover
from English to Hindi as laid down in the
constitution. Riots took place in southern states and
one man immolated himself in Tamil Nadu to
convey his refusal to accept Hindi. Even the old
slogan of secession got renewed.
The then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was
unhappy but did not want to interfere. However,
when he saw the fire spreading, he gave an
assurance on the floor of parliament that there
would be no switchover until the non-Hindi
speaking people themselves said that they were
ready for Hindi to be an exclusive language of
Union administration. This categorical statement
disappointed Hindi fanatics but the nation on the
whole heaved a sigh of relief that India had
retrieved from the brink.
No doubt, Modi feels at home with Hindi and his
sweep in the Lok Sabha elections is primarily
because of the campaign he led in Hindi, somewhat
Sanskritised for northern Indians. But he should
remember Nehru’s promise made in 1963 that both
Hindi and English would continue to be the link
languages for administration throughout the
country. He did not fix any deadline for the
exclusive use of Hindi.
I wish this bilingualism should have continued
without anyone tinkering with it. But then the
Modi’s men were in a hurry. They wanted to
restrict the use of English to certain fields. Yet they
realize that their haste can tell upon the country’s
unity. Non-Hindi speaking states, particularly
Tamil Nadu, have accepted the constitutional
provision that Hindi is the Indian Union’s
language. But they want time to learn it and come
up to the standards of people living in the Hindi belt
like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan.
Already some candidates from Kerala, Tamil
Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, whose
mother tongue is not Hindi, have excelled in
competitive examinations. India of today is very
different from what it was 50 years ago, each
linguistic group asserting for its identity. The
turmoil during the States’ Reorganization process
should be a warning. The idea of India can be
jeopardized. The entire fabric can get torn if the
sensitivities of the people are not allayed. What is
the hurry? A few more decades’ wait is too small a
price to pay for preserving the nation’s cohesion.
I recall how the Hindi fanatics offered quotas in
jobs in cases where the use of English was stopped.
This approach by ex-speaker Purshotam Das
Tandon from Uttar Pradesh was ridiculed by a
parliament member in Kerala. He warned him not
to open the floodgates of quota lest there should be
a demand for such an arrangement in every field.
All other members from non-Hindi speaking areas
also supported him. Finally, the proposal was
dropped.
There are 22 languages recognized in the
constitution, each with its own script. True, Hindi is
a link language along with English, but all the 22
languages are national. This was conceded by the
parliamentary committee on language commission,
although the committee gave Hindi the status of
principal language and additional language status
to English.
The purpose of my narration is that the status quo
should continue until the nation can have a
consensus on some other formula. This means that
the push currently given to Hindi will have to take
into consideration the feelings and aspirations of
each area and assure that there is no alienation of
any language of any linguistic community. Modi’s
fiats to quicken the pace of switchover to Hindi
have created the alarm.
Meanwhile, the chauvinist supporters of Hindi
should patiently wait till people all over the country
11
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
are proficient in Hindi. Already, it is a compulsory
subject in all the states except Tamil Nadu. Job
seekers from different states too have underlined
the necessity of learning Hindi. Films have spread
the language throughout the country and one can
converse in the south in Hindi or Hindustani. A few
more years will see the entire non-Hindi speaking
population speaking the language fluently.
Language is a very potent force. Urdu in preference
to Bengali gave birth to Bangladesh. The
step-motherly treatment meted out to Baluchi is at
the back of demand for an autonomous Baluchistan
in neighbouring Pakistan.
In fact, the rulers’ worry should be how to save
regional languages like Punjabi which is being
gradually discarded at Punjabi homes. The new
generation is indifferent to their mother tongue and
for them English, which brightens their
employment prospects, comes first because it helps
them to secure bread and butter.
Heritage is linked with languages and therefore
leaders all over the country will have to devise
ways and means whereby regional languages get
succor. Without a long-term plan to reinvigorate
them, some regional languages would fall by the
wayside as the days go by. How many regional
languages will survive 50 years hence is anybody’s
guess.
India too passive on Iraq
Only the Holy Koran joins them.
Otherwise Shias and Sunnis, the two
sects of Muslims, are poles apart. Their
estrangement towards each other is as entrenched
as is the caste system among the Hindus. What is
happening in Iraq today is the fallout of an
antagonism that stretches back many centuries.
Regretfully, there has never been any serious
attempt for the leaders of the two sects to sit across
the table and sort out their differences which have
given a bad name to Islam.
Left to the radical Sunnis, Shias would have been
declared as non-Muslim as was done in the case of
Ahmedias in Pakistan. But the superiority of Shias
in letters, arts and culture is a reality that it cannot
be clouded by prejudice or reproach.
India, a pluralistic society, could have tried to cite
the example of its own tradition of tolerance to
bring about reconciliation. But it has preferred to
stay distant lest it should be blamed for fanning the
flames of enmity. It has witnessed clashes between
Shias and Sunnis in Lucknow or elsewhere. Even
though the government has been scrupulously
neutral, both Shias and Sunnis have tended to
blame it for taking sides.
I wish New Delhi had done more in West Asia to
bring about conciliation for two reasons—one,
because it has a large Shia community and, two,
because hostility between Shia and Sunni has grave
repercussions for India. There was a time when
New Delhi was a member of the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC) due to a large Muslim
population in the country. But it apparently
withdrew because a secular India did not fit the
mould.
Washington could not hide its responsibility of
pushing New Delhi out of the OIC. The Americans
did not want a parallel organization to influence
events in West Asia in which they did not have a
dominant role, albeit behind the scenes. Moscow
has been lately taking sides openly and supporting
the “progressive territories” it perceives.
What New Delhi does not realize is that if Iraq is
not sorted out amicably, it can set into motion an
unending battle between Shias and Sunnis at
different places. And India will be sucked into a
battle of attrition without it even wanting to do so.
That necessitates a more active role than the
government’s stock statement that New Delhi is
watching the situation, whether by front door, back
door or trap door (secret activity).
Whatever the quantum of democracy, it has been
introduced mainly by India not only to give voice
to millions of Muslims in the area, but also to rebuff
the West’s propaganda that Islam and democracy
were not compatible. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, even
12
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
though a dictator, was influenced by New Delhi in
giving limited rights to people. But for some
reason, President Bush Senior had developed
hatred against Saddam. The US was convinced that
the Iraqi President was intent on developing
nuclear weapons which, when happened, would
make Saddam unassailable.
Poor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistan President
who became the country’s Prime Minister, had to
pay the price for completing the same ambition of
developing the world’s first Islamic bomb. Today,
the West is trying to placate Islamabad by giving it
both military and economic aids. But Islamabad’s
suspicion that it has some ulterior motive to serve is
responsible for anti-US sentiments in the country.
Had India and Pakistan been on better terms they
could have jointly influenced the events in West
Asia and would have thwarted Washington’s
ambition to be an arbiter.
In politics or in other fields the vacuum is filled
sooner than later. Al Qaida guiding the Taliban
movement has plugged the gap. The whole region
faces the danger of fundamentalism spreading and
even influencing the youth as is happening in
Pakistan where young boys are growing the beard
to confirm their Islamic identity.
This poses a threat to India in the sense that 15-16
crore Muslims in the country are beginning to draw
their inspiration from what is happening to
Afghanistan and northern parts of Pakistan. And
since India has taken a turn ideologically to the
right, as the parliamentary elections have shown,
the distance between democratic India and the Al
Qaida inspired areas to its north will look
unbridgeable as the days go by. Not only that,
Hindu fundamentalism will become more assertive
than it is today.
The idea of India, a democratic, pluralistic and
egalitarian society, will be endangered. Leaders
and governments will mix religion with politics,
something which it has been successfully resisted
all these years since independence, even though
Partition was on the basis of religion.
That necessitates greater strengthening of
secularism to stall fundamentalism, however
limited it may be at this time. New Delhi’s lack of
initiative in West Asia to ensure better and
democratic governance has weakened the
movements like the Arab Spring, which were
against autocratic rule in most West Asian
countries.
The call by Anjuman-e-Haideri for volunteers to
help defend the centres of Shia Islam in Iraq may
invite a similar response among the Sunnis to get
together to fight against the Shia consolidation.
That may come later, but in the meanwhile the
Shia’s assertiveness for identity will set into
motion a process which may strengthen religious
appeals and their leaders.
It is ironical that even the radical Hindus are
volunteering themselves to stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with Shias who say they want
to form a human chain to protect the holy shrines of
Karbala and Najaf in Iraq. The Shias, always
feeling as if they were the underdog, should take
heart from the example of such Hindus and try to
influence New Delhi to take more interest in the
problem than it has done so far.
New Delhi’s say will help the Indians
economically. There are two million of them
occupying different jobs in the area. Any tension
may jeopardize their future. This has happened
before when Israel was resisting pressure of the US
and the UK not to settle the Jews at Golden Heights
or such other areas. This is the time when India can
become proactive and send a special envoy to bring
about rapprochement among the different leaders
of both Shias and Sunnis. Otherwise, the radicals
may win.
[Kuldip Nayar is a veteran syndicated columnist
catering to around 80 newspapers and journals in
fourteen languages in India and abroad. He may be
contacted at:[email protected]]
13
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Ideological Cronies under LateCapitalism
The notion of crony capitalism became
popular during the election season due to
the strategic view taken by some political parties to
hit the opponents. Crony capitalism was
documented and eloquently promoted by western
scholars after the plunge of their Asian Tigers
model.
A dispassionate analysis of ideas of scholars
particularly economists indicates that they keep on
inventing terms and ideologies to suit the
conditions of the prevailing period. We may say
that it is one of the functions of a scholar and there
is nothing wrong with it. But, if a group is
constituted to outwit the other and to popularise
their ideas even at the cost of eminence and
integrity, it is to be seen differently. It is in this
context, we may reflect on the squabbles between
Jagadish Bhagwathi and Amartya Sen so
popularised by the corporate media as a part of the
Na Mo spectacle.
It is projected that they are fighting from different
ideological backgrounds and under varied
assumptions about the future of India. But, the fact
of the matter is that both of them have reposed
confidence in the efficacy of the market in solving
the contemporary problems of India. It is true that
Sen is more concerned about the welfare of the
people while Bhagwati is fond of wealth.
Interestingly both of them represent two distinct
geographical and social backgrounds, Sen
represents the East and Bhagwati West India.
Bhagwati tells us that he has dabbled with planning
in the 60s and gave it up due to its futility in
resolving the issues of common man and therefore
left India. He has remained as a NRI (Never
Returned Indian) in the USA sermonising on the
need for liberalisation and more FDIs, if possible
making India as part of US. Sen goes round the
West with an Indian passport and lands here as a
transit to find out what is happening to the poor.
The discourse that they generate is now
entertaining the intellectual community and the
leisure class. We are happy that both of them call
themselves as Economists in an era where Business
Economics rather than Economics proper is
triumphed.
While discussing about the factors responsible for
crony capitalism or capitalism or even imperialism,
the role played by cartels, guilds, collusion, finance
capital etc are illustrated as very important. It is
deplored that the contribution of experts, scholars
and lobbyists in the discourse are not properly
appreciated and recognised.
It may be due to the fact that they are considered as
part of an intellectual class distinct from the elite or
bourgeoisie in the traditional classification of the
last century. But, now the incredible role played by
the experts or the prize fighters in sustaining ideas
relating to the international capitalist expansion is
inseparable from that of the finance capital.
