SACW | 12-13 Jul 2004
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Jul 12 20:48:29 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 12-13 July, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Pakistan: The anti-woman drive of the Multi
Mullah Alliance (Mohammad Shehzad)
[2] Pakistan: MMA bars govt employees from
attending music parties (Iqbal Khattak)
[3] India / Diaspora: Lunch with a bigot (Amitava Kumar)
[4] Bangladesh: Death threats by fanatics condemned
[5] India: Attacked Indian Scribes Demand Arrest of Politicians (Rahul Verma)
[6] India: Petition to Urge Gujarat govt. re social science textbooks
[7] India: Goa's Confrontation with the Past (Constantino Hermanns Xavier)
[8] India: Anti-superstition bill gathers dust (Suyash Padate)
[9] India: Cow slaughter banned in Jharkhand State
[10] India: Remembering M N Roy (Sumanta Banerjee)
--------------
[1]
----Forwarded Message----
Date: 12 Jul 2004 17:16:35 -0000
To: aiindex at mnet.fr
From: Yogi Sikand <ysikand at islaminterfaith.org>
Subject: Women under MMA Fire in Pakistan: Mohammad Shehzad
Women under MMA fire
Mohammad Shehzad
The anti-woman drive of Muttehida Majlise Amal
[MMA-an alliance of six pro-Taliban religious
parties that rules Pakistan's backward Northwest
Frontier Province-NWFP] has taken a new turn. MMA
clerics are coming up with satanic ideas to
marginalize women from all segments of the
society.
Recently, a group of clerics called on the
management of a posh hotel in Peshawar and gave
it a month's ultimatum to fire all the female
employees of the hotel, a senior management
official told this correspondent.
"The clerics were the local religious leaders and
claimed to be emissaries of the NWFP chief
minister Akram Durrani. They accused the hotel
management of promoting adultery by hiring female
massagers, guest-relations officer [GROs],
public-relations executives [PREs], receptionists
and aerobic instructors," said the official.
"Your female massagers are prostitutes of
heeramandi [the red-light area of Lahore]. One
of your female employees is a well-known pimp.
You supply your PREs and GROs to your guests and
thus make a lot of money. You better fire all of
them, otherwise the danda-bardar [baton-force]
mujahideen of MMA will ransack your hotel. We
have just defaced the women's faces on the
billboard. If you did not fire these gushtian
[prostitutes] who are working in the guise of
"executives", we will deface their pretty faces
with acids and they will not be able to lure
your guests," was the warning delivered to the
hotel management.
To probe what had prompted the MMA clerics to
approach the hotel management, this
correspondent spoke to Mrs Yasmin [not real
name], one of the female massagers. "A cleric of
MMA came to me for massage without making prior
appointment. I told him that I was not free and
he could have a massage by other colleague, he
refused and started shouting. Despite his
hooliganism, I agreed to massage him. When I was
massaging him, all of a sudden he grabbed me and
tried to behave indecently. I pushed him back and
spat on his face. He became furious and accused
me of enticing and seducing him. He created a
scene at the spot and warned the hotel management
of its dire consequence. He said that he was an
influential member of MMA and the hotel will
have to pay a very heavy price for this
misbehavior," Mrs Yasmin said.
"The so-called delegation of clerics has been
sent by the same devil. In fact, the same cleric
called me up and said that if I would sleep with
him, he would withdraw the threat and the job of
other women will not be in jeopardy," Mrs Yasmin
added.
"The cleric is preaching that God will be pleased
with me if I agree to his lustful demands
because by doing so I will save the job of dozens
of my female colleagues. If I refused, I will be
committing their economic murder. In this sense,
therefore, sleeping with him will not be a sin
but a noble deed," Mrs Yasmin revealed.
Unfortunately the hotel management bought the
cleric's philosophy. It pressurized Yasmin to
agree to the cleric's demands in lieu of
additional remuneration, promotion and special
bonuses. Yasmin refused the tendered her
resignation. She is now working in a five-star
hotel in Islamabad. The hotel management managed
to placate the clerics anger by offering him a
great gorgeous gal from heeramandi. The cleric
has been offered free membership to the massage
parlor!
Commenting on Yasmin's ordeal, a sociologist
said: "It seems MMA wants the NWFP to make a
province of men. All its policies have so far
been anti-woman be it the ban on music and
dance, modeling, female sports, co-education,
observance of veil, etc. MMA clerics are really
great monsters. May God save us from their
evils!"
