Revolutionary Flame

गीता रहस्‍योद्घाटन

2014-08-17T10:14:00.000+05:30

नरेन्‍द्र मोदी के प्रधानमन्‍त्री बनने के बाद जहां एक ओर विदेशी पूँजी निवेश, श्रम कानूनों में रद्दोबदल, बुलेट ट्रेन तथा अत्‍याधुनिक हथियारों के आयात से सम्‍बन्‍धी ख़बरें सुर्खियों में आ गयी हैंं, वहीं दूसरी ओर पाश्‍चात्‍य संस्‍कृति के विरोध एवं प्राचीन हिन्‍दू संस्‍कृति व परंपरा को पुनर्जीवित करने की कवायदें भी तेज़ हो गयी हैं। इसी कवायद के तहत गीता को पाठ्यक्रम में शामिल करने की बातें भी हो रही हैं। ऊपर से देखने पर ये दो गतियां परस्‍पर विरोधी दिखायी पड़ती हैं परन्‍तु ग़ौर से देखें तो ये एक दूसरे की पूरक हैं। भारतीय शासक वर्ग को यह अच्‍छी तरह पता है कि अंधाधुंध पूँजीवादी विकास के जिस नव-उदारवादी मॉडल पर वह तेजी से अमल में ला रहा है, उससे अवश्‍यंभावी रूप से पैदा होने वाली महँगाई, बेरोज़गारी, छँटनी, वर्गीय एवं क्षेत्रीय असमानता आदि से सामाजिक असंतोष का विस्‍फोटक रूप में सामने आना तय है। ऐसी विस्‍फोटक परिस्थिति से निपटने के लिए जहां एक ओर वह पुलिस-फौज को अत्‍याधुनिक हथियारों से लैस कर कानून-व्‍यवस्‍था की मशीनरी को चुस्‍त-दुरूस्‍त कर रहा है, वहीं दूसरी ओर समाज में आतार्किक, अवैज्ञानिक, रहस्‍यमयी, पुरातनपंथी विचारों को बढ़ावा दे रहा है ताकि आम जनता सामाजिक-आर्थिक समस्‍याओं की जड़ों तक पहुँच ही न सके और शासक वर्ग से लड़ने की बजाय धर्म, जाति आदि के नाम पर आपस में ही लड़ती रहे। गीता को पाठ्यक्रम में शामिल करने की कवायद इसी रण्‍ानीति का हिस्‍सा है।
गीता एक ऐसी रचना है जिसको समय बीतने के साथ-साथ ज्‍़यादा से ज्‍़यादा रहस्‍यमयी बनाकर उसके इर्द-गिर्द एक विचित्र आभामंडल खड़ा कर दिया गया है। इस्‍काॅन जैसी संस्‍थायें तथा कुकुरमुत्‍ते की तरह पनप रहे भांति-भांति के आध्‍यात्मिक गुरूओं ने इसकी अलग-अलग व्‍याख्‍यायें देकर लोगों को और ज्‍़यादा विभ्रमग्रस्‍त कर दिया गया है। मध्‍यवर्ग के तमाम लोग अपने रोज़मर्रा के जीवन में आर्थिक तंगी, पारिवारिक तनाव आदि से तंग आकर ऐसी संस्‍थाओं एवं आध्‍यात्मिक गुरूओं की शरण में जाते हैं जो उन्‍हें गीता में दिये गये कर्म के सिद्धान्‍त का हवाला देकर बिना किसी फल की इच्‍छा किये, बिना अपने दुखों का कारण तलाशे निष्‍काम भाव से अपने काम में लगे रहने की सलाह देते हैं। उनको बताया जाता है कि उनके साथ जो कुछ बुरा घट रहा है वो उनके पिछले जन्‍मों का फल है। ऐसे लोग समाज में औरों को भी गीता पढ़ने की सलाह देते फिरते हैं जबकि ज्‍़यादातर मामलों में सच्‍चाई यह होती है कि उन्‍होंने स्‍वयं कभी भी गीता को आलोचनात्‍मक विवेक के साथ नहीं पढ़ा होता है। कर्म के सिद्धान्‍त की वे अमूर्तन व्‍याख्‍या करते हैं। यदि गीता को सनातनकाल से चले आ रहे एक पावन धर्मग्रंथ मानकर पूजने की बजाय मनुष्‍य द्वारा इतिहास के किसी कालखण्‍ड में लिखी गयी रचना के रूप में और उस दौर के उत्‍पादन संबन्‍धों के सन्‍दर्भ में पढ़ा जाये तो इसके दर्शन को आसानी से समझा जा सकता है। इस नज़रिये से गीता पढ़ने से यह आसानी से समझा जा सकता है कि इसके माध्‍यम से 4 वर्णों (ब्राह्मण, क्षत्रिय, वैश्‍य एवं शूद्र) के उच्‍चानुक्रम में बँटे समाज को न्‍यायोचित ठहराने के लिए उसको दैवीय स्‍वीकृति‍ प्रदान की गयी है। गीता में दिये गये कर्म के दर्शन ने सामन्‍ती शासक वर्ग को अपने शोषण और उत्‍पीड़न को बेरोकटोक जारी रखने के लिए एक वैचारिक अस्‍त्र दिया। इसके अनुसार प्रत्‍येक वर्ण को बिना ना-नुकुर किये अपने-अपने निर्धारित कर्म करते रहना चाहिए। शूद्रों यानी मेहनतकशों का कर्म उच्‍च जातियों की सेवा करना है और उनको ईश्‍वर ने इसी लिए बनाया है। यही नहीं स्त्रियों को भी निम्‍न जातियों वाली श्रेणी में रखा गया है। यानी कि गीता सामन्‍ती व्‍यवस्‍था के साथ-साथ पितृसत्‍ता की नींव को भी पुख्‍़ता करने का काम किया।
अब सवाल यह उठता है कि भारत का पूँजीवादी शासक वर्ग 21वीं सदी में गीता का प्रचार-प्रसार करने की कवायद क्‍यों कर रहा है। हलांकि पूँजीवाद के अाने के बाद से भारतीय समाज के जातिगत उच्‍चानुक्रम में कुछ बदलाव आये हैं, लेकिन आज भी जाति भारतीय समाज की एक हकीकत है। जाति की व्‍यवस्‍था को पूरी तरह समाप्‍त करने की बजाय भारत के पूँजीवादी शासकों ने उसे अपने हितों के अनुसार अनुकूलित कर लिया है। भारतीय समाज के पोर-पोर में समायी जात‍ीय मानसिकता पूँजीपतियों को अधिशेष निचोड़ने में सहूलियत प्रदान करती है। परन्‍तु गीता जैसी रचनायें आज के दौर में महज़ जातिगत पूर्वाग्रहों को पुष्‍ट करने का ही काम नहीं करती हैं। इससे भी कहीं ख़तरनाक काम वे यह करती हैं कि वे सामाजिक-आर्थिक समस्‍याओं की वजह तलाश करने की मनुष्‍य की सहज जिज्ञासा को हतोत्‍साहित करती हैं। मेहनतकश अावाम के दुखों-तकलीफ़ों की वजह मौजूदा पूँजीवादी व्‍यवस्‍था में ढूँढने की बजाय ऐसी रचनायें लोगों के दुखों-तकलीफ़ों को पिछले जन्‍म के कर्मों का नतीजा बताती हैं। अपने अधिकारों के लिए संगठित होकर लड़ने की बजाय वे अपने साथ हो रहे अन्‍याय को चुपचाप बर्दाश्‍त करने की पराजयबोध से ग्रसित मानसिकता को बढ़ावा देती हैं। वे मुक्ति की किसी परियोजना के तहत मौजूदा व्‍यवस्‍था का विकल्‍प खड़ा करने की निरर्थकता का प्रचार करती हैं और ऐसा करके वे शासक वर्ग के वर्चस्‍व को पुरज़ोर तरीके से स्‍थापित करती हैं। गीता को पाठ्यक्रम में शामिल करने की कवायद के पीछे उनका मक़सद यह है कि मज़दूरों एवं ग़रीबों के बीच भी इस प्रकार की पराजयबोध से ग्रसित मानसिकता को गहराई से पैठा दिया जाये क्‍योंकि जिन सरकारी स्‍कूलों में ये पाठ्यक्रम लागू होंगे उनमें मज़दूरों एवं ग़रीबों के ही बच्‍चे पढ़ते हैं।
वर्ण व्‍यवस्‍था व पितृसत्‍ता को जायज ठहराने वाले कर्म के दर्शन के अतिरिक्‍त गीता में वर्णित एक अन्‍य दर्शन आत्‍मा का दर्शन है। गीता में कृष्‍ण ने अर्जुन को अपने ही भाई-बंधुओं को मारने के लिए आत्‍मा के दर्शन का हवाला दिया था। (न हन्‍यते हन्‍यमाने शरीरे), अर्थात् यह (आत्‍मा) नहीं मरती, मरता केवल शरीर है। रवीन्‍द्रनाथ टैगोर जैसे धर्मनिष्‍ठ विचारक ने भी अपनी एक शानदार रचना में दिखाया है कि आत्‍मा का यह दर्शन किस प्रकार शासक वर्ग द्वारा दिन-प्रतिदिन की जाने वाली हिंसा के प्रति आम जन में उदासीनता का भाव पैदा करके उसकी हिंसा को बढ़ावा देता है। 1932 की बात है जब रवीन्‍द्रना‍थ टैगोर हवाई जहाज से इरान की यात्रा पर थे। इस यात्रा के दौरान उन्‍हें कुछ समय के लिए बगदार में ठहरना पड़ा था। बगदाद में ही उन्‍हें पता चला कि ब्रिटिश एयर फोर्स कुछ बागी शेखों के गांवो पर बमबारी कर रही है। यह ख़बर सुनकर टैगोर विचलित हो उठे। उनको यह सरासर नरसंहार लगा। फिर वे सोचने लगे कि आखिर वह कौन सी चीज़ है जो मनुष्‍यों को निर्दोषों एवं दोषियों के बीच भेद की चिन्‍ता किये बगैर अपने ही सहप्राणियों को मौत के घाट उतारने के लिए प्रेरित करती है। हवाई यात्रा के दौरान वे इस प्रश्‍न पर चिन्‍तन-मनन करते रहे। हवाई यात्रा के स्‍वयं के अनुभव के आधार पर वे इसे समझने की कोशिश करते रहे। चिन्‍तन-मनन की इस प्रक्रिया में अचानक ही उनके दिमाग में जगत की वास्‍तविकता को मिथक बताने वाले दार्शनिक विचारों के राजनीतिक प्रयोजन का विचार कौंधा। उन्‍होंने लिखा, '' गीता जिस दर्शन का उपदेश देती है वह भी वायुयान में इस प्रकार की उड़ान जैसा है (जिसके दौरान मनुष्‍य पृथ्‍वी से इतना दूर हो जाता है कि पृथ्‍वी धुंधली होती-होती अस्तित्‍वहीन होती जाती है और हमारी चेतना पर उसकी वास्‍तविकता के दावे का कोई दबाव नहीं रह जाता है)। अर्जुन के संवेदनशील मस्तिष्‍क को वह ऐसी भ्रमकारक ऊंचाई पर ले जाता है जहां से, नीचे देखने पर, मारने वाले और मरने वाले के बीच, कुटुम्‍बी और शत्रु के बीच, कोई अन्‍तर कर सकना अर्जुन के लिए संभव नहीं रह जाता। दार्शनिक तत्‍वों से निर्मित इस प्रकार के बहुत से अस्‍त्र मनुष्‍य के शस्‍त्रागार में विद्यमान हैं। ये यथार्थ को दृष्टि से ओझल कर देने का प्रयोजन पूरा करते हैं। ये साम्राज्‍यवादियों के सिद्धान्‍तों में, समाजशास्‍त्र में तथा धर्मशास्‍त्र में मौजूद हैं। इनसे जिन लोगों पर मृत्‍यु बरसायी जाती है उनकी सांत्‍वना के लिए मात्र कुछ शब्‍द बच रहते हैं: न हन्‍यते हन्‍यमाने शरीरे! 'अर्थात् यह (आत्‍मा) नहीं मरती, मरता केवल शरीर है।'' (पारस्‍य-यात्री)
उपरोक्‍त प्रसंग की रोशनी में यह आसानी से समझा जा सकता है कि गीता के प्रचार-प्रसार की ज़ोरों से वकालत करने वाले वही लोग हैं जो गाज़ा में इज़रायली नरसंहार पर या तो चुप हैं या फिर उसे जायज़ ठहरा रहे हैं। ऐसे लोग शासक वर्ग की हर बर्बर कार्रवाई पर या तो चुप्‍पी साधे रहेंगे या फिर खुले अाम शासक वर्ग का पक्ष चुनेंगे। इसीलिए शासक वर्ग गीता को इतने जोर-शोर से बढावा दे रहा है।