In fact, they do not even hesitate to display their
loyalty. For instance, Jagadish Bhagwati’s titles
exhibit that he is defending globalisation and seen
attending their conclaves like some of our
corporate Babas. Therefore, there is no confusion
about his role in the whole debate on more
liberalisation, FDI, less government and so on. He
may not be a crony capitalist in that sense, but
14
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
K.S. Chalam
definitely an ideological crony to carry the debate
at the intellectual level and at government policy
making bodies and create more cronies as
bandwagon to carry the legacy. I am told that a
section of Gujarati business class has a tradition of
carrying the Gurus with them, to ethically and
intellectually support their actions.
We may for a moment look at Bhagawati’s Gujarati
background. They were the first Indians to have
developed international trade and business
particularly in the West as they are geographically
adjacent to that region.
In fact, Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi was sent
to South Africa to defend the Gujarati business
interests for two decades and later developed
detestation against the British. Gujaratis were the
harbingers of international business from time
immemorial and in recent times they were the first
settlers in the USA, not directly from India but
through Africa. It is quite natural for some of them
to look at the business prospects in each
government policy irrespective of their
consequences. Sen representing East India does not
have a clear exposure of any trend but may have a
mixture of many.
Keeping the economic trends and the associated
ramifications particularly in social and cultural
areas, F.Jameson the American scholar developed
the concept of post- modernism. There are several
notions associated with this. Sombart, the German
Marxist scholar was the first to distinguish between
'early capitalism’ and ‘late capitalism’ after first
world war, in his studies. Sombart was the Ph.D.
supervisor of Indian socialist thinker Rammanohar
Lohia in the 1930s.
Later the concept was elaborated by Ernest
Mandel, a French scholar in his dissertation on
‘Late Capitalism’ that became a plank on which
Jameson has elaborated his thesis on
Post-modernism.
Of course, the contributions of the Frankfurt school
of thinkers like Adorno, Marcuse and others like
Derrida, Foucault are very significant to
understand the trends that we see in the discourses
of scholars and thinkers in the Indian context.
The Sen-Bhagwati samvads need to be looked at
from this back-drop to appreciate their moorings
and not necessarily the alleged shallow economic
content.
We believe that mere understanding of Economics
proper may not help to land us anywhere except
publishing elegant papers supporting either of
them. We need to know the social and historical
relevance of the ideas.
Scholars like Jameson, Poulantzas, and Mandel
have reflected on the emerging intellectual trends
in Late Capitalism.
It is noted that:
1. New forms of business organisations like MNCs,
2. Internationalisation of business beyond one
nation,
3. New dynamics in banking like stock exchange,
4. New forms of media like TV, film, internet,
5.Mass production using computers and
automation,
6. Planned obsolescence of products to bring fresh
wave of goods, and
7. American military domination, are the factors
that dominate postmodernism. One may dispute
about the concept, but we cannot repudiate the
phenomena described by postmodernists and
experienced by Indians in the above episode. In the
Sen-Bhagwathi dialogue, particularly the latter has
used an insolent language against Sen, his own
colleague in the profession is disgusting. What
does it indicate?
Mandel, an economist has described state as an
instrument of bourgeois rule and elaborated the
concept of ‘comprador bourgeois’ as one who is
not engaged in industrial investment but maintains
relationship with metropolitan capital.
The term that was considered as outdated seems to
have entered the literature under globalisation to
describe certain functionaries who appear to be
15
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
intellectuals but dishonest in making their
intentions clear.
If globalisation or some other world system
survives it is not entirely due to the economic gains
of the system but definitely one should appreciate
the propaganda literature generated by some of the
categories noted above.
They however, taunt and heckle the opponents with
language and literature that are promoted by their
masters. They are more aggressive than the so
called socialists or democratic socialists who
became apologetic after the end of cold war. But
the truth would never dissolve under the vile of the
brainy and resurface through the indignant
experience of the oppressed at an appropriate
moment.
Lumpenisation of Rural Youth
India is eulogised by many as a nation
endowed with demographic dividend from
its major segment of youth population. The so
called demographic dividend seen in urban areas
however, has not affected the economic conditions
of the people in states like Bihar, Odissa and even
in backward regions of combined state of Andhra
Pradesh that led to bifurcation of the state with their
active participation. Young people in the age group
of 15-29 constituting 27.5 per cent of our
population are reported to have contributed 34 per
cent of GDP after 2011. The significant change or
impact that they have made in recent times relates
to their active participation in polls and help to
decimate the ruling dispensation. The young
people in urban areas had their lively interaction on
the social media. It is reported that PM Modi has
around 43 million followers on the net and has
become the most popular personality after Obama.
This would not have been possible without the
active involvement of motivated youth. It is
reported by Govil a functionary of RSS that
students with a background of RSS family are
selected and each one is given a task of sending
1000 Emails in favour of Modi with fictitious
names as executives. It is not only due to their
participation, but as a result of the anger against the
Congress economic policies and bureaucratic and
short sighted civil society orientation, the youth
have silently turned the tides. This is a dividend
realized by Modi.
Political pundits have started their analysis
attributing the success of Modi to his ability of
reaching the youth in urban areas. Realising the
potential of the youth, International funding
agencies have been providing hints that India could
become a vibrant democracy if the youth are
captured. It was AAP and the Anna Hazare who
have tried to experiment with the youth in Delhi
and successfully captured power. But, the formal
marketing techniques used by BJP branding Modi
and capturing the imagination of the youth has
ultimately brought them absolute majority in the
Parliament. Interestingly, there are very few
comments on the internal differentiation of the
youth that is really an exasperating issue that
bothers those who wish to see an egalitarian
society. The characteristics and the dynamics of
rural youth missing in most of our mainstream
media reports are actually undergoing a great
transformation. Do the recent election results
mirror this?
Indian ethos is mostly characterised in the epics,
Ramayana and Mahabharata or vice versa. Krishna
in the original epic appears as a grown up man and
therefore (we had a separate Bhagavata to
understand his youthful activities) was always on
his own. Rama is captured by the Arya rishis at a
young age and his personality was moulded by
them. In fact, the Hindu epics are the great classics
of the World that describe the power of media in
shaping the thoughts and actions of people from
time immemorial. The vitality of the epics is further
strengthened in the electronic age with its inherent
malleability and effective symbols in the social
media. In the modern period, this seems to be
regulated by a central authority replacing the
Rishis.
16
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
While the youth are not confined only to
chronological age but related broadly to the spirit
of enquiry, vigour, temper, militancy, experiments
with risk and so on, they are not uniform across
socio-cultural groups and urban and rural setting.
This is also true in the US where the African
American, Hispanic, Indian (US) and White do not
share the same characters. There are studies to
show how the African Americans are thrown in to
ghettos and from there in to Jails. It seems the
conditions have been prevailing from the very
beginning but, more focussed after 1964 after
Martin Luther Jr. movement. The militancy is
suppressed and the Black youth energy
channelized in to dirty business and dissipated. It is
reported that at the age 25, 14.4 per cent of blacks
are High school drop outs and 40 per cent of them
live in poverty and exactly the same percentage of
them are inmates of US prisons. One out of nine in
the age group of 20-34 is incarcerated /imprisoned
today. This is how according to some
commentators, US is buying peace and continuity
in the system. Are we different from the USA in
this respect?
There seems to be some dissimilarity between
Indian and the US youth particularly with reference
to their social background. The African Americans
have a very short history in the country; they were
brought from Africa and treated as untouchables,
while India had inherited a structured system where
some groups are condemned by birth as
untouchables or ex-untouchables by law. The
youth in India had some differentiation across rural
and urban, the former being rude and the latter
sophisticated is seen increasingly lessening the
difference in recent times. Rural youth therefore is
the real force that seizes the muscle to change the
present impasse in our socio-economic situation.
This is brought out by several studies including the
ones sponsored by international agencies that have
hidden motives. The character of the youth in
developing societies like India is undergoing
change with commoditisation of culture and
excessive use of TV and social media. Added to
this, some religious organisations are diverting the
attention of the youth from their usual attributes of
challenging the established norms and are co-opted
in to run of the mill functions. They are now drawn
in to purposeless pursuits with hedonism as a goal.
They lose the youthful characters and end up with
self indulgence, lavish lifestyles, sexual freedom,
market liberty, profligacy, co-habitation and
remarriage etc. The role of consumer electronics
and mobile culture are so engraved in the UK that a
scholar has worked on a theme “consuming talk”
for his Ph.D. India, more vulnerable due to the so
called communication revolution, may not be
different from others.
The characters narrated above make the youth to
get easily absorbed as lumpen proletariat. “The
word “lumpen-proletariat” is a German word,
which literally means “rag proletariat”. The term
was originally coined by Marx to describe that
segment of the working class that would never
achieve class consciousness, and was therefore
worthless in the context of the revolutionary
struggle to achieve the dictatorship of the
proletariat. It is in this context a Western scholar
described them as follows. “1. A
lumpen-proletariat is the lowest, most degraded
stratum of the proletariat. It was used originally in
Marxist theory to describe those members of the
proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the
unemployed, who lacked class consciousness. 2. A
lumpen-proletariat is the underclass of a human
population. In India, this class is referred to as the
untouchables. In the developed world we are
creating an untouchable class of the new
lumpen-proletariat”.
The lumpen proletariat of the kind described above
is more pronounced in the rural areas particularly
among the dalit and artisan communities. It is
noticed that the rural development schemes like
NAREGA have further strengthened the situation
where the aimless youth getting Rs 150 wage per
day is becoming prey to the corporate
commoditization. The school drop outs from
among the Dalits, it was alleged were responsible
17
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
for Chunduru type incidents in Andhra. Though,
the youth of other castes do also indulge in such
incidents as in Tenali recently, but dalits are easily
targeted. Easy money and easily accessible
alcohol-IMFl, talk time, TV, cinema, cyber cafes,
games etc make them alienated and socially
excluded. They are becoming a positive nuisance in
the villages. It is reported that 83 per cent of the
convicts are from this group consisting of 30 per
cent OBC, 22 per cent S.C, 13 per cent ST and 18
per cent Muslims. Interestingly, the proportion of
rural youth is 25 per cent from S.C category
indicating higher representation that worries the
activists of social reform. Is it not a simple solution
to restrain militancy rather than using police or
military?
[K.S. Chalam has been Vice- Chancellor,
Dravidian University, Kuppam (AP), (2005);
Member, Planning Board, Govt. of M.P.,
(2002-04); Founder Director, UGC Academic
Staff College, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam
(1987-2005); Director, Swamy Ramananda Tirtha
Rural Institute, Pochampally, Hyderabad
(1997-98); Professor of Economics, Andhra
University (1990-2005). He is on several
Committees as Hon’ble Chairman, Member such
as UGC, NCRI, A.U. etc. He may be contacted at:
18
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
IRI / IRHA Members:
Untenable Arguments on theAbrogation Article 370 of
Constitution of India
The controversial contentions relating to
Article 370 of the Constitution of India
being raised or allowed to be raised, by the BJP
establishment are not only untenable but will also
not be in the interest of the B.J.P; much less in the
interest of Integrity of the Nation.
For having a full comprehension of the subject, it is
necessary to have a glimpse at the historical
background of the formation of the Indian Union.
On 15th August, 1947, when India became
independent, Jammu & Kashmir was not part of its
territory. It was only by an “Instrument of
Accession”, dated 27th October, 1947, signed by
the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir and the newly
formed Government of India, the erstwhile
independent State of Jammu & Kashmir acceded to
the Indian Union. Clause (3) of the “Instrument of
Accession” specifies the matters in the Schedule
annexed thereto excluded some subjects from the
powers of Indian Union and more particularly in
the Constitution to be framed by the Constituent
Assembly. It may be noted that while the
“Instrument of Accession” was dated 27th October,
1947, the Constitution of India was enacted on 26th
November 1949 and came into effect from 26th
January, 1950. The Instrument of Accession signed
by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir on 27th
October, 1947 and accepted by the then
Government of India included only three items,
namely, Defense, External Affairs and
Communications with respect to which Parliament
could make laws for the State of Jammu and
Kashmir.