_____
[2]
Daily Times
July 10, 2004
MMA bars govt employees from attending music parties
By Iqbal Khattak
PESHAWAR: The North West Frontier Province led by
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has barred
government employees from attending music and
dance functions. A notification issued by the
Establishment Department on June 28 said, "No
government servant will attend such functions and
meetings in which Islamic moral values are not
regarded or which are in violation of such values
like functions of music and dancing by women." It
is however not clear whether the employees are
exempted from attending wedding ceremonies where
music is played and people dance. The
notification is the latest in the series of steps
the MMA has taken to fight what it called
"immoral activities" since it took power in
November 2002. Last year, the six-party religious
alliance also made the provincial government
employees offer regular prayers during office
times. The religious parties consider music and
dance "un-Islamic". Reacting to the notification,
a Grade-19 bureaucrat said, "What does the
government have to do with my private life. After
duty hours, no one can ask me where I am going
and what I am doing." Another senior government
employee described the notification as
"encroachment on the human rights of an
individual".
_____
[3]
Seminar [India], June 2004
Lunch with a bigot
by AMITAVA KUMAR
URL: www.india-seminar.com/2004/538/538%20amitava%20kumar.htm
_____
[4]
The Daily Star [Bangladesh]
July 13, 2004
Death threats by fanatics condemned
Staff Correspondent
Different political parties and professional
organisations yesterday condemned the death
threats issued by an Islamist outfit to political
leaders, journalists and intellectuals.
They also demanded arrest of and exemplary
punishment to the persons responsible.
The Islamist outfit, Mujahideen al-Islam, issued
death threats to 10 prominent politicians,
intellectuals and journalists on Sunday accusing
them of acting against Islam and its efforts to
turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state.
Protesting the death threats, the leaders of
Workers Party of Bangladesh urged the
non-communal, progressive and democratic forces
to come forward to protect the country from the
Islamist zealots.
They also called on the people to unite to topple
the BNP-Jamaat alliance government.
In a statement, the Committee for Eliminating the
Killers and Collaborators of '71 said the
government has turned a blind eye to the
activities of the militant groups, encouraging
them to be more violent.
The signatories to the statement included
National Professor Kabir Chowdhury, Barrister
Shawkat Ali Khan, Advocate Gaziul Haque,
journalist Kamal Lohani, Prof Panna Kaisar and
artists Rafiqun Nabi and Hashem Khan.
In another statement, Dhaka University Teachers'
Association (Duta) said progressive teachers,
journalists and political activists are the
targets of the attack, but the government is not
taking any step against the fanatics.
The Duta also demanded security for Prof Abul
Barakat, Muntasir Mamun, MM Akash, Humayun Azad
and other teachers and political activists.
Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) said the law and order
situation has deteriorated alarmingly and nobody
has security of life.
_____
[5]
OneWorld South Asia, 09 July 2004
Attacked Indian Scribes Demand Arrest of Politicians
Rahul Verma
NEW DELHI, July 9 (OneWorld) - Journalists are
demanding the arrest of senior leaders of India's
just deposed ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), for their alleged role in an attack
on a newspaper that has often been critical of
them.
The attack took place last week, two days after
the eveninger Mahanagar published a report on
pilgrims on a holy tour who sought sex-workers in
the western Indian city of Pune.
A group of men reportedly belonging to the BJP
raided the newspaper, ransacking the office and
attacking three journalists -- Yuvraj Mohite,
Jayesh Shirsat and Vaishali Rode.
The attack has been condemned by journalists'
bodies in and outside India. This week, the
global organization Reporters sans Frontières
(RSF) expressed concern over the attack in
Mumbai, the capital of the western Indian state
of Maharashtra.
"The young BJP militants who invaded the
newspaper offices on 29 June were looking for the
editor, Nikhil Wagle, who was out of the office
at the time," says RSF. "Frustrated by his
absence, they turned on the journalists who were
there. The newspaper's premises stand opposite a
police post, but the security forces did not
intervene," it adds.
Though eight members of the BJP have been
arrested, senior Mumbai journalists such as
Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand and Mahanagar editor
Wagle point out that key state leaders of the
party who egged their members on are still free.