Why we Indians must raise our voice against the Israeli barbarism

2014-07-15T13:33:00.004+05:30

Despite the conspiratorial silence of the mainstream media on the ongoing genocide in Gaza the heart-wrenching images of Israeli brutality and its gruesome crimes against humanity managed to reach people all over the world through social media. But some people are making strange comments on the facebook posts exposing the Israeli brutality. Some say that it is not proper to give so much importance to an issue which is having no direct bearing with our country. Then there are those who are saying that Israel is doing all this in self-defense.

Those who are terming this issue as a foreign one must be asked since when the issues of justice-injustice, barbarism and genocide started to be seen from the narrow perspective of nation-state! The methodology adopted by such people must be challenged and they must be asked whether or not it is the height of narrow-mindedness and callousness to see that the massacres such as Hiroshima-Nagasaki and Sabra-Shatila from the prism of nation-state! Actually they must also be asked whether their human senses react even to the Indian issues such as the Gujarat genocide? The answer is no, because under the influence of jingoistic thoughts they are out of their senses.

Those who are justifying this genocide on the basis of this absurd logic that Israel is doing all this in self-defense can only be advised that instead of going along with the right-wing rubbish, they must first have a look at the history of the Palestinian problem. One hardly finds a parallel in the recent world history to the kind of the atrocities which Israel has committed on the Palestinian people over the last 60-70 years with the open backing of US and other western imperialist countries. As per the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine of 1947, two nations - Israel and Palestine - were sought to be created. The local Jews population and the incoming stream of refugee jews were sought to be settled in Israel while Palestine was to be the nation of the Arabs living in the region. But Israel immediately started to drive out the Palestinians and began occupying their land and initiated the drive to settle the Jews from other parts of the world into this land. During the 1948 Arab-Israel war, Israel occupied 26 percent of the Palestinian land. During the 'Six Day War' of 1967 it went on to occupy the rest of the Palestinian territory. Today's Palestine is settled along two narrow strips namely West Bank and Gaza where the current genocide is underway. Gaza happens to be the most densely population region of the world ( 1.5 million Palestinian people live in around 360 square km of land). Under such a circumstance the Palestinian people are resisting to prevent their annihilation. If some of them are taking resort to acts of terrorism, it only reflects their frustration and desperation. Interestingly, those applying the logic of self- defense overlook the blatant reality that while the handful of Israeli citizens die in the acts of terror, hundreds of innocent children, women and citizen are brutally exterminated in the Israeli bombing in the so called self defense! Consider the recent episode itself, in the last 4-5 days of Israeli bombing more than 120 civilians including innocent children are reported to be massacred and more than 500 are reported to be injured. It's not a self-defense, rather it is an imperialist-Zionist terrorism being perpetrated by Israel with the help of US aid worth billions of dollars. Those who are giving it a communal colour by looking it through the Jews-Muslim prism are only exhibiting their callousness.

So all those who are not out of their senses must raise their voice against the barbaric Israeli genocide in Gaza to prove that it human to raise voice against barbarism in any part of the world.

Do pay heed to these lines written by Chekhov, the famous 19th century Russian author:

"If organic tissue is capable of life it must react to every stimulus. And I do! To pain I respond with tears and outcries, to baseness with indignation, to filth with loathing. To my mind, that is just what is called life. The lower the organism, the less sensitive it is, and the more feebly it reacts to stimulus; and the higher it is, the more responsively and vigorously it reacts to reality."

इज़रायल की बर्बरता के ख़‍िलाफ़ आवाज़ उठाना क्‍यों ज़रूरी है

2014-07-15T13:32:00.003+05:30

गाज़ा में इज़रायल द्वारा किये जा रहे बर्बर नरसंहार पर मुख्‍यधारा की मीडिया ने एक षडयंत्रकारी चुप्‍पी ओढ़ ली है। परन्‍तु सोशल मीडिया के ज़रिये पूरी दुनिया में इज़रायल के कहर की तस्वीरें पहुँच रही हैं जो इज़रायल द्वारा किये जा रहे मानवता के ख़‍िलाफ़ जघन्‍य अपराध को सामने ला रही हैं। पिछले कुछ दिनों से फ़ेसबुक पर इज़रायल की इस बर्बरता से संबन्धित पोस्‍टों पर कुछ लोग विचित्र किस्‍म की टिप्‍पणियां करते नज़र आये। कुछ का कहना है कि अपने देश की समस्‍याओं की बजाय किसी दूसरे देश की समस्‍या को इतना तूल देना उचित नहीं है। वहीं कुछ लोग यह भी कहते पाये गये कि इज़रायल यह सबकुछ आत्‍मरक्षा में कर रहा है।