Accepting and also respecting the solemn
agreement, between the erstwhile Maharaja of
State of Jammu and Kashmir and the then
Government of India, the Founding Fathers of the
Constitution incorporated this special Art. 370 in
the Constitution of India which laid down that
notwithstanding anything in the Constitution the
powers of Parliament to make laws relating to the
state of Jammu and Kashmir shall be limited to only
those matters in the “Union List” and “Concurrent
List” which are declared by the President of India,
after obtaining the consent of the Legislative
Assembly of the State of J & K, and to be in
accordance with matters specified in the
“Instrument of Accession”, dated 27th October,
1947, referred to above.
We must appreciate the fact that India is a
Federation of States. The very first Article of the
Constitution declares that:
(1) India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.
(2) The States and the territories thereof shall be as
specified in … the First Schedule.
(3) The territory of India shall comprise-
(a) The territories of the States;
(b) The Union territories specified in … the First
Schedule; and
(c) Such other territories as may be acquired.
Apart from the territories specified in the First
Schedule in the Constitution of India, Parliament
may, by law, admit any other State in Union on
such terms and Conditions as it thinks fit. The 13
Judge Bench Judgment in Keshavanand Bharti’s
case had laid down that the “Federal structure” of
19
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
K. Pratap Reddy
Union of India is one of the “Basic Features” of our
Constitution. The background and philosophy
behind the concept of making India a “Union of
States” shall be better understood on the basis of
the historical background of the growth and
formation of India as it now exists.
Before 1947 and even earlier thereto India was
never one political unit either in Aryan’s period or
in the periods thereafter including the powerful
Mogul Rule. Even after the advent of the British
Rule, India consisted of “British India” and various
other States under the local rulers, having their own
powers of legislation, (even though under the
British suzerainty). Before leaving India the British
purported to lift their suzerainty on the Indian
States and tried to divide India into more than 500
States. By the herculean task of statesmanship
Sardar Vallab Bhai Patel, these 500 odd states ruled
by different Rajas & Nawabs, merged in the Indian
Union under various agreements or instruments, as
the case maybe, by granting them constitutional
safeguards including Financial Aid, known as
“Privy Purses”. Thereafter, the Founding Fathers
of the Constitution made a herculean effort to frame
the Indian Constitution and declared it as Union of
India in its very first Article in the background
referred to above.
We need to consider the basic fact that India that is
Bharat as it stands now comprised of several
religions, races, customs, cultures and civilizations.
It was not possible to make India as a “Unitary
State”. It was in that context, the Founding Fathers
of the Constitution have given us a Federal
Constitution constituting India that is Bharat as a
“Union of States”.
We also need to consider that Art. 370 of the
Constitution was not the only provision of the
Constitution purporting to declare certain
concessions to the Legislature of J & K. There are
many other provisions in the same part XXI of the
Constitution purporting to make certain
concessions in regard to several other States. The
very next Article, namely, Article 371 (now
omitted by the 13th Amendment) purported to give
some concessions to the State of Maharashtra as it
existed earlier including Gujarat, Vidarbha,
Sourashtra and Kutch.
Similarly, Article 371 (A) gives several
concessions including those relating to ownership
and transfer of land and other resources in the State
of Nagaland except with the prior resolution of the
Legislative Assembly of Nagaland.
Similarly, Article 371 (B) declares certain
concessions to the Legislative Assembly of the
State of Assam; Article 371 (C) declares certain
concessions to the Legislative Assembly of the
State of Manipur; Articles 371 (F), 371 (G), 371
(H), 371 (I) provide similar provisions in respect of
States of Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and
Goa respectively.
Till yesterday, we all know that there were
provisions in Articles 371 (D) & 371 (E) with
respect to the erstwhile integrated State of Andhra
Pradesh which are not now in force after formation
of Telengana.
The Constitutional pundits pointed out great
similarity in the Constitutions of India and USA in
respect of Federation of States. The Executive and
Legislative powers of various states comprising of
U.S.A & Federal State of America are divided and
every caution is taken by every state against the
intervention by the Federal State of America in the
powers of the different states comprising the
U.S.A.
It is therefore necessary that party in power in the
centre, now must appreciate the fact that India, that
is Bharat, is a “Union of States” comprising of
several cultures, religions and linguistic
differences. It is in that context that the special
power under Article. 370 must remain in the
Constitution to maintain the integrity of the Nation.
[K. Prathap Reddy is senior advocate at High
Court of Andhra Pradesh. He is the Chairman of
A.V. Education Society, Andhra Mahila Abyudaya
Samiti and the President of Vigil India Movement.
91-9848055502; [email protected]]
20
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Academician's Section:
Manoj Das: AuthenticInterpreter of Cultural and
Spiritual Heritage
One of the most talented and prolific
contemporary bilingual authors writing
in English and Odia, his mother tongue, Manoj
Das, needs no introduction. His more than six
decades contribution to Indian literature have
established him among the foremost accomplished
and acclaimed writers of the 20th century. He has
achieved several distinctions for himself: as
novelist, essayist, poet, columnist, commentator,
editor, scholar, academic, travel writer, children’s
writer, thinker, and philosopher. What makes his
characters from so many varied backgrounds and
display so many different varied dimensions of
human nature, Das observes, “Characters follow
the theme of a story and the words are merely added
to represent the thoughts of the character”. His
writings sensitize the reader with the issues of the
marginalized that is instrumental in the restoration
of the culture and folklore of the indigenous tribes.
As a wizard of words he has mesmerized
generations of readers with sheer genius of his
writing. The lyrical style, imagery, simplicity and
the magical charms of his writing has won him
admires in every generation and across all countries
and continent. His projection of the Indian psyche
and ethos and its authentic best through his short
stories and novels is so spontaneous that it
impresses both the Indian and Western readers with
its authenticity.
Paying tribute to the excellence in every individual
story of Manoj Das, an admirer of R.K. Narayan,
Graham Greene, a world famous fiction writer and
critic, wrote to his friend H.R.F. Keating, a crime
fiction writer, notable for his series of novels
featuring ‘Inspector Ghost’ of the Bombay CID in
1986 appreciating the elements of mystery in them,
“I have now read the stories of Manoj Das with
great pleasure. He will certainly take a place on my
shelves, besides the stories of Narayan. I imagine
Odisha is far from Malgudi, but there is the same
quality in his stories with perhaps an added
mystery”. A British critic A. Russell writes in
Poetry Times, “Manoj Das is a great story-teller of
the subcontinent. His world has the fullness of
human psyche, with its dreams and fantasies, its
awe and wonder, the height of sublimity can be
courted by the depth of the fictive”. K.R.Srinivasa
Iyenger, an author of Indian English writing, once
wrote: ‘‘a country that includes among its literary
classics collection like the Katha-Sarit-Sagar (The
Ocean of Stories) can never fail to cultivate the
‘short story’ as a perennially fresh and fascinating
art form. In our own time masters like Tagore,
Premchand, Mulk Raj Anand and Vaikom
Vuhammad Basheer have made their examples of
the art. And Manoj Das is of the same class… His
stories convincingly autochthonous, have by virtue
of their own Indianness won for him a
discriminating world audience’’.
Written nearly seventy books in different genres,
Manoj Das has received numerous accolades.
Sahitya Akademi, the National Academy of
Letters, bestowed its highest honour ‘Fellowship’
upon him on 8 September 2006. The Citation reads
“Manoj Das, one of the most illustrious living
21
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Ashok K. Choudhury
fiction-writer of this country, elected Fellow of
Sahitya Akademi for his eminence as Odia fiction
writer. Honouring the unparalleled master of
narration and passionate advocate of transcendence
by conferring him its Fellowship, the Akademi is
honouring itself”’. Conferring the Fellowship on
one of the best storytellers in the world, Gopi
Chand Narang, then President of the Akademi said,
“Das is a prolific writer who could narrate a story
without losing the Indian charm and ethos. He
could be a best after R K Narayan”. In his
acceptance speech Das stated that once a leading
English literary magazine asked which language
inspired me the most. After a few thoughts, I said it
was the ‘language of silence’. I think I improved
upon this language. He believed in literature that
was inspired but not invented. He reiterated,
“Honouring a person who has not written a story in
the past twelve years means that the Akademi has
decided to honour an ‘inspiration’, not a creator of
literature”.
Das, in fact, has developed the habit of expressing
himself in silence, what his birthplace, a remote
hamlet on the sea, as beautiful as fairytale land,
with natural lakes abounding in lotus between his
house and the sea, has unconscious rendezvous
with the sea and the breeze and moon. Das, in an
interview with P Raja, a Puducherry based
poet-writer, after his Padma Shri award, explained,
“The creative process ought to be allowed some
mystery. Inspiration surely precedes articulation
through any language. This is absolutely true in
regard to good poetry and substantially true in
regard to good fiction. Without this element of
inspiration, which is beyond language to begin
with, literature can hardly have a throbbing soul”.
Followed by Dagar Silver Jubilee Award in 1962,
he has received the Odisha Sahitya Akademi
Award twice in 1965 and 1989, Vishuv Milan
Award (1971), Sahitya Akademi Award (1972),
Sarala Award (1980), Vishuv Award (1972),
Sahitya Bharati Award (1994), Bharatiya Bhasa
Parishad Award (1995), Bookseller and Publishers
Association of South India (BAPASI) Award
(1998) as the English writer in South India, Atibadi
Jagannath Das Award (2007) by Odisha Sahitya
Akademi, NTR Literary Award (2013). During
‘Amritavarsham 60’- the 60th birthday celebration
of mata Amritamayi on 27 September 2013, Das
was honoured with the national Amritakeerti
Puraskar, instituted by Amritamayi Math, for his
vast contribution to the cultural, spiritual and
philosophical literature in India. The year 2001 has
witnessed four highly acclaimed awards for Manoj
Das: Padma Shri in January, Saraswati Samman in
May, Utkal Ratna in July, and Governor Plaque of
Honour, first to receive the highest Odia Award,
and Odisha State Film Award for Best Story.
His research in the archives of London and
Edinburgh brought to light with the publication Sri
Aurobindo in the First Decade of the Century
(1972), which explores some of the lesser known
facts of freedom struggle of India in the first decade
of the 20th century led by Shri Aurobindo and won
first Sri Aurobindo Puraskar by Sri Aurobindo
Bhavan, Kolkata, the birth place of Sri Aurobindo.
This apart, the Berhampur University bestowed on
him the status of Professor of Emeritus. Five
universities have conferred D.Litt. (Honoris
Causa), including the Utkal University of Culture,
Odisha in its first convocation in 2004. Despite
many success and accolades, Manoj Das, a man of
simple habits and humble ways, remains a recluse.
Outside his home state he is widely known as the
foremost successful bilingual writer in the country,
with forty books in English and an equal number of
books in Odia.