"The attack was a planned one," says Wagle.
The editor stresses that senior leaders of the
BJP -- which was the ruling partner in the
coalition government that was swept out of power
in the parliamentary elections in April-May --
have gone on record to say the party was behind
the attack.
Though the story on the pilgrims was said to have
been the immediate provocation for the assault,
Wagle believes BJP members were waiting for any
pretext to attack the Mahanagar office.
"We feel the attack on us is a result of the
ideological clash between our paper and the BJP,"
says Wagle. He points out that those who raided
the premises of the paper said they were doing so
because of its "pro-Muslim" stance and "anti-BJP"
stories.
Wagle adds that the party "was angry with our
coverage," of the parliamentary elections.
Mumbai journalists Setalvad and Anand, editors of
the political magazine, Communalism Combat,
believe the attack is "a cynical and sinister
build-up" to state elections slated to be held in
Maharashtra later this year.
"The intolerance of the fanatic strikes again,"
the two editors say in a statement. "Mahanagar
has been known for its fearless struggle against
intolerance," they add.
This was the fifth attack on Mahanagar in 15
years, allegedly by members of the BJP and its
partner in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena. The RSF
points out that nobody has been punished so far.
"The planned attack was against a media that has
repeatedly stood out against the growing
extremism of certain political parties," says the
international press freedom organization.
Two days after the attack, a delegation of
journalists called on Maharashtra Chief Minister
Sushil Kumar Shinde - the elected head of the
state government - and demanded the arrest of all
those behind the attack.
The case is now being probed by the state
Criminal Investigating Department. But Wagle does
not believe any of the senior leaders of the BJP
will be punished.
"As far as we are concerned, this is a
professional hazard," he says. "But we will go on
writing," he adds.
The RSF points out that in the past six months,
crews working for the television channels Zee
News and Sahara have also been attacked in Mumbai.
______
[6]
ASHA Petition: Urge Gujarat govt. to improve
quality of their social science textbooks
ASHA has been very closely involved with
education for over a decade. We feel that a
systematic assessment of the quality of text
books is necessary to really understand what the
children are subjected to in schools.
Enclosed please find some details about the work
we have been doing in the systematic review of
Gujarat state board text books. We started this
exercise of reviewing text books after we heard
complaints about the quality of the social
studies text books in Gujarat.
Please sign the petition:
<http://www.petitiononline.com/gtb2004/petition.html>http://www.petitiononline.com/gtb2004/petition.html
______
[7]
GOA'S CONFRONTATION WITH THE PAST
Goan Observer [India], 10 July 2004
http://www.goanobserver.com
By Constantino Hermanns Xavier
THE RECENT weeks in Goa and on Goan cyberspace
have once again shown the passionate and even
violent reactions the simple word "Portugal"
provokes within the Goan society. This debate,
though monopolized by radical minority groups on
both pro and anti-Portuguese side, testifies the
importance of this issue to Goa, though many had
thought the colonial period is long forgotten
and buried in a distant cemetery.
It is striking that many insist upon the concept
of "superiority" to legitimatise their argument.
The ongoing debate, explicit or not, on who is
superior is a biased debate, depending on the
subjective criteria each human being has in
terms of expectations, wishes and hopes. A
so-called Goan "academician" from London even
wrote, "it is pay-back time to the Portuguese",
showing how deep constructed myths (or simply
hatred) are rooted.
I am the first one to admit that the Portuguese
colonial period was marked by brutal episodes of
mass conversion, of violation of essential Human
Rights, and denial of basic civic rights. But we
are also forced to admit that those practices
were recurrent in those times, where the ruler
would impose its rule, religion and values, just
as the Vijayanagar Empire and the Bijapur
dynasty had done before in Goa. And we have to
draw a line, accepting that Portugal has changed
and is not the dictatorial country that ruled
Goa autocratically before 1961.
This pain of the past takes time to heal and is
sometimes a painful process. I admire those
courageous freedom fighters who have been able to
draw this line between the Portuguese
dictatorial regime and Portuguese culture that
so deeply influenced Goa. But the simpler
alternative chosen by a radical Goan minority is
to deny History, and thus deny our own spirit and
our own essence.