जो लोग इस बर्बरता को किसी दूसरे देश की समस्‍या बता रहे हैं उनसे पूछा जाना चाहिए कि न्‍याय-अन्‍याय, बर्बरता, जनसंहार जैसे मुद्दे भला कब से राष्‍ट्र-राज्‍यों के संकुचित दायरे के भीतर देखे जाने लगे! ऐसे लोगों की तर्कपद्धति पर सवाल उठाते हुए पूछा जाना चाहिए कि हीरोशिमा-नागासाकी, सबरा और शातिला जैसे नरसंहारों की जघन्‍यता को भी राष्‍ट्रीय चश्‍में से देखना क्‍या संकीर्णता और संवेदनहीनता की पराकाष्‍ठा नहीं है? वैसे सवाल तो यह भी उठता है कि ऐसे लोग क्‍या अपने देश में हो रही बर्बरता के ख़‍िलाफ़ आवाज़ उठाते हैं, क्‍या इनकी सोई हुई संवेदना गुज़रात नरसंहार जैसे मुद्दों पर भी जागती है? जवाब है नहीं, क्‍योंकि अंधराष्‍ट्रवादी विचारों ने इनकी मानवीय संवेदनाओं को बहुत गहरी नींद में सुला दिया है।

जो लोग इस बेहूदे तर्क की आड़ लेकर इस नरसंहार को न्‍याय-संगत ठहरा रहे हैं कि इज़रायल यह सबकुछ आत्‍मरक्षा में कर रहा है, उनसे बस यही कहा जा सकता है कि दक्षिणपंथी विचारों की आंधी में बहने की बजाय संजीदगी से एक बार फिलीस्‍तीनी समस्‍या के इतिहास पर भी नज़र दौड़ा ली जाये। पिछले 60-70 सालों में फिलीस्‍तीनी जनता के ऊपर इज़रायल ने अमेरिका व अन्‍य पश्चिमी साम्राज्‍यवादी देशों की श्‍ाह पर जैसे कहर ढाये हैं वैसी मिसालें इतिहास में कम ही मिलती हैं। 1947 में संयुक्‍त राष्‍ट्र की विभाजन योजना के तहत पश्चिम एशिया में दो देश बनाये गये – इज़रायल और फ़िलिस्तीन। इज़रायल में मुख्यतः वहाँ रह रही यहूदी आबादी और बाहर से आये यहूदी शरणार्थी बसने थे जबकि फ़िलिस्तीन उस क्षेत्र की अरब जनता का देश था। लेकिन इज़रायल ने फौरन ही फ़िलिस्तीनियों को खदेड़कर उनकी ज़मीन पर क़ब्ज़ा करना शुरू कर दिया और पूरी दुनिया से लाकर अमीर यहूदियों को वहाँ बसाने लगा। 1948 के अरब-इज़राइल युद्ध में इज़राइल ने फिलीस्‍तीन की 26 फ़ीसदी क्षेत्र पर कब्‍ज़ा कर लिया। 1967 के छह-दिन युद्ध के दौरान इज़राइल ने फिलीस्‍तीन के बाकी हिस्‍सों पर भी अपना कब्‍ज़ा जमा लिया। आज का फ़िलिस्तीन एक-दूसरे से अलग जमीन की दो छोटी-छोटी पट्टियों पर बसा है। एक है पश्चिमी तट का इलाका और दूसरा है गाज़ा पट्टी जहाँ मौजूदा नरसंहार किया जा रहा है वहां सिर्फ 360 वर्ग किलोमीटर के दायरे में 15 लाख आबादी रहती है, यह दुनिया का सबसे सघन जनसंख्‍या वाला क्षेत्र है। ऐसे में फिलीस्‍तीनी जनता अपने अस्तित्‍व की लड़ाई लड़ रही है, यदि उनके कुछ लोग आतंकवादी गति‍विधियों की शरण ले रहे हैं तो वह उनकी बदहवासी और निराशा को दि‍खाता है। वैसे आत्‍मरक्षा का तर्क देने वालों को यह चीज़ क्‍यों नहीं दिखायी देती कि आतंकवाद की घटनाओं में तो इक्‍का-दुक्‍का इज़राइली नागरिकों की मौत होती है, परन्‍तु आये दिन इज़राइल की तथाकथित आत्‍मरक्षार्थ कार्रवाई में सैकड़ों मासूम बच्‍चे, महिलायें और नागरिक स्‍वाहा हो जाते हैं। मौजूदा प्रकरण को ही लें जिसमें पिछले 4-5 दिनों में इज़राइली हमले में लगभग 120 मौतों और 500 से ज्‍़यादा घायलों की ख़बर आयी है। यह आत्‍मरक्षा नहीं, 3 बिलियन डालर की अमेरिकी मदद से चलाये जाने वाला साम्राज्‍यवादी-जियनवादी आतंकवाद है।
जो लोग इसे यहूदी बनाम मुस्लिम के साम्‍प्रदायिक चश्‍में से देखकर इस नरसंहार के खिलाफ़ आवाज़ नहीं उठा रहे हैं वो दरअसल अपनी मरी हुई संवेदना का प्रदर्शन कर रहे हैं।

इसलिए जिन लोगों की संवेदनायें अभी सोयी या मरी नहीं है, उन्‍हें इज़रायल द्वारा किये जा रहे इस सदी के बर्बरतम नरसंहार के खिलाफ़ आवाज़ उठा कर यह सिद्ध करना चाहिए कि दुनिया के किसी भी कोने में हो रही बर्बरता के खिलाफ़ आवाज़ उठाना इंसानियत की निशानी है।

अच्‍छे दिन तो आ गये, मगर किसके?

2014-05-17T00:24:00.000+05:30

आखिर वो दिन आ ही गये जिनका उन्‍हें बेसब्री से इन्‍तज़ार था। लेकिन वो कौन लोग थे जो इन दिनों के इन्‍तज़ार में इतने दिनों से आंखे गड़ाये बैठे थे? क्‍या वे भांति-भांति के ओपिनियन पोल और एग्‍िज़ट पोल करने वाले चुनावी विश्‍लेषक और टीवी एंकर थे? वो तो थे ही लेकिन कुछ ऐसे भी लोग थे जो उनसे भी ज्‍़यादा बेसब्री से इन्‍तज़ार कर रहे थे इन दिनों का। तो क्‍या वो टीवी के दर्शक थे? वो भी थे, लेकिन वो तो महज़ कन्‍ज्‍़यूमर थे अच्‍छे दिनों के सपनों के प्रोडक्‍ट के। तो फिर भला सपनों के इस प्रोडक्‍ट का मैन्‍युफैक्‍चरर कौन था? क्‍या वे शेयर मार्केट के दलाल और सट्टेबाज थे? लेकिन वे तो इन सपनों के एजेंट मात्र थे। इन सपनों के असली मैन्‍युफैक्‍चरर तो पूँजीपति थे जिनके मुनाफे़ की सरपट गाड़ी पर मन्‍दी की वजह से ब्रेक लगने शुरू हो चुके थे। दरअसल उनके बुरे दिन चल रहे थे; उन्‍हें अच्‍छे दिनों की सख्‍़त ज़रूरत थी। लेकिन उनके अच्‍छे दिन महँगाई, बेरोज़गारी, छँटनी के बोझ से कराह रही मेहनतकश अवाम को और ज्‍़यादा निचोड़े बगैर या यूं कहें कि उनके दिनों को बद से बदतर किये बगैर नहीं आ सकते थे। वे नग्‍न तानाशाही के ज़रिये भी अपने अच्‍छे दिन ला सकते थे। लेकिन पूँजीवादी लाेकतन्‍त्र के रूप में उनके पास उससे भी बेहतर और कारगर माध्‍यम उपलब्‍ध था। इसके लिए उन्‍हें बस अपने अच्‍छे दिनों की ज़रूरत को बदहाली से त्रस्‍त अवाम के अच्‍छे दिनों की चाहत पर आरोपित कर अाने वाले अच्‍छे दिनों के सपने का प्रोडक्‍ट मैन्‍युफैक्‍चर करना था। फिर क्‍या था, पूँजीपतियों ने अपने वर्ग के इस सामूहिक उपक्रम में बेतहाशा निवेश करना शुरू किया। दलालों, टीवी विश्‍लेषकों और परजीवी बुद्धिजीवियों की जमात ने सपनों के इस ब्रांड के पक्ष में जनमत तैयार किया। भारतीय मध्‍यवर्ग को मुंगेरीलाल की तरह हसीन सपने देखने की पुरानी आदत रही है, साथ ही पिछले दो दशकों में उसे ब्रांड का भी चस्‍का लग गया है। इसलिए उसने पुराने ब्रांडों के पिट जाने के बाद सपनों के इस नये ब्रांड को हाथों-हाथ लिया। मेहनतकश आबादी जिसने आज तक बुरे दिनों के अलावा और कोई दिन नहीं देखे उसके भी अच्‍छे-खासे हिस्‍से को मृग मरीचिका की तरह इन सपनों में अपनी बदहाली दूर करने की उम्‍मीद नज़र आयी। ऐसे में इस ब्रांड को हिट होना ही था और वही हुआ।
लेकिन इतिहास गवाह है कि शासक वर्ग द्वारा प्रायोजित और मैन्‍युफैक्‍चर्ड सपनों की उम्र बहुत लंबी नहीं हुआ करती। जिस दौरान इन सपनों की मैन्‍यूफैक्‍चरिंग हो रही थी उसी दौरान इस देश की मेहनतकश आबादी कल-कारखानों और खेत-खलिहानों में दिन-रात गाय-गोरू की तरह खट रही थी, वह नरक जैसी बस्तियों में रह रही थी, भूख, कुपोषण और बीमारियों से उनके बच्‍चों का दम तोड़ना बदस्‍तूर ज़ारी था, महिलायें हमेशा की तरह नरभक्षी भेड़ि‍यों की शिकार बन रही थीं, अल्‍पसंख्‍यक ठंडी मौत मर रहे थे और जो जिन्‍दा थे वे ख़ौफ़ के साये में जी रहे थे, दलितों और आदिवासियों का कुचला जाना भी बदस्‍तूर ज़ारी था। संक्षेप में कहें तो शोषण और उत्‍पीड़न की पूँजीवादी मशीनरी अपना काम किये जा रही थी। अब जबकि पूँजीपतियों के अच्‍छे दिन आ गये हैं, वे इस पूँजीवादी मशीनरी को और प्रभावी तरीके से संचालित करने की तैयारी में जुट गये हैं। नतीजे के रूप में उनके मुनाफे़ में तो बढोत्‍तरी तो होगी ही, लेकिन यह भी सच है कि यह बढ़ोत्‍तरी अवाम की बदहाली और बर्बादी की शर्त पर ही होगी। यानी उनके मैन्‍युफैक्‍चर्ड सपनों की पोल खुलना तय है। संभव है कि ऐसे में जनमुक्ति के सच्‍चे स्‍वप्‍न को हक़ीकत में तब्‍दील करने की जमीन भी तैयार हो। लेकिन भविष्‍य इस बात पर निर्भर करेगा कि जनता के सपूत इस पूँजीवादी निजाम को उखाड़ फेंकने और शोषण एवं उत्‍पीड़न से मुक्‍त एक नये समाज की नींव रखने के लिए किस क़दर तैयार हैं। इसलिए साथियो, आइये हम शासक वर्ग द्वारा प्रायोजित अच्‍छे दिनों के इन फ़र्जी सपनों का पर्दाफ़ाश करने के साथ ही जनमुक्ति के सच्‍चे स्‍वप्‍न को हक़ीकत में बदलने के लिए आज से ही कमर कस लें।