His Saraswati Samman Odia novel Amruta Phala
(Nectar Fruit, 1996) deals with man’s eternal quest
for truth, bliss and immortality and explores
answers to questions, which have been bothering
humanity. One of the best novels in contemporary
Odia literature, Amruta Phala based on a tale that
perfectly blends history, legends, mystery, magic,
and realism. It begins with protagonist Amarnath, a
rising entrepreneur, who has forced himself to
forget his quest for the meaning of life at the
demands of his business. By chance he lays his
22
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
hands upon a manuscript narrating the life and
adventures of Bhartrihari, the legendary King of
Ujjain who became a sage. Using a unique
craftsmanship, the novel portrays, almost in
parallel lines, the life of Bhartrihari and that of
Amarnath with the alternate chapters devoted to
each of them, revealing the undercurrents of the
trials and conflicts of the ancient king and the
present day Amarnath. The crises of our times are
the symptoms of the same problems of
consciousness as those encountered by Bhartrihari
some two thousand years ago.
The novel makes absorbing reading. While it stirs
and enlivens the reader’s sensibility, it never
subjects him to a single dull moment. The way the
two stories in move together: one contextualizing
existential suffering faced by the King to getting a
divine magical fruit; the second and the main story
takes place in the current age, where a suave and
successful businessman goes through similar
existential dilemma. Dwelt briefly on Amruta
Phala, Manoj Das says, “the human aspiration to
delve deep into the meaning of life that has gone
strong since the time of Bhatrihari to the present
day is the theme of the novel. It’s a work of what I
feel to be a inspiration, through weakened by my
capacity to fully capture it in my work, trying to
examine some of the indefatigable questions to life,
love and death”. A continuous search for truth,
Amruta Phala depicts to find out the source from
which items of life have emerged, and the attempt
to return these items to the same source. To quote
scholar-critic J M Mohanty “Amruta Phala is a
two-tire novel, a novel within a novel, more
correctly, two independent accounts linked
together by subtle attitudes and motivation, one
goes to the past and the other to the present, and the
style of writing also varies. It carries a strong
content, a powerful motivation and a felicitation
presentation- a fresh, unusual novel in the total
oeuvres of post-Independent Odia novels”.
Among the galaxy of other awards, he received the
Akademi award in 1972, when he was just thirty
eight years old, for his short story collection Manoj
Dasanka Katha O Kahani (Stories and Tales of
Manoj Das). It is a representative collection of
fifty-seven stories with reference to a variety of
situations. The stories have in general a genial and
humorous structure, but deep inside, subtle ironical
attitudes, particularly against lies and hypocrisy
that have started becoming an essential part of our
character in everyday life. Though apparently
entertaining, the stories have sharp point of view,
and together they constitute serious contemplations
about life. For its universal appeal and powerful use
of language, it has been hailed as an outstanding
contribution to modern Odia fiction in particular
and to contemporary Odia literature in general.
One of his early story collections Aranyaka (The
Primitive Man, 1961), won him the State Sahitya
Akademi Award in 1965, deals with the blatant
irrationality of man. It has posed the problem of the
affluent yet physically and emotionally dissatisfied
beings that could go to any extent to satisfy their
laser instincts and desires. Aranyaka explores the
inner aspects of man from several angles, where the
author points out that though outwardly man has
entered the space age and is considered are much
civilized, yet his inner self continues to be beastly.
As a rare event, Manoj Das was conferred the State
Sahitya Akademi Award of Odisha for the second
time in 1989 for his essays. Many genres of literary
writing have enriched Manoj Das. He began his
writing career during his student days. His first
collection of poems Satabdira Artanada (Groan of
the Century) published in 1947, when he was only
13 then. In the same year, another anthology of
poems appeared as Biplabi Fakirmohan. Next year,
Das brought out the literary journal Diganta as the
founder-editor, which became a powerful medium
of creativity and ideas in Odia. He revived the
literary journal in 1959 as a regular monthly. After
he left for Shri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry in
1963, under the editorship of eminent Odia poet
Sachi Rautray, it continued to be published. At
about the same time, Manoj Das started writing
short stories. Samudra Kshudha (Hunger of the
23
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Sea, 1951), his first short story collection won a quick
recognition.
One cannot think of a survey of modern Odia
fiction without the reference of Manoj Das, perhaps
who writes more on value-based theme than any
other Odia writers. This also became true in 1962,
Dagar, a renowned Odia journal, conducted a
survey, among a hundred selected critics,
professors, and other intellectual of the State, on
the occasion of its Silver Jubilee to find out who
contributed most to different genres of
post-Independence Odia literature. Manoj Das was
the youngest, among Gopinath Mahanty and Sachi
Rautray, to be acknowledged as one of the foremost
writers of short stories and was honoured with the
Dagar Silver Jubilee Award.
A number of his short stories have been translated
into major languages of the world as well as of
India. They brought him more limelight and highly
appreciated in the academic circle in the West. John
Harvey in The British Fantasy Society Bulletin
writes, “Manoj Das is one of those writers who can
express in simple language items of considerable
importance while entertaining you, while making
you laugh or cry, happy or sad. Manoj Das is a rare
person in today’s world…” Mid-sixties onward he
began writing English, not for finding a new
avenue to give vent to his creative zeal, but as a
protest against the depiction of the Indian village
life by more than one write in a silly way. Being
born and brought up in a remote village, his thought
was to put the rustic situations and characters in
their proper perspective. His stories, authentically
Indian in content and character, are noted for
freshness of ideas, clarity of perception,
un-digressive style of narration, originality in the
use of words, their sensitivity and strong visual
imagery. His language is free of clichés and
moluded to suit the need of his tales. He has a subtle
sense of humanistic appeal, which reveals the
pathetic inner self of character.
Most of his stories deal with the psychology of
modern man oppressed by the dreary routine of life.
With his keen observation of human nature, Manoj
Das brings out the pathos and predicaments of life.
Through subtle irony and often through comic
extravaganza, he communicates a vision of life
where various existential compulsions weigh on
man making him take, at times, very ridiculous
steps. Mystery in a wide and a subtle sense,
mystery of life, indeed, is the core of his appeal.
Das has thoroughly utilized his experiences,
gathered at a impressionable age, of the
epoch-making transition through the country was
passing. His characters cut off in vortex of India’s
passage from the colonial era to freedom, the
impact of the end of the princely states and the
feudal system, and the mutation of several patches
of rural India into clumsy bazaars. Das, in addition,
has an implicit spiritual enquiry as an integral part
of his stories. He ‘often’ puts tradition, a good
example of his continuous echoes from Bishnu
Sharma and Panchatantra.
He uses with great success an allegorical mode to
show the absurdity of human characters. An
exception in the ocean of stories Das has to his
credit is the one captioned Lakshmira Abhisara
where there is the least of the Salvationistic cynical
elements, which is so typical with him. After
everything has been said and delivered, it is not the
cynicism of the Salvationist that will save
mankind; it may at best make man happily
reconciled to his lot, in the meanwhile taking a sort
of masochistic pleasure at his own misery and
helplessness. Masochism is no remedy for man in
the present predicament, even when good men in
the form of well-knit fables and stories are
prescribing it.
Manoj Das has produced innumerable fables for
children mainly in the English languages: Temples
of India (1970), Stories of Light and Delight
(1970), Tales from Many Lands (1972), Persian
Tales of Wit and Delight (1972), Books for Ever
(1973), Rivers of India (1975), A Bride Inside
Casket (1981) etc. Some of them are also available
in Odia. One of his short story collections has been
named Fables and Fantasies for Adult. It
sometimes appears that most of Manoj Das’s
24
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
stories read very appropriately as tales for adults.
Starting with the irrational in man and then adding
a few doses of cynicism of the benevolent type to
his total attitude towards those for whom he writes,
he seems to have ended up with looking at man as
an adult who can be satisfied with fables.
There is a strong undercurrent of sadness, which
springs often from a nostalgic yearning for a lost
world of love or innocence, in almost all his stories.
In Dhumrabha Diganta the death of Lily, thus
becomes an abiding symbol that at once
communicates to the reader a tender agonizing
sense of the eternal sorrow of man. Yet there is
often a beatific side of life as has been illustrated in
Shesa Basantara Chithi. The small girl Rina comes
forward to share the common sorrow of the loss of
mother in an intimate human understanding.
He speaks of the agony and ecstasy of life as well.
Manoj Das penetrates into the psyche of the
individual and focuses on the perversions and
miseries of life. His technique is mainly ironic and
an affectionate understanding of life’s various
urges always marks his irony. His stories, however,
cover a vast range of narrative modes from the
realistic and psychological to the supernatural,
fantasy and fable. Das’s stories say very little while
conveying much about his society, and often with a
deft touch of humour that is almost rare in the Odia
literature. The author himself said in an interview
that his stories are written out of creative
inspiration; some are written out of simple creative
joy, some are out of a commitment to society-
Bhavan’s Journal, April 1970.
He established his reputation as an Indo- English
short story writer through the following
collections: A Song for Sunday and other stories
(1967), Short stories (1969), The Crocodile’s Lady
and other stories (1975), Fables and Fantasies for
adults (1978), Man who lifted the Mountain and
other stories (1979), The Vengeance and other
stories (1980), The Submerged valley and other
stories (1986), The Dusky Horizon and other
stories (1989), Mystery of Missing cap and other
stories (1989), Bulldozers and Fables and
Fantasies for Adults (1990), The Miracle (1993),
Farewell to a Ghost (1994), etc. When his first
collection of short stories in English A Song for
Sunday and other stories published, A. Russell, a
British critic, wrote, “There is a little doubt that
Manoj Das is a great story-teller of the
sub-continent and he has too few peers, no matter
what yardstick is applied to measure his ability as
an artist. He shows how powerfully all artifices of
story-telling can be used to write in a story in
realistic genre without any attempt at being faithful
to the photographic details of facts. His world has
the fullness of human psyche: with its dreams and
fantasies, its awe and wonder. The height of
sublimity can be courted by fictive. He proves that
reality is richer than what realist conceived it to
be".
Immediately after the publication of Man who
lifted the Mountain and other stories outside India
(1979), by Specter Press, Fareham, Britain, Adrian
Kol, a famous British fantasy writer, commented,
“There is more fantasy in the story of Manoj Das
than the stories of Arabian Nights, which attracts
inward perception of India”- Fantasy Media,
Oct-Nov. 1979. His equally important latest
collections are: The Escapist (2001), My Little
India, The Lady who died one-and-a-half Times
and other stories, Chasing the Rainbow: Growing
up in a Indian Village (2004), Tales told by
Mystics, etc.
However The Escapist, originally written in Odia
rendering of the title Akashara Isara (1997),
literally means ‘hints or beacons from the blue’.
Translated by him, an English synopsis of The
Escapist was published in The Statesman Annual
under the title ‘Rise and Fall of a Miracle Man’.
Das confesses in the ‘Author’s Note’ in the fiction,
“the kind of reactions generated after the
publication of the novel, particularly the decisive
advice of Mini Krishnan, the project and series
editor of Modern Indian Novels In Translation of
Macmillan made it obvious to me to translate the
entire novel”. The theme of the novel basically
explores the role of faith in human affairs. It does
25
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
not seek a study of the traditional kind by pitting,
for instance, lack of faith on science.