As a second-generation Goan, raised in an
economically developed country such as Portugal,
but frequently exposed to Asian background, I
presume that I am in a position to compare both
Goa and Portugal. And paradoxically, I refuse to
compare them. Distinct societies, Goa and
Portugal, both offer distinct advantages and
disadvantages. Though I admit that quality of
life may still be better in Lisbon (in terms of
health assistance, education, transport etc.),
Goa is changing fast and offers exciting
challenges and the benefits of being a
culturally and socially far more attractive
society than the Portuguese. This is my opinion,
of course. For me, Goa is superior to Portugal.
Having limited the concept of superiority to the
individual sphere, we are still confronted in
our daily life with social clusters in Goa that
manipulate this concept, explicitly or
unconsciously. For a fading minority, educated
during the Portuguese period, time is running
out. They today feel Portuguese in an Indian
Goa, as they have always felt. India is a strange
concept to them, a one to which they never really
have adapted. But this is only a tiny minority
without any political or even cultural expression.
So what motivates the recent noise coming from
the other antagonistic cluster, the growing (in
loudness, but also in number, unfortunately)
radical anti-Portuguese minority? What motivates
the Nagrik Kruti Samiti to spread mud on the
historic and recently renovated Tonca Pillar and
illegally and violently vandalise historic
nameplates in a protected area such as
Fontainhas? What motivates so many undercover
pseudo-intellectuals in and outside Goa to
describe the Goans supporting the Portuguese
national football team during Euro 2004 as
"un-patriotic"?
It is fear, sometimes fuelled by religious
fundamentalism and historic revisionism. Though
the anti-Portuguese lobby has always existed
after 1961 (one remembers the bitter opposition
of some to the peaceful visit of Gen. Vassallo e
Silva), it has grown in expression in
contemporary Goa. Instead of seeing in it a
menace to the cohesion of the Goan society, I
risk seeing in it precisely the proof of a new,
vibrant and emerging Goan civil society. The
violent methods chosen by this minority are their
last frustrated breaths to impose a totalitarian
perspective on a Goan community that is maturing
and confronting constructively with its
historical legacy. This new generation, is
observed in various areas. With an objective
outlook, this generation has no taboos in
looking back. Though conscious of the negative
aspects of colonialism, emphasis is put on the
positive aspects of the past.
This new generation of Goans is not restricted
to a certain age group, though more visible
within the younger Goans. It's more than a
generation phenomenon, being visible in arts,
politics or literature, with people of different
ages, all sharing a same perspective on Goa's
past, and thus on Goa's future. Instead of
denying and cursing the past, the colonial legacy
is seized as Goa's own heritage.
This rediscovering of a distinct Goan identity,
comfortable with its past and confident about
its future, has been supported by a new method in
political participation. Goan social movements,
or organized non-governmental organizations,
have been the most visible face of this revival,
closing, at least punctually, the gap separating
the electorate from the misrepresentation and
instability of the traditional political
parties-both national and regional ones.
It is my belief that it is precisely this
maturing Goan civil society that motivates these
last violent breathes of a so-called
anti-Portuguese minority that, in the end, is
nothing else than anti-Goan. The gross majority
of the Goan society is moving in bold steps
towards the future, with a firm outlook on the
past. Let us hope this refreshening tendency will
not succumb to the noise and violence of a small
minority fearing a more mature and confident Goa.
______
[8]
Tehelka [India]
July 17, 2004
Anti-superstition bill gathers dust
Suyash Padate
Mumbai
Dattu Kotwal was found dead, hanging from a tree
in Shilavani village of Marathawada region in
Maharashtra. Initially the police registered a
suicide case. Later, it was found that he was
killed because villagers thought he practiced
witchcraft.
In order to curb such incidents, in July 2003,
the Maharashtra government passed the draft
proposal of a landmark anti-superstition law. It
was meant to crack down on fraudsters duping
people in the name of religion and superstition.
The legislation was sent to the Central
government for its formal approval. But since
then, nothing has happened.
The efforts of the Maharashtra Andha-shradha
Nirmulan Samiti (superstition eradication
committee) helped the drafting of the bill. The
Samiti, led by Dr Naren-dra Dabholkar, stands for
public awareness against superstitions like
witchcraft, ghost-hunting, miracles, supernatural
powers and paranormal claims. The Samiti has even
busted the racket of a fraudster godman.
Dabholkar and his colleagues have been demanding
such a law for over a decade.