त्रॉत्स्‍की‍पंथियों और भगोड़ों द्वारा कॉमरेड स्तालिन के क्रान्तिकारी व्‍यक्तित्‍व को लांछित करने की साज़ि‍श को बेनक़ाब करो!!

2014-04-14T11:52:00.000+05:30

द्वितीय विश्वयुद्ध में हिटलर की नात्‍सी सेना को धूल चटाकर समूची मानवता को फ़ासीवादी राक्षस से छुटकारा दिलाने में सोवियत संघ की लाल सेना के कालजयी योगदान को यहां तक कि ईमानदार बुर्जुआ इतिहासकार भी मानते हैं। स्तालिन के नेतृत्व में सोवियत संघ के समाजवादी प्रयोग ने न सिर्फ़ यह सिद्ध किया कि सर्वहारा वर्ग उत्पादन, शासन-प्रशासन और समाज के पूरे ढाँचे को चलाने में समर्थ है बल्कि यह भी कि ज़रूरत पड़ने पर वह रणक्षेत्र में भी दुश्मन का मुँहतोड़ जवाब दे सकता है। स्तालिन के नेतृत्व में लाल सेना ने जिस अद्भुत वीरता और शौर्य का परिचय दिया वह मानवता के इतिहास में अप्रतिम है। परन्तु, द्व‍ितीय विश्वयुद्ध के ख़त्‍म होने के छह दशक बाद आज न सिर्फ़ स्तालिन के उस महान योगदान को भुलाया जा रहा है बल्कि साम्राज्यवादी ताकतें एक साज़ि‍शाना ढंग से उनके महान व्य‍क्तित्व को झूठ और कुत्सा–प्रचार के सहारे कलंकित करने के काम में लगी हुई हैं। साम्राज्यवादियों की इस कुत्सा-प्रचार मुहिम में बाॅल्शेविक क्रान्ति के भगोड़े और गद्दार त्रॉत्स्‍की का लेखन काफ़ी मददगार साबित होता है और दुनिया भर में फैले मार्क्सवाद-लेनिनवाद का चोला ओढ़े भांति-भांति के त्रॉत्स्‍कीपंथी स्तालिन के बहाने कम्युनिज़्म की विचारधारा पर कीचड़ फेंक कर उसके प्रति अविश्वास और विभ्रम फैलाने में साम्राज्यवादियों के काम को आसान कर रहे हैं। ऐसा ही एक त्रॉत्स्‍कीपंथी राजेश त्यागी है जिसके फ़ेसबुक वाल को देखकर कोई भी यह समझ सकता है कि उसने सुबह-शाम पानी पी-पी कर क्रान्तिकारियों को कोसना अपनी ज़ि‍न्दगी का लक्ष्य बना लिया है। ज़ाहिर है कि ऐसा घृणित काम लंबे समय तक मानसिक रूप से संतुलित कोई व्यक्ति नहीं कर सकता। इसलिए समय बीतने के साथ ही साथ उसकी मानसिक विक्षिप्तता बढ़ती ही जा रही है। हाल ही में उसने स्ता‍लिन पर बदबूदार कीचड़ फेंकते हुए एक लेख लिखा है जिसमें उसने झूठ बोलने और कुत्सा-प्रचार करने के अपने पुराने सारे कीर्तिमान ध्वस्त कर दिये हैं। अभी तक तो राजेश त्यागी के कुत्सा–प्रचार की गंध फ़ेसबुक तक ही सीमित थी, लेकिन अब क्रान्तिकारी आंदोलन के भगोड़ों द्वारा संचालित वेबसाइट जनज्वार डॉट कॉम ने उसे एक नया मंच प्रदान किया है। वैसे देखा जाय तो क्रान्ति के भगोड़ों और गद्दारों का यह अपवित्र गठबंधन स्वाभाविक ही है।

बहरहाल, आइये देखते हैं कि किस प्रकार राजेश त्यागी ने तथ्यों के साथ दुराचार करके इतिहास को तोड़-मरोड़ कर विकृत करने की अपनी त्राॅत्सकीपंथी पद्धति का नया नमूना प्रस्तुत किया है। 14 मार्च को जनज्वार में प्रकाशित एक लेख (http://www.janjwar.com/janjwar-special/27-janjwar-special/4846-fasist-hitlor-se-stalin-ke-yarane-ka-khooni-itihas-for-janjwar-by-rajesh-tyagi) में राजेश त्यागी ने झूठ और कुत्सा-प्रचार का एक पुलिंदा खड़ा करते हुए यह बताने की हास्‍यास्‍पद कोशिश की है कि स्तालिन और हिटलर पुराने यार थे और उन्होंने मिलजुलकर दूसरा विश्वयुद्ध छेड़ा। वैसे तो इस किस्म की मनोहर कहानियां किसी जवाब की हक़दार नहीं हैं, परन्तु चूंकि इतिहास की जानकारी के अभाव में तमाम लोग ऐसे मनगढंत किस्से-कहानियों को ही इतिहास समझ लेते हैं, इसलिए फ़ासीवाद के उभार और दूसरे विश्वसयुद्ध के इतिहास की सही समझ स्थापित करना क्रान्तिकारी आन्दोलन का एक अहम कार्यभार बनता है।