He describes in the ‘Preface’ that chance is the
pseudonym of God which He uses when He does
not wish to put down His signature. The
protagonist of The Escapist Padmalochan or
Padmananda, the god man, a deceiver, has a certain
immortal proclivity despite himself even though
focuses beyond his control have reduced him to a
false god man and a charlatan. He is a thinking
renegade, endowed with an acute power of self
observation and analyses. Sachidananda Mohanty,
a scholar-critic, who has written the ‘Introduction’
of the novel, says, “The Escapist presented is a
major exercise that combines cardinal reflections
and life- calls it philosophy or spiritual quest- with
fiction. It almost pioneers of the relationship
between faith and novel form”
His narratives keep the spirit of rural India and
discerned with indigenous folk tradition. Also they
carry the spirit of whole world in a rational way
appealing the whole humanity. Chasing the
Rainbow: Growing up in an Indian Village, a
childhood memoirs of Das, depicts the experiences
of rural India. Some characters, incidents, and
settings leave a deep representation of the rural and
sylvan entity and they have a universal appeal. Das
has effectively blended the old art of storytelling
with modern ideas and techniques. He has created a
new genre of stories, chosen since ancient stories
from the Jatakas and the Panchatantra, etc, The
Lady who died one-and-a-half Times and other
stories deals with folktales. He has adopted a very
interesting character ‘abolakara’, literary meaning
‘disobedient’. In Odisha, since centuries, a series of
folktales prevails in which every story is bracketed
Abolakara as well as Samanta, who is a nobleman.
But ‘abolakara’ is totally his own with the
continuation of same themes of the ancient tale.
Das says, “The stories in the volume were
prompted by my feeling that our literature was an
unbreakable tradition. I saw that some of the classic
stories of the folk genre- stories given us by great
minds of the past- could be an excellent basis for
presenting a comment or two on the present, our
own conditions. This bunch constitutes an
exclusive kind”. Another folktales collection Tales
Told by Mystics tales mostly prevailed as oral
traditions and were used by the lost tribe of
wandering mendicants to educate and enlighten the
folks. Das here retold in his own style. Unlike his
earlier stories he has not added any new phase to
them, besides some few are from classics such as
‘Jatakas’ or the ‘Kathasaritsagar’. In addition, Das
has an implicit spiritual enquiry as an integral part
of his stories. He ‘often’ puts emphasis on the past
tradition, a good example of his continuous echoes
from Bishnu Sharma and ‘Panchatantra’.
His novel Cyclones focuses on two important
aspects: ethnic culture, and social criticism. It
portrays through the psyche of an educated Indian
youth ‘The dying old order of an alien rule and the
promised new order of the Swaraj struggling to be
reborn’. The realistic details presented in the novel
are not merely imaginative exuberance, but are
necessitated by contextual properties. Cyclones can
be viewed as a social document in which the writer
discharges the role both of a certain artists and of
social reformer. The study of minds of folks when
their village grows into a hick town is penetrating
in the novel Cyclones.
Another novel A Tiger at Twilight (1991) is in a
class by itself. Twenty years after the princely
states had merged with India, a King, who had lived
all the times in a distant city, snapping ties with the
native and suddenly appears in a hilly area
belonging to his erstwhile principality. At the same
time a tiger turned into a man-eater. The
inhabitants, mostly tribes, expect their former King
to save them from the menace. The King being an
accomplished hunter accepts the challenge, but in a
condition to kill two tigers in one shot: the
man-eater, and a man who had led the fight against
the princely rule and fighting an election. Das,
through a chain of breathtaking but entirely
credible developments, lays bare such aspects of
mice and men that could come as revelations to
characters themselves. A subtle allegory runs side
26
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
by side with gross realism and their synthesis is an
emotional as well as intellectual feast for the
reader.
In a survey conducted by an eminent editor Martha
Fellow in 1975 to prepare a list of stories of a
prominent writer published in the leading literary
magazines brought out from U.S.A., Manoj Das
was the only Indian writer whose five stories have
been published. Though Manoj Das has been
recognized as an English writer, the main
inspiration of his creative sensibility is certainly
not Western but the Indian tradition of folklore,
spiritual writings and our own deep cultural
consciousness. To a question, in an interview, on
why does he write in English, he says: “At one
stage I felt inspired to write in English because I
was haunted by the feeling- if I do not sound
presumptuous- that much of the Indo-Anglican
fiction that claimed to project the Indian life and
situation was no doing justice to its claim. I thought
that I could present through English a chunk of
genuine India. Well, right or wrong, one is entitled
to one’s faith in oneself”- The Times of India, 18
May 1980. Once the veteran dramatist Vijay
Tendulkar observed, “Manoj Das, like Graham
Greene and R K Narayan, is a deft spinner of yarns.
He is also crisp in his style and very much at easy
with English, which is not his mother tongue.
Narrating an Indian experience in a language,
which is alien or not Indian without losing the
original Indian charm and ethos, is a difficult task.
Manoj Das succeeds in this, like Narayan”.
Deeply spiritual, Das accepts the influences of
Somdev and some others in his writing. He cites
Fakir Mohan Senapati, the great pioneer of modern
Odia fiction, Vyasa, and Valmiki as early
influences. But to begin with, Das reiterates stories
from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata,
recounted to me by his mother stirred his
imaginativeness. She ushered him into the world of
Odia classics. Das is fortunate enough to have a
mother like her, as he confesses, who provided the
wiz kid a personal library containing the treasures
of Odia literature, the complete works of Fakir
Mohan Senapati. In the ‘Preface’ to Biplabi Fakir
Mohan, Das writes, “I am singularly grateful to two
persons: one my mother, and the other Fakir Mohan
Senapati, who shaped my mind in a myriad subtle
ways. His Atmajibani Charitra gave me the self
confidence”. After teaching English for four years
in Christ College at Cuttack, Manoj Das, inspired
by Shri Aurobindo’s philosophy and his felicity on
English language, has been an ashramite at Shri
Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry since 1963 where
he teaches English literature and philosophy of Shri
Aurobindo at Shri Aurobindo International
University, and his wife Pratijna Devi teaches
Psychology.
He was born in a seaside village, Shankhari,
Balasore district of Odisha on 27 February 1934
and grew up amidst loving rural folk and nature’s
spender’s evergreen meadows. A divesting cyclone
in 1942, followed by terrible famine in his native
region, left a deep impact on him. Das says, “Born
and brought up in a remote village, I thought it was
my duty to put rustic situations and characters in
their proper perspective”. In his quest for a panacea
for human suffering he grew into a radical youth
leader and played an active role in student
movements. In college days he found himself
caught up in the political vortex of the fifties. While
willing or willy-nilly leading students and
peasants’ demonstrations, he also spent a term in
jail at Cuttack in 1955. As an eminent Left youth
leader, his oratorical skill, sometimes accompanied
by lyrics composed and put to tune by him could
arouse thousands to mutiny. Das is an atheist and
adept at brainwashing the vulnerable. He
participated in the Afro-Asian Students Conference
at Bandung, Indonesia in 1956.
Born before independence and hence living
through the transition to freedom at an
impressionable age, Manoj Das is acknowledgment
as a master storyteller and an authentic interpreter
of India’s cultural and spiritual heritage. Besides,
he has earned name as a regular weekly columnist
in dailies like The Hindustan Times (1983-1989)
27
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
under “The Banyan Tree”, Thought (1968-70),
Times of India, The Statesman, and The Hindu.
His first weekly column was in a weekly journal
from Delhi, Independent India which was founded
by the radical humanist M.N.Roy which is today
this journal - The Radical Humanist.
Simultaneously, he has written columns in the
premier Odia dailies: Samaj, Dharitri, Sambad etc.
He has edited the World Union and Sri Aurobindo’s
Action, The Heritage, during the periods: 1967-68,
1969-71, and 1985-89. Das categorized these
columns writings as deadline-oriented, not failing
to submit them on time. He says that whether I was
in a train or a plane, I carried a portable typewriter
and never failed my editors. For meeting such
reflective, narrative and newspaper columns, etc
one should of course have to forgo one’s own
leisurely or sweet whimsical attitude to the
calendar.
Das further clarified it did not apply to his
reflective writing. The columns he wrote for the
newspapers, he says, “for such writings you must
think and think clearly in the language in which
you propose to write. It is probably provocation, in
a constructive sense of the term, more than
inspiration, which should spur you on”. He visited
twice every year during 1982-85 as an
author-consultant with the Ministry of Education,
Singapore, for taking classes of the teachers for
Ethical Studies Programmes. Besides Singapore,
he travelled extensively, in Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand, Egypt, U.K., U.S.A., and European
countries. He was a Member of the General
Council of the Sahitya Akademi (1998-2002) as a
Government of India nominee. He was the leader of
the Indian Writers’ Delegation to China in 2000.
Manojayan, a felicitation volume on him,
published by ‘Manoj Das Abhinandan Samiti’,
Balesore in 2001 under the chairmanship of
Brajanath Rath, a front ranking Odia poet,
consisting of a number of erudite research articles
on Das in both Odia and English, is a befitting
tribute to a great writer. To know the legendary
writer, a website www.worldofmanojdas.in is an
attempt to assimilate the entire world of Manoj
Das. An exclusive website for display of most of
the books at one place has been created by some of
the fans of Das. A unique and first for any Odia
writer, www.callofthehorizon.com facilitates to
order to get some or all of his books from one place
in hassles free manner. A non-profit venture, the
order can be placed online and for the purchase of
Rs.250/- and more are supplied by free post and
with a token discount of 5%. As the most authentic
felicitation, Sahitya Akademi, in its documentation
series, has produced a thirty minutes documentary,
directed by Prafulla Kumar Mohanty, an Akademi
Award winning writer, carrying the images, voices,
the momentous events that moluded the life and
vision and many-sided creative achievements of
Manoj Das.
Besides, warm recognition came to him from the
academic circles in the West. Whoever read him for
the first time felt thrill of a discovery. Either
Graham Greene, HRF Keating and John Harvey, or
discerning critic KRS Iyenger and gifted dramatist
Vijay Tendulkar of India, they all wondered how
each of his stories brought them a sense of wonder
and joy. All of them found the most authentic
Indian ethos in his writing. So many anthologies
and special issues special of serious journals in the
U K and the U S A, whenever they wished to
include a story in their collections that projected the
real Indian genius, chose one of the stories of
Manoj Das. No wonder, more appreciation, more
accolades are on the way for him. Not as it is today,
potentiality being there involved in man, Shri
Aurobindo tells us that a new humanity will evolve
out of the present one. That is the faith sustains
Manoj Das and gives him the impetus to write.
[Ashok K. Choudhury, has a Doctorate in
Literature and is a a literature critic with Sahitya
Akademi, New Delhi. He may be contacted
at:choudhury_ [email protected]]
28
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Book Review Section:
Policies from Paris
[BOOK: OECD “Better Policies” Series India
Sustaining High And Inclusive Growth,
OCTOBER 2012, Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), OCDE
Paris 2, rue André Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16]
As the publication itself says, the OECD
works with 34 members, key partners
and over 100 countries to better understand what
drives economic, social and environmental change
in order to foster the well-being of people around
the world. The OECD Better Policies Series
provides an overview of the key challenges faced
by individual countries and appropriate policy
recommendations. Drawing on the OECD’s
expertise in comparing country experiences and
identifying best practices, the Better Policies Series
tailor the OECD’s policy advice to the specific and
timely priorities of member and partner countries,
focusing on how governments can make reform
happen. This is an important aspect because
economic development and poverty removal are
areas where the government has a crucial role to
play. In fact right from late 19th century, poverty
and backwardness in India have been traced to the
governance of the country. The first Indian treatise
on Economics was Poverty and Un-British Rule in
India by Dadabhai Naoroji, published in 1901.It
was colonial rule, specifically, the Economic
Drain, which Naoroji identified as the cause of
poverty in India then. It was directly related to the
governance of the country, rather, as Naoroji
implied, a deliberate mis-governance unworthy of
the British reputation.
The Nationalist movement in India had a strong
economic pivot. Foreign rule was made responsible
for most of the economic ills, from the deprivation
of the agricultural sector, to the so-called
De-industrialization, from the lack of industrial
growth to the discrimination in respect of
protection in foreign trade.