"We are not against any belief or superstition.
We are against the use of such superstitions or
beliefs to cheat people. The Indian Penal Code
(ipc) lacked any section or provision that
punished people for cheating in the name of
belief. The new bill was meant to bridge that
gap," Dabholkar says. "When we asked the
government about the delay (Despite the Centre's
go-ahead) we were told that they needed some
amendments in the draft," he adds.
"As per the request of the state government we
made some technical changes in the draft. Now
this draft will be presented in the both the
Houses of the legislature. The next session of
the Assembly will obviously be held after
elections in September-October. We are not ready
to wait for four-five months more," Dabholkar
declares.
The government seems unmoved. State Law Minister
Govindrao Adik says, "Some contents of the bill
involve aspects of the ipc and the Criminal
Procedure Code (crpc). They require the Central
government's clearance. But we thought by making
few minor technical changes we could enforce the
law in the state itself. Accordingly, we informed
this to Samiti. Now the Samiti has given the
amended draft, which can be converted into a law
with the formal approval of both the Houses. This
is a lengthy process."
Till that lengthy process is completed,
Maharash-tra can stay in the clutches of babas
and maharajs.
_____
[9]
Asian News International via Yahoo India news
June 30, 2004
Cow slaughter banned in Jharkhand
Ranchi, June 30 (ANI): Cow slaughter has been
banned in Jharkhand. The decision was announced
by the ruling coalition led by Bharatiya Janata
Party which met in state capital Ranchi and
decided to bring an ordinance soon to the effect.
"We have decided to take an important step to ban
the cow slaughter in the state. There have been
many reports of cow slaughter. So the state
government decided to impose a ban on the cow
slaughter to stop any incidents of killing of
cows," Arjun Munda, Jharkhand chief minister,
told newsmen.
Cow slaughter is banned in most states, except
Kerala, West Bengal and the seven states of the
northeast. The northeast is dominated by
Christians and non-Hindu tribes people and beef
-- much cheaper there than mutton or chicken-is a
vital source of protein.(ANI)
_____
[10]
The Economic and Political Weekly
July 03, 2004
Commentary
Remembering M N Roy
Despite the mercurial political swings that
characterised his life, M N Roy remained
consistent in his quest for India's
'psychological revolution and moral regeneration'
based on his conception of a 'radical humanism'.
His theoretical propositions on a variety of
political issues retain their relevance even
today.
by Sumanta Banerjee
This year is the 50th death anniversary of
Manabendra Nath Roy (1887-1954), the
controversial ideologue and revolutionary of the
international communist movement. Generally
reviled by Indian communist politicians, and only
revered by a small group of his devoted admirers,
Roy is yet to receive the recognition that he
deserves as an original thinker. Much of his
reputation remains mired in allegations of
unscrupulous behaviour in his personal and
political life, and marred by criticism of the
failure of his political experiments in China (in
1927), and later in his homeland India. The acts
of some of his followers further tarnished his
image in the cold war period, when in their
opposition to the distortion and dehumanisation
of the Soviet socialist system they went to the
other extreme of totally identifying themselves
with the US warmongers.
But it is about time that we take a fresh look at
M N Roy, clearing his image of the cobwebs of
prejudices born out of accusations - some
genuine, some false - which have tended to push
his otherwise outstanding contributions into
oblivion. A revaluation of Roy is necessary not
only for historians engaged in a more objective
analysis of the world communist movement during
the 1920-30 period, but also for today's
generation of left intellectuals and activists.
They may discover in Roy's later writings
anticipatory echoes of their present concerns,
and alternative points of view that may be
relevant in their search for more democratic and
insightful means to reach the goal of socialism.
Roy's life reads like an adventure on two levels
- one of a revolutionary meteor flying up in the
skies as it were, bedazzling the observers, and
the other of a restless soul down below rowing in
the rough sea of politics, moving from one
political harbour to another in his ideological
odyssey. Born as Narendra Nath Bhattacharya in a
rural home, he joined the anti-colonial armed
revolutionary movement in Bengal at the age of 18
(1905), and when the first world war broke out,
he clandestinely left for abroad in search of
weapons and armaments to be smuggled into India
for an armed insurrection against the British.