वैचारिक मोतियाबिंद के शिकार राजेश त्यागी ने अपने लेख में न सिर्फ़ दूसरे विश्वयुद्ध के लिए बल्कि जर्मनी में फ़ासीवाद के उभार के लिए भी स्तालिन को मुख्य रूप से जिम्मे़दार ठहराया है। मार्क्‍सवाद का ककहरा भी समझने वाला कोई व्यक्ति यह जानता है कि फ़ासीवादी उभार और युद्ध दोनों ही साम्राज्यवाद के दौर में पूंजीवाद के अन्त‍र्विरोधों की तार्किक परिणति होते हैं। लेकिन त्रॉत्स्‍की को आदर्श समझने वाले से मार्क्सवाद की बुनियादी समझदारी की अपेक्षा करना व्यर्थ है। त्रॉत्स्‍की से ज्ञान की पुड़ि‍या उधार लेते हुए राजेश त्यागी बेशर्मी के साथ यह दावा करता है कि ''जर्मनी में हिटलर का उभार सीधे-सीधे स्‍तालिन के मातहत कोमिन्तर्न की गलत नीतियों का परिणाम था।'' जर्मनी के इतिहास से वाकिफ़ कोई भी व्यक्ति इस बेसिरपैर की बात पर ठहाका लगाकर हंसेगा। सच्चाई यह है कि साम्राज्यवाद के अन्तर्विरोधों के तीव्र होने के अतिरिक्‍त जर्मनी में फ़ासीवाद के उभार का तात्कालिक कारण वहां के सामाजिक जनवादियों का गद्दारी से भरा आचरण रहा था। प्रथम विश्वजयुद्ध के बाद से ही जर्मनी में पूँजीवादी राज्यसत्ता पर सामाजिक जनवादियों का दबदबा रहा और उन्होंने वहां सर्वहारा क्रान्ति को विफल करने में प्रमुख भूमिका अदा की। 1918 में जर्मन सर्वहारा के शीर्ष नेताओं रोज़ा लक्ज़ेमबर्ग और विल्हेम लीब्नेख़्त की नृशंस हत्या करा दी गयी और सामाजिक जनवादियों के शासनकाल में उनके हत्यारे बेख़ौफ़ घूमते रहे। उसके बाद पूँजीपति वर्ग के वफ़ादार सेवक की भांति सामाजिक जनवादियों ने जर्मन मज़दूर आन्दोलन को बेरहमी से कुचलने में पूरा ज़ोर लगा दिया। 1929 की महामंदी के बाद इन सामाजिक जनवादियों के शासनकाल में ही हिटलर के नेतृत्व में फ़ासीवाद रूपी राक्षस ने जर्मन समाज में तेजी से अपने पैर पसारे और उस पर अंकुश लगाने की बजाय उन्होंने उसको बढ़ावा दिया। उनके संरक्षण में फ़ासिस्ट बैंड और सशस्त्र फ़ासिस्ट प्रदर्शन सरेआम आयोजित होते रहे, जबकि कम्युनिस्टों के जुझारू संगठन रेड फ्रंट पर तमाम बंदिशें लगायी जाती रहीं। जिस प्रकार प्रथम विश्वयुद्ध के दौरान यूरोप के सामाजिक जनवादियों की सर्वहारा वर्ग से गद्दारी को रेखांकित करते हुए लेनिन ने उन्हें सामाजिक-अंधराष्ट्रवादी की संज्ञा दी थी उसी प्रकार जर्मनी के सामाजिक जनवादियों द्वारा सर्वहारा वर्ग से गद्दारी कर फ़ासीवाद को बढ़ावा देने के लिए जिम्मेदार ठहराते हुए 1928 में कोमिंतर्न की छठीं कांग्रेस में उन्हें सामाजिक-फ़ासीवादी कहा गया था जोकि उस समय की परिस्थितियों में बिल्कु्ल सही मूल्यांकन था।

राजेश त्यागी ने बेशर्मी की सारी हदें पार करते हुए ऐतिहासिक तथ्यों को तोड़-मरोड़कर यह लिखा है कि कोमिंतर्न ने कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी को 1929 में फासिस्टों के साथ रेड रिफरेंडम के नाम पर संयुक्त मोर्चा बनाने का निर्देश दिया था। यह एक सफ़ेद झूठ है! सिर्फ़ त्रॉत्स्‍की और राजेश त्यागी जैसे सचेतन प्रति-क्रान्तिकारी ही इस किस्म के सफ़ेद झूठ को इतनी बेहयाई से बोल सकते हैं! जर्मन इतिहास में जिस घटना को रेड रिफरेंडम के नाम से जाना जाता है वह 1931 में महामंदी के दौर में सामाजिक जनवादी सरकार के प्रति अविश्वास प्रकट करता हुआ एक स्‍थानीय रिफरेंडम था न कि फासिस्टों के साथ कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी का कोई संयुक्त मोर्चा । इस रिफरेंडम का वैसे भी कोई फैसला नहीं हुआ और हिटलर के सत्ता में आने का इससे दूर-दूर तक भी कोई लेना-देना नहीं था। वास्‍तव में हुआ यह कि महामंदी की वजह से तेजी से फैलते सामाजिक असंतोष और सामाजिक-जनवादियों के प्रति जनता के बढ़ते मोहभंग और कम्‍युनिस्‍टों के जनाधार में विस्‍तार से घबराकर जर्मन पूँजीपति वर्ग का भरोसा सामाजिक जनवादियों से उठ गया और उन्‍हें जनविद्रोहों को रोकने के लिए हिटलर के रूप में एक बर्बर फ़ासिस्‍ट शासक ज्‍़यादा कारगर लगा। साथ ही बढ़ती महँगाई, बेरोज़गारी और छँटनी से तंग आकर मध्‍य वर्ग का एक बड़ा तबका और सर्वहारा का विमानवीकृत लंपट हिस्‍सा भी हिटलर की शरण में जा पहुंचा। इन सभी पहलुओं ने हिटलर को सत्‍ता में लाने में मदद की। हिटलर कम्‍युनिस्‍टों को अपना सबसे बड़ा शत्रु मानता था यह इस तथ्‍य से भी स्‍पष्‍ट हो जाता है कि सत्‍ता में आने पर उसने सबसे पहले कम्‍युनिस्टों का ही बर्बरतापूर्वक दमन करवाया।

जहां तक फ़ासिस्टों के ख़िलाफ़ संयुक्त मोर्चा बनाने का सवाल है, नात्सी‍ पार्टी के बढ़ते जनाधार और फ़ासीवाद के आसन्न ख़तरे को देखते हुए जर्मनी की कम्युानिस्ट पार्टी ने इस दिशा में कई बार (हिटलर के सत्ता में आने से पहले भी और बाद में भी) ठोस प्रयास किये थे जिसका ज़ि‍क्र ग्रेट ब्रिटेन की कम्‍युनिस्ट पार्टी के प्रसिद्ध नेता रजनी पाम दत्त ने अपनी किताब फ़ाशिज़्म एंड सोशल रेवोल्यूशन में किया है। परन्तु सामाजिक जनवादी नेताओं ने कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी और रेड ट्रेड यूनियन की इस बारंबार अपील की अनदेखी की। ऐसे में साफ़ है कि दोषी सामाजिक जनवादी हुए न कि कम्युनिस्ट। 1935 में कोमिंतर्न की सातवीं कांग्रेस में फ़ासीवाद के बढ़ते ख़तरे के मद्देनज़र मेहनतकशों सहित सभी फ़ासिस्ट‍-विरोधी ताकतों के साथ संयुक्त मोर्चा बनाने की ज़रूरत को विशेष रूप से रेखांकित किया गया था। इसी नीति के तहत फ्रांस, स्पेन, चीन और चिले जैसे कई देशों में ऐसे जनमोर्चे सफलतापूर्वक बनाये भी गये। परन्तु त्रॉत्स्‍की को इससे भी एतराज़ था क्योंकि उसका कहना था कि सिर्फ़ मेहनतकशों की पार्टियों और संगठनों को ही इस मोर्चे में शामिल करना चाहिए। यदि त्रॉत्स्‍की की यह संकीर्णतावादी लाइन चीन में लागू की गई होती तो चीन की कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी जापानी साम्राज्यवादी हमले का मुँहतोड़ जवाब नहीं दे पाती और चीनी क्रान्ति आगे नहीं बढ़ पाती। वैसे 1930 के दशक में त्रॉत्स्‍की के निजी आचरण को देखने से यह साफ़ जाहिर होता है कि संयुक्त मोर्चे की बात उसके लिए जुबानी जमा खर्च से ज़्यादा कुछ नहीं थी। सच तो यह है कि इस पूरे दौर में वह साम्राज्यवाद के एजेंट की भूमिका निभाते हुए विध्वंसक और षडयंत्रकारी गतिविधियों में लिप्त था। यही वह दौर था जब वह चीन में क्रान्ति की असंभाविता की और युद्ध की सूरत में सर्वहारा के राज्य सोवियत संघ की फ़ासीवाद से शिकस्त की न सिर्फ भविष्यवाणियां कर रहा था बल्कि लाल सेना और सोवियत सर्वहारा को स्तालिन के नेतृत्व के खिलाफ़ बग़ावत करने के लिए उकसा रहा था। राजेश त्यागी ने अपने लेख में स्पेन के गृहयुद्ध के बारे में भी सरासर झूठ लिखा है। सच तो यह है कि त्रॉत्स्‍कीपंथी संगठन पौम (POUM) की विध्वंसक और अराजक कार्रवाइयों के चलते रूस सहित तमाम देशों के कम्युनिस्टों के अकूत बलिदान के बावजूद स्पेन में फ़ासिस्ट‍-विरोधी मोर्चे की शिकस्त हुई और फ्रांको के नेतृत्व में फ़ासीवाद की जीत हुई।