Historians like Daniel Thorner, Amiya Bagchi and
Rajat Ray have re-iterated this through their
reasoning. They have generally agreed that
exploitative colonial domination, rather than any
dearth of natural resources or human responses,
was the factor behind India’s backwardness at the
time of India’s Independence.
As is generally accepted, the First Five Year Plan
(1952-56) of India was based on the aggregative
Harrod-Domar model of economic growth. The
Second Five Year Plan (1956-61) was based on the
Mahalanobis model which in turn was based on the
Feldman model of the Soviet Union under Stalin.
Its central idea was that the greater the allocation of
the country’s investible resources I, generally to the
Industrial sector and specifically to the
Capital-goods sector, the higher the growth rate for
the country. Not only is there no concern for the
various sections of the population, but there is a
definite de-emphasizing of them, in
de-emphasizing the Agricultural sector which was
(and remains) the most crucial sector for the
population, a rapidly growing one at that. But by
the time of the Fourth Plan (1969-74), emphasis on
29
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Dipavali Sen
self-reliance was necessitated by India’s ‘food
problem’ and the PL 480 imports. By the Fifth Plan
(1974-79), it was the equity objective which came
into focus. The very slogan Garibi Hatao
associated with Prime Minister (and Chairperson of
the Planning Commission) Indira Gandhi testified
to the fact that growth was not ensuring equity.
Re-distribution was needed to rectify the poverty
that had been generated along with growth. In other
words, growth was not being inclusive.
Nevertheless there were no basic changes in the
plan strategies or objectives. The Indian
economy travelled along the ‘planned’ growth
path, picking up poverty and inequality on the
way.
From the new millennium, Sustainable
Development and Inclusive Growth came into
vogue. The UPA government at the centre, led by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, stressed the
need for giving greater emphasis to agriculture and
environment.
Under Montek Singh Ahluwalia as the Deputy
Chairman of the Planning Commission, the
Eleventh Plan (2007-08 to 2011-12) titled
“Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth” and
subsequently also the Twelfth Plan (2012-13 to
2016-17) titled “Faster, More Inclusive and
Sustainable Growth”, were formed,
Right from the beginning of his coming to power,
the new prime minister too has endorsed the
Inclusive Growth idea,
In this context the OECD publication becomes
especially relevant.
The Foreword begins with Angel Gurría,
Secretary-General, OECD, wishing India
“stronger, cleaner and fairer economic growth”.
The first two chapters deal with ‘Sustaining high
and inclusive growth’ and ‘Addressing fiscal
challenges’. It then moves to ‘Improving the
business environment’.
Next comes ‘Improving regulation, public
governance and transparency’. Here the key
recommendations are as follows:
Conduct an administrative simplification
programme to reduce the burdens and costs on
businesses.
Create the necessary policies, institutions, and
processes to implement transparent, evidence
based regulation-making system using regulator
best practice tools.
Mitigate risks of waste and corruption in the whole
procurement cycle (from project design through the
tendering process and to the contract management).
Focus efforts to increase public transparency and
reinforce public trust.
Strengthen the independence of the
Lokpal/Ombudsman mechanism.
The next sections relate to ‘Reducing trade and FDI
barriers’, ‘Strengthening innovation’, ‘Improving
transport infrastructure’, and ‘Financial sector
reform’.
The attention then turns to Sustainability and
Environment. In the section ‘Promoting Greener
Growth’, the recommendations are:
Continue efforts to reduce fossil fuel subsidies to
free-up scarce public resources while reducing the
incentives for environmentally harmful activities.
Evaluate the use of environmentally related taxes
and consider carefully whether the tax rates applied
reflect environmental damage caused by
consumption and production.
Continue promoting a balanced expansion of the
renewable energy sector.
The next relate to the human factor, viz., ‘Lowering
poverty and inequality’.
‘Improving health care quality and access while
improving efficiency’, ‘Improving quality and
access in education’, and ‘Reforming labour
markets’.
The final section is about ‘Increasing productivity
in agriculture’.
The OECD is committed to the market economy,
democracy and good practices pursued through
‘soft laws’.
30
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
How relevant it is to a vast and diverse country like
India where Planning is an essential aspect of good
governance?
Are policy prescriptions from Paris of any use in
India? Well, if only to make up our minds about it,
this publication needs a read.
[Dipavali Sen, from DSE and Gokhale Institute of
Politics and Economics (Pune), Visva Bharati
University, Santiniketan teaches at Sri Guru
Gobind Singh College of Commerce, Delhi
University. She is a prolific writer and has written
creative pieces and articles both in English and
Bengali. [email protected]].
31
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Books By M.N. ROY
Published By Renaissance Publishers,
Indian Renaissance Institute,
Oxford University Press And Others
1. POLITICS POWER AND PARTIES Rs. 90.00
2. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY Rs.95.00
3. BEYOND COMMUNISM Rs.40.00
4. THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF ISLAM Rs.40.00
5. MEN I MET Rs.60.00
6. INDIA’S MESSAGE Rs.100.00
7. MATERIALISM Rs. 110.00
8. REVOLUTION & COUNTER REVOLUTION IN CHINA Rs. 250.00
9. REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION Rs.300.00
10. NEW ORIENTATION Rs 090.00
11. ISLAAM KI ETIHASIK BHOOMIKA (IN HINDI) Rs.25.00
12. HAMARA SANSKRITIK DARP (IN HINDI) Rs.40.00
13. NAV MANAVWAD (IN HINDI) Rs.90.00
14 .SAMYAWAD KE PAAR (IN HINDI) Rs.45.00
Humanist News Section:
I
C.F.D. National Conference:An All India Conference of the Citizens For
Democracy will be held at Gandhi Peace
Foundation on 12th & 13th July 2014
(Saturday-Sunday) to consider the situation arising
out of the results of the recent General
Elections. The theme is: “Future Of The
Secularism And The Federal Structure”
As a result of the recent elections, the new
Government at the Centre has assumed office.
Though Principles of ‘secularism’ and ‘federalism’
have been embedded in our constitutional
philosophy, the same were forcefully sought to be
derided and ridiculed in the recent general election
by a few political parties and a section of the media.
It has been decided to discuss and debate the future
of these twin principles as per following agenda:
Session I:
Saturday – 12th July 2014 (10:00 am to 1:00 pm)
Subject: Future of Secularism
1:00 to 2:00 pm Lunch
Session II:
Saturday- 12th July 2014 (2:00 pm to 5:00 pm)
Subject: Future of Federal Structure
Session III:
Sunday – 13th July 2014(10:00 am to 1:00 pm)
Subject: Role of Media
1:00 to 2:00 pm Lunch
Session IV:
2:00 – 5:00 pm
Subject: What is to be done?
Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 223-Deendayal
Upadhaya Marg, New Delhi 110002
Those who want accommodation may inform the
undersigned. Cost of per bed per day is
about Rs.300/-.
You are requested to make it convenient to attend
the meeting. Please confirm your participation.
—N.D. Pancholi
Gen. Secretary
Citizens For Democracy (CFD)
Mob: 9811099532
II
83rd Annual Conference ofRationalist Association of India
& 18th Biennial conference ofA.P. Rationalist Association:
Both these conferences were held at Radical
Humanist centre, Inkollu, Praksam (D.t), A.P. from
14th to 15th June, 2014 under the guidance of
Ravipudi Venkatadri, Chairman, RAI. Rationalist
Humanist national Study camp was organized on
this occasion in Radical Humanist Bhavan.
Delegates from Bharatiya Yukthivada Sangam,
Kerala, Telangana, Maharashtra and Tamilanadu
attended the study camp and conferences.
Attaluri Suryanarayana, Ex. General Secretary to
Indian Rationalist Association who played an
active role in establishing A.P. Rationalist
Association in 1979 was felicitated on this
occasion by Ravipudi Venkatadri, Chairman, RAI.
He inaugurated the conference. Books written by
Gumma Veeranna on the volumes on Ravipudi, by
Jasthi Rama Swamy on Ramayana, Ravipudi
Venkatadri on Rationalist thought in Telugu were
released in the study camp. T. Ravichand, Mylinda
Publications. Ravipudi and Gumma Veeranna
released their books with their comments.
“Religious Fundamentalism and Rationalism”,
Vaastu, Astrology and Yoga" “Physical realism
and Nature of Universe” “Established Religion and
Scientific Outlook; Rationalist Humanist
movement”; “Rationalist thought and humanist
way”; Failure of Politics and Democracy;" were the
topics discussed in the study camp.
The participants who delivered lectures were:
1.Ravipudi Venkatadri, Chairman, RAI., Editor,
32
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Hetuvadi, Telugu Monthly Magazine
2.Kurra Hanumantha Rao, President RAI.
3.Srini Pattathanam, Vice Chairman, RAI
4.Meduri Satyanarayana, GEneral Secretary, RAI.
5.Kanan Sivaram, Kerala, Joint Secretary, RAI
6.Gumma Veeranna, President, APRA
7.Vutla Ranganayakulu, Gen. Secretary, APRA
8.Kari Hani Babu, Vice President, APRA
9.Shaik Babu, Treasurer, RAI
10.Aluri Prafulla Chandra, Humanist Writer
11.Chunchu Seshaiah, Ex. President, APRA
12.Dr. P. Raghavan, Scientist, Vice President, RAI
13.T. Ravichand, Mylinda Pulication
14.Esvar, CDS, Convenor
15.Narane Venkata Subbaiah, Joint Secretary , RAI
Tumma Bhaskar, Sankatala Ramaiah, Telangana;
Raghu, Maharastra, Shaik Daryavali, Kaki
Rajasekhar and others from A.P. attended the
conference. 100 delegates attended the study camp
as well as conference.
Details of the Elected Bodies are as follows -
A)National Council Members:
1.Ravipudi Venkatadri, A.P.
2.Srinipattathanam, Kerala
3.Kurra Hanumantha Rao, A.P.
4.Gumma Veeranna, A.P.
5.Dr. P. Raghavan, Delhi
6.Meduri Satyanarayana, A.P.
7.Kanan Sivaram, Kerala
8.Shaik Babu, A.P.
9.Narne venkata Subbaiah, A.P.
10.Chunchu Seshaiah, A.P.
11.Aluri Prafulla Chandra, A.P.
12.Liakhath Ali, A.P.
13.Vutla Ranganayakulu, A.P.
14.Tumma Baskar, Telangana
15.Sankathala Ramaiah, Telangana
16.P. Raghava Rao, Telangana
17.Abdulla Meppayur, Kerala
18. T. Parameswaran, Kerala
19. Dr. P.K. Narayanan, Kerala
20. Raghu, Maharashtra
21. K. Srishnan Kutti, Kerala
22. K.K.Abdul Ali, Kerala
23. Dr. Ramendra, Bihar
24. A.N.Karia, Gujarath
25. P.C.Alexander, Kerala
26. Sayed Mahammad anakkayam, Kerala
27. P. Manmadan, Kerala
28. Sivadasan Perambra, Kerala
29. P.Sivan, Kerala
30. Peroor Nadarajan, Kerala
31. Min Krishman Kanay, Kerala
32. Kari Hari Babu, A.P.
33. C.L.N. Gandhi, A.P.
34. G. Parvathaiah, A.P.
35. Shaik Darya Vali, A.P.
36. Ala Adi Narayana, A.P
37. R. Jagapathi Raju, A.P.
B)Excutive Committee Members:
1.Chunchu Seshaiah, A.P.
2.Aluri Prafulla Chandra, A.P.
3.Liakhath Ali, A.P.
4.Vutla Ranganayakulu, A.P.