This journey took him to Japan and then the US
where he took the name of Manabendra Nath Roy and
married an American radical woman Evelyn Trent
who contributed considerably towards the
transition of Roy from a militant nationalist to
a Marxist theoretician and activist. In 1917,
both fled to Mexico, which was a turning point in
Roy's political career. Here he got involved in
Mexico's radical politics, studied Marx, became a
communist, propagated Marxism among the Mexicans,
and in 1919, founded the El Paretido Communista
de Mexico - the first communist party there. This
was followed a year later by a message from Lenin
inviting him to attend the second Comintern
Congress at Moscow, where the 33-year old Roy
dared to express his differences with Lenin on
the tactics to be adopted by communists towards
the 'national bourgeoisie' in the colonies in
their struggle for independence as well as a
future socialist society. Impressed by the young
Indian's arguments, Lenin urged him to formulate
a supplementary thesis on the national and
colonial question - which along with Lenin's -
was adopted by the 1920 Comintern Congress (a
sign of the democratic acceptance of dissident
views in the international communist movement in
those days). Soon after this, the Comintern sent
him to Tashkent, where in 1920 Roy established
the Communist Party of India in-exile with the
help of Indian revolutionary emigres in Europe.
He also guided the new communist groups which
were operating independently in India, in their
efforts to found a communist party (which was to
come into existence in Kanpur in 1925). Along
with these activities, Roy also formulated his
theoretical perspective in his book India in
Transition (1922) and his journal The Vanguard -
both of which played a significant role in the
moulding of the consciousness of a generation of
Indian communists.
In early 1927, by when Roy had become an
important member of the Presidium of the
Comintern, he was sent to China to advise the
Chinese Communist Party. During his stay there,
around mid-1927, the main body of the Chinese
Communist Party was decimated by Chiang
Kai-shek's armed forces, and Roy returned
to Moscow in August that year - a disgraced hero.
The Comintern blamed Roy for the debacle, and
later communist historians also reiterated the
same view, stamping him with the stigma of
betrayal of the revolutionary cause in China. But
Chinese historians today have come out with
hitherto unrevealed documents about that period,
in the light of which Roy stands exonerated. To
quote one of them(based in mainland China):
"...there was no betrayal by Roy of the Chinese
revolution. On the contrary it was the failure of
the Chinese revolution which wrought Roy's
personal tragedy." He then blamed Stalin for the
stigma with which Roy had been stamped all these
years: "To find scapegoats for his own failures
was Stalin's working style. Roy had sincerely
worked for rescuing the Chinese revolution when
he was in China, which ultimately became a
nightmare for him." (Feng Chongyi - 'Betrayal or
Loyalty'? Reproduced in China Report, Vol 24,
Number 1, January-March 1988, New Delhi.)
The Comintern's unfavourable assessment of Roy's
role in China, as well as his theory of
'decolonisation' (which was severely criticised
by the sixth congress of the Comintern in 1928)
led to his isolation in the international
communist movement. The parting of ways came in
1929, when the Comintern expelled him on charges
of joining its critics - known as the communist
opposition.
Roy in India
The next year, Roy returned to India - in the
same clandestine way in which he left its shores
15 years ago - to carry out the same objective
which he had been nurturing all these years
abroad as an exile: a communist revolution in his
homeland. But ironically, the leaders of the then
CPI (many among whom were his recruits and
brought upon his theoretical treatises) now
treated him as a political pariah - just because
their mentors in Moscow had ostracised him. Even
before he could get his act together in the alien
and hostile environs that he found himself in,
Roy was arrested in July 1931. Although the
Comintern indicted Roy as a 'lackey of
imperialism' (the term used by a Comintern leader
O Kuusinen to describe Roy, at its sixth
congress), the British imperialist administrators
in India were far more enlightened than their
Comintern enemies to recognise the threat posed
to them by Roy. They charged him under Section
121 A of the Indian Penal Code ("conspiring to
deprive the king-emperor of his sovereignty in
India"). Brought manacled to the court, Roy was
not allowed to make the defence statement
prepared by him. It was smuggled out from jail
and published by the Roy defence committee of
India, New York Office, 228 Second Avenue New
York in 1932.