दूसरे विश्वयुद्ध के शुरू होने में अपनी भूमिका को छिपाने के मक़सद से साम्राज्यवादी अक्सर इसके ठीक पहले सोवियत संघ और जर्मनी के बीच हुए अनाक्रमण समझौते के बारे में जोर-शोर से प्रचार करते हैं। इसमें बिल्कुल आश्चर्य की बात नहीं है कि राजेश त्यागी ने भी स्तालिन पर कीचड़-फेंक अभियान में साम्राज्‍यवादियों के इसी कुत्‍सा-प्रचार का सहारा लिया है। लेकिन इस ओछे त्रॉत्स्‍कीपंथी ने निहायत ही शातिराना ढंग से ग्रेट ब्रिटेन, फ्रांस और अमरीका जैसे साम्राज्यवादी देशों द्वारा फासिस्टों के तुष्टीकरण के लंबे इतिहास को गोल कर दिया और साथ ही साथ अलग-थलग पड़ने के बावजूद फ़ासीवाद के आसन्‍न ख़तरे से निपटने के लिए सोवियत संघ द्वारा इन पश्चिमी साम्राज्यवादी देशों के साथ मिलकर एक सामूहिक सुरक्षा समझौते को संपन्न कराने के अनथक प्रयासों की कोई चर्चा ही नहीं की। सच तो यह है कि 1917 में बोल्शेविक क्रान्ति के बाद स्था‍पित सोवियत संघ की सर्वहारा सत्ता साम्राज्यवादियों को फूटे आंख नहीं सुहाती थी। परन्तु प्रत्यक्ष हमलों, घेराव और नाकेबंदी के ज़रिये साम्राज्यावादी उसका बाल भी बांका न कर सके। 1933 में हिटलर के सत्ता में आने के बाद से ही दूसरे विश्वयुद्ध के काले बादल मंडराने शुरू हो चुके थे। ऐसे में पश्चिमी साम्राज्यवादियों की रणनीति हिटलर के तुष्टीकरण करने और उसे उकसाने की थी ताकि वह सोवियत संघ पर हमला कर दे और इस प्रक्रिया में सोवियत संघ का भी ख़ात्मा हो जाये और हिटलर भी कमज़ोर पड़ जायेगा।

1936 में जर्मनी, इटली और जापान का फासिस्ट गठबंधन खुले रूप में अस्तित्व में आया। 1936 में ही इटली ने इथियोपिया पर हमला किया। सोवियत संघ के प्रस्ताव के बावजूद इटली के ख़ि‍लाफ़ कोई कारगर सामूहिक क़दम नहीं उठाया गया। 1938 में नात्सियों ने आस्ट्रिया और चेकोस्लोवाकिया पर कब्ज़ा कर लिया। इस प्रकार नात्सी सोवियत संघ की सीमा की ओर तेज़ी से अग्रसर हो रहे थे। ऐसे में फ़ासीवाद के ख़तरे से निपटने के लिए सामूहिक पहल लेने के बजाय पश्चिमी ताकतें हिटलर को सोवियत संघ पर हमला करने के लिए उकसाने में ही लगी हुई थीं। 29-30 सितंबर 1938 को ब्रिटिश प्रधानमंत्री चैंबरलेन और फ्रेंच प्रधानमंत्री दलादिए ने म्यूनिक में हिटलर और मुसोलिनी के साथ मुलाकात की और प्रसिद्ध 'म्यूनिक समझौते' पर हस्ताक्षर किये जिसके तहत चेकोस्लोवाकिया का विभाजन कर कुछ महत्वपूर्ण इलाके जर्मनी को दे दिये गये। इसके बाद ब्रिटेन और फ्रांस ने अलग-अलग जर्मनी के साथ अनाक्रमण संधि करके उसे सोवियत संघ पर हमले के लिए और उकसाया। यही नहीं स्पेनी गणराज्य को कुचलने में उन्होंने जर्मन और इतालवी आक्रामकों का साथ दिया। 1939 तक आते-आते यह साफ़ हो चु‍का था कि दूसरा विश्वयुद्ध कभी भी छिड़ सकता है। यह वह परिदृश्य था जिसमें सोवियत संघ को मजबूर होकर अपनी सीमा की सुरक्षा के लिए अगस्त 1939 में जर्मनी के साथ अनाक्रमण समझौता करना पड़ा जिसे मो‍लोतोव-रिबेनट्रॉप समझौते के नाम से जाना जाता है। वैसे देखा जाय तो यह एक ऐसा कूटनीतिक मास्टरस्‍ट्रोक था जिसके लिए विश्व सर्वहारा के नेता स्तालिन की प्रशंसा की जानी चाहिए क्योंकि इसके ज़रिये सोवियत संघ ने साम्राज्यवादियों के दोनों धड़ों को आपस में ही लड़ाई में उलझा दिया और युद्ध की तैयारी के लिए बेशकीमती दो वर्ष अर्जित किये। इसकी ताईद ई एच कार और इसाक ड्यूशर जैसे त्रॉत्‍स्कीपंथी इतिहासकार भी करते हैं। ग़ौरतलब है कि सोवियत सेना ने पोलैंड की सीमा वहां नात्‍सी हमले के 16 दिनों बाद तब पार की जब एक राज्‍य के रूप में उसका कोई वजूद नहीं रह गया था और उसने केवल उन्‍हीं क्षेत्रों काे अपने नियन्‍त्रण में लिया जो अक्‍टूबर क्रान्‍ति के बाद पोलैंड के शासकों ने उससे छीन ली थी। यह भी इतिहास का तथ्‍य है कि पोलैंड की जनता ने लाल सेना का मुक्तिदाता और नायकों के रूप में स्‍वागत किया था। लेकिन राजेश त्यागी जैसे छिछोरे त्रॉत्स्‍कीपंथी को भला वस्तुगत इतिहास से क्या लेना-देना है! उसका एकमात्र ध्येय दुनिया की तमाम समस्याओं के लिए क्रान्तिकारियों को जिम्मेदार ठहराना है! यही वजह है कि वह अपने लेख में यह नहीं बताता है कि हिटलरनुमा फ़ासीवादी दानव को फैसलाकुन शिकस्त स्तालिन के नेतृत्व में लाल सेना के लड़ाकों ने रूसी जनता के साथ मिलकर स्तालिनग्राद की गलियों में अपने बेमिसाल शौर्य, पराक्रम और अकूत कुर्बानियों की बदौलत दी थी। राजेश त्यागी के आका त्रॉत्स्‍की की तमाम ज्योतिषनुमा भविष्ववाणियों को झुठलाते हुए स्तालिन के नेतृत्व में सोवियत सर्वहारा ने यह सिद्ध कर दिया कि मानवता को पूँजीवादी पतन से जनित विनाश से सर्वहारा वर्ग ही बचा सकता है।

'आम आदमी पार्टी' की चुनावी सफलता पर लट्टू हो रहे साथियों से दो बातें

2013-12-26T11:46:00.000+05:30

'आम आदमी पार्टी' की हालिया चुनावी सफलता से भारतीय मध्‍य वर्ग के अच्‍छे-खासे हिस्‍से में एक नयी उम्‍मीद का संचार हो गया है। मजे की बात तो यह है कि दक्षिणपंथ और वामपंथ दोनों धाराओं की ओर झुकाव रखने वाले तमाम ढुलमुल लोगों को अन्‍तत: एक साफ-सुथरा नायक मिल गया है जिसके दामन पर कोई दाग़ भी नहीं है। प्रतिबद्ध दक्षिणपंथी तो अभी भी फासिस्‍ट मोदी के खून से सने दामन से ही चिपके हुए हैं लेकिन वे ढुलमुल दक्षिणपंथी जो मोदी के खून से रंगे हाथों को छिपाने में शर्म महसूस करते थे, उनके लिए केजरीवाल के रूप में उन्‍हें ऐसा नायक मिला है जो देशभक्ति की बातें भी करता है और जिसका नाम अब तक किसी क़त्‍ले-आम या भ्रष्‍टाचार में नहीं सामने आया है। लेकिन उससे भी मजे की बात तो यह है कि वामपंथियों के ढुलमुल धड़े को भी अन्‍तत: मौजूदा व्‍यवस्‍था में ही आम आदमी की बातें करने वाला और धर्मनिरपेक्षता की पैरोकारी करने वाला नायक मिल गया है जिसकी वजह से वे विचारधारा, जो उन्‍हे पहले ही बोझिल लगती थी, का परित्‍याग कर विचारधाराविहीन सा‍माजिक परिवर्तन का जश्‍न मनाने में तल्‍लीन हो गये हैं। ऐसे लोग इन दिनों भारतीय वामपंथी धारा को समाज में अपनी पैठ न बना पाने पर पानी पी-पी कर कोस रहे हैं और 'आम आदमी पार्टी' से सीखने की नसीहतें दे रहे हैं।