5.Tumma Bhaskar, Telangana
6.Sankathala Ramaiah, Telangana
7.P. Raghava Rao, Tamilanadu
8.Abdulla Meppyur, Kerala
9.T. Parameswaran, Kerala
10.Dr. P.K.Narayanan, Kerala
11.K. Krishna kutti, Kerala
12.Raghu, Maharashtra
13.K.K. Abdul Ali, Kerala
C) Managing Committee Members:
1.Chairman: Ravipudi Venkatadri, A.P.
2.ViceChairman: Sinipattathanam, Kerala
3.President: Kurra Hanumantha Rao, A.P
33
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
4.Vice President: Gumma Veeranna, A.P.
5.Vice President: Dr. P. Raghavan, Delhi
6.General Secretary: Meduri satyanarayana, A.P.
7.Joint Secretary: Narne Venkata Subbaiah, A.P.
8.Joint Secretary: Kanana Sivaram, Kerala
9.Treasurer: Shaik Babu, A.P.
5.Joint Secretary: D. Rajasekhar
6.Joint Secretary: Ala Adinarayana
7.Treasurer: Buddha Vishal
27 members were elected to the Executive
committee of APRA.
The Joint conference of RAI and APRA reiterated
its stand on working for a Revolution in Ideas
among people; propagation of Rationalist
Methodology through the production of literature,
organization of study camps and conferences
annually and biennially. It was resolved to organize
organizations in other sates of India
—Report prepared by: Meduri Satyanarayana
& sent by Gumma Veeranna
III
Citizens sign against IB Reporton Movements for Secular
DemocracyForwarding Letter:
4 July 2014
To,
The President of India,
New Delhi.
Dear Sir,
The recent secret report “Impact of NGOs on
Development” from the Intelligence Bureau
accusing select NGOs of scuttling Indian
development submitted to the Union home
department and PMO is very disturbing one. The
IB Report has accused Movement for Secular
Democracy and others for making efforts to
debunk the development of Gujarat. As a matter of
fact Movement for Secular
Democracy is a broadest platform of the citizens of
the civil society of Gujarat. It is not an NGO and
does not receive any foreign fund.
The IB report is designed to muzzle the voices of
the citizens defending the secularism and
democracy inscribed in our Constitution of our
country. The concerned citizens of India have
condemned the IB Report on MSD and signed the
Memorandum, which explains the historic role of
Movement for Secular Democracy in Gujarat for
the cause of Communal Harmony, Peace and
Justice since 1993 and defending the Secular
Democracy and stand by the victims in communal
violence.
The signature campaign was launched on 25th
June, the Anti Emergency Day and closed on 3rd
July, 2014.Some names of the signatories are as
following-
They are: Shri Chunibhai Vaidya, known Gandhian
and Sarvoday activist, Shri Rajmohan Gandhi, Dr.
Romila Thaper, Prof. Yogendra Yadav, Dr.
Mallika Sarabhai, Dr. J.S. Bandukwala, Prof.
Gulam Mohammad Sheikh, Prof. Dhaval Mehta,
Prof. Dinesh Shukla, Advocate Girish Patel, Fr.
Cedric Prakash, Shri Gautam Thaker, Prof. Svati
Joshi, Shri Gagan Sethi, Prof. Ghanshyam Shah,
Dr.
Ram Puniyani, Prof. Abid Shamsi, Shri Sukla Sen,
Ms Kamayani Bali Mahabal, Kumar Prashant,
Prof. J. I. Laliwala, Shri Manishi Jani, Dr. Saroop
Dhruv, Prof. Rohit Shukla, Shri Chinu Srinivasan,
Dr. Ila Joshi,, Dr. Trupti Shah, Shri Madhu Prasad,
Shri Dilip Chandulal, Shri Dwarika Nath Rath and
many others.
The Memorandum with the signatures of the
citizens is attached.
Thanking You,
Yours truly,
Prakash N. Shah, Convenor,
34
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Movement for Secular Democracy (MSD)
Mob. 09879919421
Address: Narmad-Meghani Library, Opp. Natraj
Railway Crossing, Meethakhali,
Ellis Bridge, Ahmedabad-380006. Ph. (079)
26404418. [email protected]
Memorandum25th June,2014
To,
The President of India,
New Delhi.
On 39th year of Emergency, “Emergency” still
knocks at the door!
We severely condemn IB report on Movement for
Secular Democracy (M.S.D.) and reiterate our firm
resolve to the Constitutional morals of Secular
Democracy!
Dear Sir,
We, the undersigned citizens, severely condemn
the leaked report of Intelligence Bureau on
Movement for Secular Democracy (M.S.D.).
Gujarat is known worldwide as the land of Gandhiji
and Sardar. But here a continual connivance is
going on to create a communal atmosphere with
specific political motive is since long. When the
state witnessed many communal tensions, sporadic
incidents and riots in 1980s , the citizens of Gujarat
has made many efforts by taking various
programme as a
Civil society to maintain peace, amity and
democratic values in the society.
The Babri Demolition incident of December 1992
created a frenzied communal atmosphere in
Gujarat and the entire country. Shocked by these
and with intention to save Secular Democratic
values of the Constitution, the eminent citizens of
almost all fields of Gujarat convened at H. K. Arts
College on 21st February, 1993 and formed a
voluntary, non-party civil society movement and
named it as “Movement for Secular Democracy”.
So, contrary to Intelligence Bureau’s version,
M.S.D. is neither a N.G.O. nor it has any
relationship with “foreign funding”. M.S.D. is
purely a citizen’s Civil Society Movement
committed to the Constitutional values of Secular
Democracy.
In the inaugural speech of this convention, former
member of Planning Commission and well known
political analyst, Sh. Rajni Kothari stressfully
advocated for “Democracy against Mobocracy”,
while Eminent Sarvoday leader Sh. Narayanbhai
Desai appealed for “Unity against Autocracy”.
At this juncture, we would like to acquaint you with
the five resolutions passed in this founding
convention which reflects its commitment towards
constitutional values as well as its dream &
understanding of the new society:
1.Resolution on Movement for Secular
Democracy.
2.Appeal to stop to vitiate the public life for petty
vote bank politics
3.Call to carry forward the struggle of Social
Reform
4.Call to provide dignity and fearlessness to the
women
5. Future programme and organization.
This movement which started on 21st February,
1993 took an innumerable programme among
students, youths, women and other sections of the
society to spread Secular democratic values and
openly and courageously presented its views on all
social, political and economic issues. This
movement exposed the communal attitude and
decisions of several groups and the State Govt.’s
machinery after 1993. Further it also continued the
campaign to protect Secular Democracy against
these attacks. The Carnage of 2002 posed a
Challenge to Movement for Secular Democracy.
We had to pass through a very critical period to
save the Civil Society from an all out communal
attack. But in this trying period, MSD made all to
rally round all the democratic and secular forces
and raised the voice against irresponsible and
35
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
communal attitude of the ruling party in the State
with all intensity.
Further it thrived to create a consensus over
rehabilitation and justice to the carnage victims.
In 2002, we have experienced total breakdown of
law and order in Gujarat. The intensity of the
activism & advocacy of Movement for Secular
Democracy in 2002 has obviously annoyed the
communal elements and those elements who
wanted to reap political mileage out of communal
identity. But ‘Justice’ for the 2002 Carnage victims
and desire of ‘Peace and Amity’ in the society has
been the main slogan of Movement for Secular
Democracy to which it firmly adhered till this date.
This Movement has also actively participated in
Human Rights and Civil Liberties Movements
since last 20 years with Peoples’ Union for Civil
Liberties (P.U.C.L.) and other organizations. The
Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (P.U.C.L.) is
well known Civil Liberty voluntary organization
founded jointly by Loknayak Jayprakash Narayan
and Justice Tarkunde. It is quite shocking that such
a reputed Civil Liberty Organization has been
linked with N.G.O. and foreign funds in the report
of Intelligence Bureau.
We strongly feel that presently also there is a long
way to go for campaign and awareness about
Secular culture and Rule of Law in Gujarat and the
country.
In short, we reiterate again our deep trust in Secular
Democracy inscribed in our Constitution for a
healthy society in our country to thwart the
atmosphere of political misuse of communal
identity. We also appeal you to take measures to
scrap this report of Intelligence Bureau intended to
malign the image of the organizations and muzzle
the people’s voice of dissent.
We are the signatories:
Prakash N. Shah Chunibhai Vaidya
A.D. Shukla Abhinav Shukla Akhilesh Dave
Alpesh Bhavsar Ami Parikh Arun Panchal
Ashok Gupta Ashok Punjabi Ashokkumar
Shrivastav
Badribhai Joshi Bakul Rashtrapal Baldevbhai K.
Patel
Bharat Makwana Bhavik Raja Binit Modi
Bipin Shroff Budhdhidhan Trivedi Cedric Prakash
(Prashant)
Chinu Shrinivasan Daniel Macwan Dankesh Oza
Dasharath Shrimali Dheerubhai Rupareliya Dilip
Chandulal
Deepak Dholakia Deepak Vyas Dr. Damini Shah
Dr. J.S. Bandukwala Dr. Jharna Pathak Dr. Mallika
Sarabhai
Dr. Saroop Dhruv Dr.Ila Joshi Dr.Trupti Shah
Dwarika Nath Rath Gagan Shethi Ganpat Rathod
Gautam Thaker Ghanshyam P. Chavda Girish Patel
Govind Joshi Gulam Mohammad Sheikh H.P.
Mishra
Harshida Dave Hemal Jadav Hemantkumar Shah
Hiren Chauhan Hiren Gandhi Ikram Mirza
Jagdish Patel Jagdish Shah Jatin Sheth
Jayesh Patel Jimmy Dhabi Jitendrakumar Shah
K.M.Kapure K.P. Sasi Kamalesh Bhavsar
Kamlesh Oza Kamayani Bali Mahipal Kantilal
Dabhi
Kaushik Joshi Ketan Rupera Kumar Prashant
Lankesh Chakravarty Loknad Madhu Prasad
Mahadev Vidrohi Mahesh Pandya Manishi Jani
Manjibhai Rawal Meenakshi Joshi Mehul Trivedi
Nita Mahadev Muniza Khan N.R. Malik
Naresh M.Vaghela Neerad Vidrohi Nirav Patel
Pallavi Patel Pankaj Bhatt Persis Ginwalla
Prasad Chacko Pravin M Shah Prof. Abid Shamsi
Dr. Dhanraj Pandit Prof. Dhaval Mehta Prof.
Dinesh Shukla
Prof. J I Laliwala Prof. Kanu Khadadiya Prof.
Rohitbhai Shukla
Prof.Ghanshyam Shah Prof.R. D. Desai Prof.Swati
Joshi
Prof.Yogendra Yadav R.R.Soman Rajesh
36
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
Ramkrishnan
Rajmohan Gandhi Ram Puniyani Ramesh Borisa
Romila Thaper Ranjit Gadhvi Rasik R. Shah
Renu Khanna Rimmi Vaghela S.H. Mansuri
Saraben Baldiwala Sevantilal Modi Shukla Sen
Shwetangini S.Patel Smita Parmar Subhash Joshi
Sukhdev Patel Suryaben Shah Timir V. Amin
Ushaben Pandit Uttam Parmar Vasant D.