Entitled 'I Accuse: My Defence', Roy's statement
may touch a chord in the hearts of today's
Naxalites:
"A revolution, that is, a radical social and
economic transformation of society..is..
conditional upon the overthrow of the state
defending the established order. Consequently, by
its very nature, revolution is inseparable from
violence. The resistance of the established order
is responsible for it." At the same time,
apprehending the emergence of sectarian terrorism
(as brought about by today's religious, ethnic
and linguistic xenophobic groups), Roy made his
position clear: "..revolution is not a conspiracy
andŠconspiratorial activities are not always
necessarily revolutionaryŠ I have been opposed to
secret activities and acts of individual
terrorism. Political assassination has no place
in my theory and practice of revolution."
On January 9, 1932, Roy was sentenced to 12
years' transportation. Following strong protests
in India and abroad against the manner of Roy's
trial and the harshness of the sentence, on May
2, 1933, the Allahabad High Court reduced Roy's
sentence to six years' rigorous imprisonment. On
September 17, 1934, Albert Einstein wrote to the
British ambassador in Washington that a scholar
of M N Roy's standing should at least be given
all facilities to pursue his studies and
researches, even inside jail.
This helped Roy to embark on a vast theoretical
project during his imprisonment. His prison
manuscripts (which are preserved in the Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library in Delhi), suggest
how he moved from an unorthodox Marxist
framework to interpret the Indian reality and
seek solutions within it, to a much larger
conceptual paradigm of a cultural revolution, a
renaissance of sorts, as an alternative.
Roy's political praxis after his release was
marked by vicissitudes that often appear as
confusing and out of tune with reality. He first
joined the Congress (turning his back on his
earlier thesis that described it as a
'counter-revolutionary' force). But soon after
the outbreak of the second world war, he resigned
from the Congress on the issue of fascism, which
he felt was the more dangerous enemy at that time
than British imperialism. In 1940, he formed the
Radical Democratic Party which declared full
support for war efforts and opposition to
industrial strikes - a policy that was to be
adopted soon also by his archenemy the CPI which
in 1943 asked workers to 'regard production as
their foremost patriotic task' during the war.
After independence, Roy dissolved his party, and
founded the Renaissance Movement in 1948,
propagating the theory that a cultural
renaissance must precede a political revolution
in India.
Roy's Relevance Today
But despite these mercurial political swings, Roy
remained consistent in his ideological pursuit,
in the course of which he tried to formulate
certain theoretical propositions on a variety of
issues which still affect us today. Writing on
the caste system for instance, he anticipated the
debate that we are engaged in today. Agreeing
with the proposition that "Šthis ugly relic of
the past can be cleared away only by the secular
authority of the state", he added: "Superstitions
cannot be dispelled by legislation. When the
leaders of the nation are wedded to hoary
traditions (that is, cultural nationalism), who
will make iconoclastic laws ?" (The Marxian Way,
Vol I, No 4, March 1946). His observations after
Gandhi's death, still remain an apt and sound
assessment of the Mahatma's personality and
politics: "While conceding that the doctrine of
non-violence did represent an effort to introduce
morality in political practice, one may find it
difficult to accept the view that Gandhism allows
individual freedom, rational thinking, and
cherishes the ideal of cosmopolitanism. Blind
faith in a divine power, and also in his being
its vehicle, was the sheet-anchor of the
Mahatma's life. Therefore, for the sake of
introducing morality in political practice,
Gandhism is hardly preferable to Marxism. In
fact, the former may be more dangerous, because
of its insidiousness" (The Marxian Way, 1948-49,
Vol III, No 2). Rejecting both Gandhism and
Marxism, Roy towards the end of his life talked
of the need for a "psychological revolution and
moral regeneration.. inspired with the ideal of
freedom", and based on what he conceptualised as
"rationalist humanism."
In retrospect, we may deprecate his acts of
political misjudgment, but cannot dismiss his
intellectual sagacity. Pleading for a "secular
ethics with rational and humanist sanction," he
forewarned: "In an atmosphere of religious
revivalism, modern dictatorship would easily
acquire divine sanction like the mediaeval
monarchy". He was equally prescient in foreseeing
"a religious fervour in the frenzy of
flag-waving, whether the sacred rag be
multicoloured or red" (The Marxian Way, 1947-48,
Vol III, No 1). Roy certainly never intended that
his observations should mirror the ills of our
society almost half-a-century hence. But if they
do, it is because we as a people have not only
progressed little, but have begun to backslide in
our moral perceptions and behaviour.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
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