ऐसे तमाम ढुलमुल और अप्रतिबद्ध साथियों से मेरा आग्रह है कि वे मीडिया की 'हाइप' के आधार पर नायकों को चुनने की बजाय भारतीय समाज के इतिहास और मौजूदा परिस्थिति का संजीदगी से विश्‍लेषण करके ही कोई राय बनायें क्‍योंकि पूंजी के दम पर टिकी मीडिया के अस्तित्‍व की शर्त ही यही है कि वह आये दिन नायकों को निर्माण करे, पुराने नायक का ब्राण्‍ड जब घिस जाये तो नये नायक का ब्राण्‍ड सामने लाये। क्‍या आपको याद नहीं कि अभी ज्‍़यादा दिन नहीं हुए जब उप्र विधानसभा चुनाव के बाद अखिलेश यादव को मीडिया ने एक नायक की तरह उभारा था। उससे पहले पश्चिम बंगाल विधानसभा चुनाव के नतीजों के बाद पूरा मीडिया ममता बनर्जी के गुणगान में लगा था। अब ये ब्राण्‍ड पिट चुके हैं। पिछले कुछ महीनों से मोदी ब्राण्‍ड तमाम कॉरपोरेट संचालित मीडिया में जीवन संचार का काम कर रहा है इससे तो तो आप वाकिफ़ ही हैं। लेकिन इसी बीच 'आम आदमी पार्टी' की जीत के बाद उन्‍हें नायक का एक नया ब्राण्‍ड मिला है जिसमें एक बंबइया फिल्‍म के नायक में होने वाले गुण भी हैं और वह साफ सुथरी छवि का भी है जिसको समर्थन देने में धर्मनिरपेक्षता में यकीन रखने वाले (या फिर ऐसा दिखावा करने वाले) मध्‍यवर्ग को कोई दिक्‍कत नहीं होगी। इसलिए अब मार्केट में नायकों के दो तगड़े ब्रांड आ चुके हैं। और हमें इनमें से अपना नायक चुनने के लिए कहा जा रहा है।

शायद आप में से कुछ लोग यह कहेंगे कि आप मीडिया की 'हाइप' की वजह से नहीं बल्कि 'आम आदमी पार्टी' की ऐतिहासिक जीत की वजह से उसका समर्थन कर रहे हैं। चलिये देखते हैं कि इस पार्टी की जीत कितनी ऐतिहासिक है। यह जीत का निश्चित रूप से एक नई पार्टी के लिए यह एक बड़ी जीत है, परन्‍तु ऐसा भारतीय पूंजीवादी राजनीति के इतिहास में पहली बार तो नहीं हुआ है। अगर आज़ाद भारत के इतिहास पर एक सरसरी निगाह भर दौड़ा ली जाये तो हमें पता चलेगा कि जब जनता का भरोसा लूट-खसोट और भ्रष्‍टाचार पर टिकी इस पूंजीवादी व्‍यवस्‍था से उठने लगता है तब व्‍यवस्‍था के भीतर से ही व्‍यवस्‍था-परिवर्तन की बात करने वाले किस्‍म-किस्‍म के मदारी अपना चुनावी डमरू बजाते हुए कांग्रेस का विकल्‍प प्रस्‍तुत करने के नाम पर जनता को गुमराह करते हैं, उसे असली मुद्दों से भटकाते हैं और उसके गुस्‍से पर ठंडा पानी डालते हुए जनता को यकीन दिलाते हैं कि दिक्‍कत व्‍यवस्‍था में नहीं बल्कि एक पार्टी विशेष या नेता विशेष में है। अगर चुनावी जीत को ही ऐतिहासिकता का पैमाना बनाया जाय तो 'आम आदमी पार्टी' ने जो इतिहास रचा है उससे कहीं बड़े इतिहास इस देश में रचे जा चुके हैं। इस पैमाने से चलें तो जयप्रकाश नरायण, एनटी रामाराव, वीपीसिंह और यहां तक कि आडवाणी, लालू, मुलायम, मायावती सभी ने इतिहास रचा जो केजरीवाल की तुलना में कहीं बड़ा था। ऐसे इतिहासों से किस किस्‍म की व्‍यवस्‍था बनती है वह हम सबके सामने है।

शायद आपमें से कुछ लोग कहेंगे कि आप सिर्फ जीत से ही नहीं बल्कि 'आम आदमी पार्टी' की नीतियों की वजह से उसका समर्थन कर रहे हैं। चलिये इस पार्टी की नीतियों पर भी बात कर ली जाय। पिछले कुछ वर्षों में जो घपले-घोटाले सामने आये उनसे अब साफ़ जाहिर हो चुका है कि इस देश में विकास के नाम पर एक बेतहाशा लूट मची हुई है। बड़े-बड़े पूंजीपति घराने इस देश की अकूत प्राकृतिक सम्‍पदा और श्रमशक्ति का शोषण करके अपनी तिजोरियां भर रहे हैं और देश की आम मेहनकश जनता शोषण की चक्‍की मे पिसती हुई नरक जैसी जिन्‍दगी बिताने को मज़बूर है। ग़रीबी, भुखमरी, कुपोषण के मामले में भारत का रिकार्ड तमाम सब सहारन अफ्रीकी देशों से भी आगे है और वहीं दूसरी ओर धनकुबेरों की संख्‍या में भी कीर्तिमान बनाये हैं। इस घनघोर अन्‍याय का एक द्वितीयक पहलू यह भी है कि इस बेतहाशा लूट का एक छोटा सा टुकड़ा (जो 'आइसबर्ग के टिप' के समान है) पूंजीपति वर्ग अपने चाकरों यानी नेताओं और नौकरशाहों को घूस और कमीशन के रूप में देता है जिसको भ्रष्‍टाचार का नाम दिया जाता है। इस परिदृश्‍य में 'आम आदमी पार्टी', जो इन घोटालों के बाद उभर कर आयी, किस प्रकार का समाधान प्रस्‍तुत कर रही हैं? यह पार्टी मुख्‍य लूट यानी प्राकृतिक संसाधनों और श्रम शक्ति की अंधी पूंजीवादी लूट (जो कानून के दायरे में होती है) के बारे में तो चुप्‍पी साधे रहती है लेकिन द्वितीयक लूट यानी भ्रष्‍टाचार पर बहुत चिल्‍ल पों मचाती है। इससे क्‍या साबित होता है? वास्‍तव में इस पार्टी को इस मुख्‍य पूंजीवादी लूट से कोई दिक्‍कत नहीं है बशर्ते कि वह लूट के नियमों (यानी कानून) के दायरे में हो। बेशक हर इंसाफ़पसन्‍द व्‍यक्ति चाहेगा कि भ्रष्‍टाचार ख़त्‍म हो परन्‍तु उसके लिए भी हमें उसकी जड़ (यानी लोभ-लालच और निजी संपत्ति पर टिकी पूंजीवादी व्‍यवस्‍था) पर प्रहार करना होगा। परन्‍तु यह पार्टी जड़ों पर प्रहार करने की बजाय फुनगियों को कतरने को ही व्‍यवस्‍था परिवर्तन का नाम देती है। इस प्रक्रिया में यह जनता में एक झूठी उम्‍मीद भी पैदा कर रही है जो अन्‍तत: निराशा ही पैदा करती है और राजनीतिक स्‍तर पर फासीवाद की ही जमीन तैयार करती है। यह पार्टी दरअसल इसी व्‍यवस्‍था द्वारा पैदा किये गये तमाम सेफ्टी वाल्‍व और स्‍पीड ब्रेकरों में से एक है। यह जनता के बीच इस भ्रम का कुहरा फैला रही है कि एक भ्रष्‍टाचार रहित संत-पूंजीवाद संभव है।

शायद आपमें से कुछ लोग कहेंगे कि और कोई विकल्‍प ही नहीं है। आखिर किया क्‍या जाये? अगर आप व्‍यवस्‍था परिवर्तन को 'टवेंटी टवेंटी' मैच या 'फास्‍टफूड' जैसा नहीं समझते और तो आप मानेंगे कि विकल्‍प आसमान से नहीं टपकते, बल्कि उन्‍हें सचेतन प्रयासों से गढ़ना पड़ता है। इस बात से कोई इंकार नहीं कर सकता कि इस देश में क्रांतिकारी ताकतें तमाम शहादतों और कुर्बानियों के बावजूद अपनी विचारधारात्‍मक कमज़ोरी और दूसरे देशों की क्रान्तियों का अंधानुकरण करने की प्रवृत्ति की वजह से इतिहास के मौजूदा दौर में बिखराव और भटकाव का शिकार हैं। लेकिन हमें यह भी जानना होगा कि ऐसे ही गतिरोध की स्थिति को तोड़ने के लिए ही शहीदे आज़म भगतसिंह ने क्रान्ति की 'स्पिरिट' ताज़ा करके इंसानियत की रूह में हरकत करने की बात कही थी। हमें अपने हठी मताग्रहों और संकीर्णताओं को त्‍याग कर साहसिक तरीके से क्रान्ति के विज्ञान को आत्‍मसात करना होगा। हमें कल-कारखानों , खेत खलिहानों , गंदी बस्तियों में क्रान्ति का संदेश ले जाकर आम मेहनतकश जनता को एकजुट, लामबंद और संगठित करना होगा। मौजूदा व्‍यवस्‍था द्वारा फैलाई जा रही मानवद्रोही संस्‍कृति के बरक्‍स हमें एक वैज्ञानिक तथा मानवीय सोच से लैस नयी पीढ़ी को भी तैयार करने के भगीरथ प्रयास में जी जान से जुटना होगा। शायद आप कहेंगे कि यह तो बहुत मुश्किल और लंबा काम है। लेकिन साथी , धर्म-अंधविश्‍वास की जकड़न में फंसे एक पिछडे हुए पूंजीवादी देश में क्रान्तिकारी विकल्‍प खड़ा करने का कोई आसान और शार्टकट तरीका तो है ही नहीं। इसके लिए उबड़-खाबड़, पथरीली, लंबी और साहसिक यात्राओं से तो गुज़रना ही होगा। शायद आप में से कुछ लोग कहेंगे कि यह आपके बस की बात नहीं। लेकिन आप इतना तो कर ही सकते हैं कि अपने आप अपनी इस कमज़ोरी को छिपाने के लिए समाज में किसी भ्रम को (मसलन 'आम आदमी पार्टी' के द्वारा फैलाये जाने वाले ईमानदार पूंजीवाद के भ्रम को) न बढ़ावा दें। और साथ ही साथ जो लोग भ्रम फैला रहे हैं उनका पर्दाफ़ाश करें।