Brahmbhatt
Vijay Dave Vikram Savai Vinubhai Amin
Vismay Shah Y. G. Goswami Yaqub Kothariya
Yashavantbhai Trivedi Zakia Somani
IV
“Civil society groups assertfreedom of expression, assembly
and association. Demand thatgovernment should respond to
the malicious IB report”We, as individuals, people’s organizations, citizens
groups, trade unions and mass movements came
together on June 26, 2014 at Indian Social Institute,
New Delhi to reiterate our deep conviction about
the importance of preserving and nurturing spaces
for social dissent and the freedoms of association,
assembly and expression as the essential hallmarks
of a democratic society.
Indian social life has been enriched greatly by the
wide and rich variety of engagements of people’s
organizations, committed to just, equitable and
sustainable development, peace, social justice and
gender, class, caste and communal equality; and
issues ranging from the rights of marginalised
communities, dalits and tribal rights, gender rights,
religious minorities, sexual minorities, disability,
displacement, homelessness, forest rights, right to
food and health, environment and ecosystem and
human rights, secularism, welfare and rights, and
transnational corporations and their impact, and
increasing poverty in the country.
In this context, the gathering expressed its disquiet
and concern over the report of Indian Intelligence
Bureau (IB) on the role of development
organizations, people’s movements, human rights
organizations, and peace and justice activists. This
report which made shrill and unsubstantiated
claims was deliberately leaked to spur a medial
trial, and is therefore a barely disguised official
attempt to discourage and intimidate the
democratic rights of citizens to express dissent with
dominant state policies and to protest. The report
particularly targets organizations which question
the corporate-led development model and the
nuclear policy, and champion environmental and
labour rights. We are dismayed by the dubious
manner with which the Indian Intelligence Bureau
has maligned, demonised and criminalised many
greatly respected social activists and groups in this
country who have committed their lives for a social
cause.
We see this move as an attempt to restrict
democratic space for civil society action and
silence dissenting voices of individuals,
organizations, social movements and trade unions.
It is also an attempt to stifle the voices of the
defenders of human rights who represent the
voiceless, marginalised sections of the society. We
strongly feel that it is our right and moral duty to
collectively raise and represent the voice of
invisible majority of this country. We endorse the
statements of Greenpeace, People’s Union for Civil
Liberties (PUCL), MazdoorKisan Shakti
Sangathan (MKSS), Navdanya,
Concerned Citizens and others and express our
complete solidarity with them and the fears and
apprehensions they have raised to be faced by the
civil society groups in future.
The Supreme Court of India’s judgments have also
upheld from time to time the constitutionality of the
rights of dissent and free expression. These also
find affirmation in many recent international
frameworks of the United Nations and its Special
Rapporteurs. In the last couple of years
37
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
engagement of mainstream media and social media
with the pressing social and economic issues has
taken place on enormous scale despite the
increasing control of corporate houses on media.
Therefore we believe that the attacks of this nature
especially the IB’s current report is essentially a
handiwork of both transnationals and big Indian
business interests driven by profit motive.
We are also concerned with the accountability of
institutions like the Intelligence Bureau which till
today functions within an indeterminate legal
framework. This assumes all the more importance
in the prevailing national scenario where the
national security management policy has been
purposefully left ambiguous and therefore remains
undefined. We also demand that report of the L.P.
Singh Committee instituted after the emergency in
1977 on the misuse of intelligence agencies should
be made public.
We, as part of civil society groups simultaneously
uphold the value of transparency within this sector
whether we are locally funded or foreign funded
organizations.
We demand that the present government should
either own or at least respond to the parentage of
this IB Report which to our knowledge was
initiated by the past UPA government.
We are also striving for an open-ended platform,
broad alliance and solidarity across all sections of
the society and especially those engaged in the
fight for equality, equity, secularism, pluralism,
right to association, right to assembly and freedom
of expression. Therefore, we now stand united at
this critical stage in all solidarity at the local and
national levels with all those organizations
mentioned in the IB Report with a sense of hope
and not despair.
We have decided to initiate a Secretariat to be
based temporarily in Indian Social Institute (ISI),
New Delhi to assist Human Rights Defenders with
about 20 advisors representing various thematic
engagements. Any individual or organization in
any part of the country who feel aggrieved by any
action which infringes their right to assembly and
association, freedom of expression are invited to
approach the Secretariat for further course of
action, including legal action for which we shall
also form a legal defence fund.
We are giving a collective nationwide call for
diverse course of action at the district and state
levels on August 9, 2014 to mark the celebration of
our assertion and celebration of public action
reclaiming the republic with its core ideas of
freedom, pluralism, just, sustainable and equitable
development, and peace, across the country.
—Public Statement Issued in Gujarat by Gautam
Thaker, General Secretary, PUCL (Gujarat)
V
Levi Fragell To Be Honoured byK. Veramani, Chancellor, PMU,
Tamil Nadu
Levi Fragell, former President of IHEU and former
Secretary General of Norwegian Humanist
Association will be honored with an honourary
degree of D.Litt by Periyar Mianammai University,
Tamilnad, India on July 4, 2014.
Dr. G. Vijayam, Executive Director, Atheist
Centre, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh will be
accompanying Levi Fragell to all other
programmes in Tamilnadu.
—News sent by G. Vijayam
Mob: +91 9848458220
www.atheistcentre.in
38
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
39
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
An Appeal to the ReadersIndian Renaissance Institute has been receiving regular requests from readers, research scholars,
Rationalists and Radical Humanists for complete sets of books written by M.N. Roy. It was not possible
to fulfil their demands as most of Roy's writings are out of print. IRI has now decided to publish them but
will need financial assistance from friends and well-wishers as the expenses will be enormous running
into lakhs. IRI being a non-profit organization will not be able to meet the entire expenses on its own.
Initially, following 15 books have been ordered for print: New Humanism; Beyond Communism;
Politics, Power and Parties; Historical Role of Islam; India’s Message; Men I Met; New Orientation;
Materialism; Science & Philosophy; Revolution and Counter-revolution in China; India in Transition;
Reason, Romanticism and Revolution; Russian Revolution; Selected Works-Four Volumes; Memoirs
(Covers period1915-1923).
Cheques /bank drafts may be sent in the name of ‘Indian Renaissance Institute’ at (address):
Shri B.D. Sharma, Advocate, Chamber No.111 (Old), Supreme Court, New Delhi-110001
Online donations may be sent to: ‘Indian Renaissance Institute’
Account No: 02070100005296; FISC Code: UCBA0000207
UCO Bank, Supreme Court Branch, New Delhi (India)
We make an earnest appeal to you to please donate liberally for the cause of the spirit of renaissance and
scientific thinking being promoted in the writings of M.N. Roy.
Thanking you
B.D. Sharma N.D. Pancholi, Narottam Vyas
President (IRI) Secretary (IRI) Treasurer (IRI)
Please register yourself on the RH Website (http://www.theradicalhumanist.com)
¨Please log in to it to give your comments on the articles and humanist news which are uploaded from the world
over on the Website almost daily. ¨You may also send in news and write-ups from your part of the land for
uploading on the Website. ¨Please send in your views and participate on the topics of debate given in the debate
section. You yourself may also begin a debate on any topic of your choice in this section. ¨Please suggest themes
for the coming issues of The Radical Humanist, discuss them in the Themes Section of the Website; the content of
which may be later published in the RH journal. ¨It is your own inter-active portal formed with a purpose of
social interaction amongst all Radical Humanists as well as Rationalists and Humanists from different forums
also. ¨Do make it a practice to click on the RH Website http://www.theradicalhumanist.com URL daily,
ceremoniously. ¨Please utilise the RH Website to come closer for the common cause of ushering in a renaissance
in our country. —Rekha S.
40
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
—THE RADICAL HUMANIST SUBSCRIPTION FORM–
The Manager,
The Radical HumanistC/o Mr. Narottam Vyas (Treasurer)Chamber No. 111,(Near Post Office) Supreme Court of India,Delhi-110001
Dear Sir,
I/We wish to be enrolled as subscriber/s for The Radical Humanist for a period of oneyear/two years/three years/life.
Name...........................................................................................................Address........................................................................................................Phone No...........................................E-mail..................................................
—THE RADICAL HUMANIST SUBSCRIPTION RATES—
In SAARC Countries:
For one year-Rs. 200.00;
For two years-Rs. 350.00
For three years-Rs. 500.00;
Life subscription-Rs. 2000.00
(Life subscription is only for individual subscribers and not for institutions.)
Cheques should be in favor of The Radical Humanist. For outstation cheques: Please add Rs.
55.00 to the total. In other Countries: Annual subscription (Air Mail) $ 100.00; GBP 75.00
Note: Direct transfer of subscription amount from abroad may be sent to:
SWIFT Code: CNRB0000349, MICR Code: 110015012 in the Current Account Number
0349201821034 at Canara Bank, Maharani Bagh, New Delhi, 1100014, India.
Cheques and money transfer details may be sent to: Mr. Narottam Vyas (Treasurer), Chamber
No. 111, (Near Post Office) Supreme Court of India, New Delhi-110001, Ph. Chamber
91-11-23782836, Res. 91-11-22712434, Mob. 09811944600
THE RADICAL HUMANIST JULY 2014
It was held from 14th to 15th June, 2014 at Radical Humanist Centre,
Inkollu, Praksam (Distt), A.P. (Details given on pages 30-32)
Photographs from the 83rd Annual Conference of Rationalist Association of
India & 18th Biennial conference of A.P. Rationalist Association
Post Office Regd. No. Meerut-146-2012-2014RNI No. 43049/85
To be posted on 10th of every monthAt H.P.O. Meerut Cantt.
RENAISSANCE PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LIMITED
15, Bankim Chatterjee Street (2nd floor), Kolkata: 700 073,
Mobile: 9831261725
NEW FROM RENAISSANCE
By SIBNARAYAN RAY
Between Renaissance and Revolution-Selected Essays: Vol. I- H.C.350.00
In Freedom’s Quest: A Study of the Life and Works of M.N. Roy:
Vol.Ill H.C.250.00
Against the Current - H.C.350.00
By M.N. ROY
Science and Superstition - H.C.125.00
AWAITED OUTSTANDING PUBLICATIONS
By RABINDRANATH TAGORE & M.N. ROY
Nationalism - H.C.150.00
By M.N. ROY
The Intellectual Roots of Modern Civilization - H.C.150.00
The Russian Revolution - P.B.140.00
The Tragedy of Communism - H.C.180.00
From the Communist Manifesto - P.B.100.00
To Radical Humanism - H.C.140.00
Humanism, Revivalism and the Indian Heritage - P.B. 140.00
By SIVANATH SASTRI
A History of The Renaissance in Bengal
—Ramtanu Lahiri: Brahman & Reformer H.C.180.00
By SIBNARAYAN RAY
Gandhi, Gandhism and Our Times (Edited) - H.C.200.00
The Mask and The Face (Jointly Edited with Marian Maddern) - H.C.200.00
Sane Voices for a Disoriented Generation (Edited) - P.B. 140.00
From the Broken Nest to Visvabharati - P.B.120.00
The Spirit of the Renaissance - P.B.150.00
Ripeness is All - P.B. 125.00
By ELLEN ROY
From the Absurdity to Creative Rationalism - P.B. 90.00
By V. M. TARKUNDE
Voice of A Great Sentinel - H.C.175.00
By SWARAJ SENGUPTA
Reflections - H.C 150.00
Science, Society and Secular Humanism - H.C. 125.00
By DEBALINA BANDOPADHYAY
The Woman-Question and Victorian Novel - H.C. 150.00
Published and printed by Mr. N.D. Pancholi on behalf of Indian Renaissance Instituteat S-1 Plot 617 Shalimar Garden Extension I, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad-201005
Printed by Nageen Prakashan Pvt. Ltd., W. K. Road, Meerut, 250002Editor-Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8, Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001