नरेन्‍द्र मोदी - पूंजीवादी राष्‍ट्रवाद की मण्‍डी में अवतरित नया 'मसीहा'

2013-09-14T15:24:00.002+05:30

पूंजीवादी व्‍यवस्‍था की ख़ासियत है कि वह हर चीज़ को माल में और लोगों को निष्क्रिय उपभोक्‍ता में तब्‍दील करने की कोशिश करती है। इसका जीता जागता उदाहरण हम भारत में देख ही रहे हैं कि पूंजीवाद जैसे जैसे अपने पैर पसार रहा है, यहां की हर चीज़ - रोटी, कपड़ा, मकान, शिक्षा, स्‍वास्‍थ्‍य, जल, जंगल, जमीन, पहाड़, नदियां, रिश्‍ते, नाते, आंसू, ग़म, खुशियां, त्‍योहार, धर्म, नैतिकता आदि मण्‍डी में बिकने वाले माल में तब्‍दील हो गये हैं। लेकिन पूंजीवाद मुनाफ़ाखोरी की जो अंधी हवस पैदा करता है उसका परिणाम अपरिहार्य रूप से आर्थिक, सामाजिक और नैतिक संकट के रूप में सामने आता है। समाज को भीषण संकट की गर्त में धकेलने के बावजूद पूंजीपतियों की मुनाफ़े की हवस शान्‍त नहीं होती, उल्‍टे वे इस संकटकालीन परिस्थिति का भी लाभ अपना मुनाफ़ा बढ़ाने के लिए करते हैं। ऐसी संकटकालीन परिस्थिति में उनके सामने सबसे कारगर हथियार होता है लोगों की देशभक्ति की भावना। इक्‍कीसवीं सदी में मीडिया ने पूंजीवाद के प्रायोजित देशभक्ति की भावना फैलाने के काम को और आसान कर दिया हैा यह अनायास नहीं है कि जैसे जैसे भारतीय अर्थव्‍यवस्था संकट के दलदल में धंसती जा रही है और सामाजिक और नैतिक पतन अपनी पराकाष्‍ठा पार करता जा रहा है, वैसे वैसे प्रायोजित देशभक्‍ति की लहर भी हिलोरे मार रही है। देशभक्ति की भावना को मण्‍डी में बिकाऊ माल बनाने के बाद लोगों को ऐसे राजनीतिक विकल्‍प भी परोसे जाते हैं जो वास्‍तव में कोई विकल्‍प हैं ही नहीं बल्कि वे इसी लुटेरी व्‍यवस्‍‍था को और मज़बूती से क़ायम करने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध हैं। भारत में धर्मपरायण लोग अपने दुखों और तकलीफ़ों का कारण ढूंढकर उनका समाधान खुद करने की बजाय अपना दुख हरने के लिए किसी मसीहा का इन्‍तज़ार करते हैं। मसीहा के इन्‍तज़ार की यह प्रवृत्ति पूंजीवाद के लिए एक संजीवनी का काम कर रही है। पिछले कुछ वर्षों से देशवासियों को मसीहाओं के भांति- भांति के ब्राण्‍ड पेश किये जा रहे है। कुछ समय तक अण्‍णा टोपी का ब्राण्‍ड परोसा गया जिससे लोगों में थोड़ी उम्‍मीद जगी कि शायद अण्‍णा ही वह मसीहा है जिसका उन्‍हें बेसब्री से इन्‍तज़ार था। लेकिन यह ब्राण्‍ड ज्‍़यादा दिनों तक नहीं चला, सो राष्‍ट्रवाद की मण्‍डी में आम आदमी की टोपी के रूप में एक नया ब्राण्‍ड परोसकर आम आदमी को एक दूसरी टोपी पहनाने की कोशिश की गयी। कुछ लोगों को फिर लगा कि शायद अब तो उनके मसीहा का इन्‍तज़ार ख़त्‍म हो गया। लेकिन वह ब्राण्‍ड भी टांय टांय फुस्‍स साबित हो गया और एक बार फिर लोग अपने आप को ठगा महसूस करने लगे।

इन दिनों नरेन्‍द्र मोदी के रूप में मसीहा का एक नया ब्राण्‍ड मार्केट में अवतरित हुआ है। इस ब्राण्‍ड को लांच करने के लिए इसके प्रायोजकों को न सिर्फ मोदी की दाढ़ी, चश्‍में, कपड़ों और पूरे गेटअप पर काफी ख़र्च करना पड़ा बल्कि उसके दामन पर लगे हज़ारों मासूमों के खून के धब्‍बों को भी डिटर्जेंट से रगड़-रगड़ कर साफ करने में भी काफी मशक्‍कत करनी पड़ी। लेकिन पूंजीवाद में अगर आपके पास अपने ब्राण्‍ड की मार्केटिंग के लिए ज़रूरी पूंजी है तो आपको आप किसी भी ब्राण्‍ड को लोकप्रिय कर सकते हैं। इस नये मसीहा के ब्राण्‍ड को भी लांच करने के लिए इसके प्रायोजकों के पास पैसे की तो कोई कमी थी नहीं, इसलिए उन्‍होंने स्‍वदेशी की अपनी रट को दरकिनार कर अमेरिका की पी आर एजेंसी को भी हायर करने में भी कोई परहेज़ नहीं किया। इन सब का परिणाम यह है कि मसीहा का इंतज़ार कर रहे निष्क्रिय मध्‍यवर्ग में एक नई उम्‍मीद का संचार हो गया है। अब उनको यकीन हो चला है कि बस यही वह मसीहा है जिसके प्रधानमंत्री बनते ही इस देश में भ्रष्‍टाचार का नामोनिशान नहीं रहेगा, रूपये का मूल्‍य बढ़ जायेगा, महंगाई स्‍वाहा हो जायेगी, आतंकवाद का ख़ात्‍मा हो जायेगा, पाकिस्‍तान, चीन और बंगलादेश भारत के आगे नतमस्‍तक हो जायेंगे और उनकी तमाम निजी समस्‍यायें छूमंतर हो जायेंगी। इसके लिए उन्‍हें एक आसान नुस्‍खा भी सुझाया जा रहा है कि उन्‍हें बस रोजाना सुबह शाम नमो-नमो का जाप करना है। इसलिए इसमें यह आश्‍चर्य नहीं है कि मध्‍यवर्ग के घर और दफ्तर से लेकर फेसबुक और टि्वटर तक नमो-नमो के कानफाड़ू मंत्रोच्‍चारण के शोरगुल से गूंज रहे हैं। हनुमान चालीसा, दुर्गा चालीसा, शिव चालीसा, सत्‍यनारायण कथा और ओम-जय-जगदीश की आरती से तो बात बनी नहीं, देखना यह है कि इस नये मंत्र से इस वर्ग का कितना उद्धार होता है।

Ground Report on the Real Estate Mafia's Reign of Terror in Noida

2013-04-30T00:14:00.000+05:30

Noida is one among those places which are highlighted as the hub of the 'emerging' and 'shining' India. The glittery shopping malls, world class expressway, fly-overs, F1 International circuit, luxury apartments, villas etc. are cited as the symbols of India's 'growth story' and Noida has all of these. From the last couple of decades, the mainstream corporate media has been busy selling this growth story to the emerging urban upper middle class and in the process making them a customer of the artificially inflated dreams such as having one's own luxurious house. But, curiosuly, the harrowing stories of those whose labour power is responsible for this so called development are conspicuous by their absence in the mainstream media's narrative. The labourers come into news only when some untoward incident happens and they are immediately held responsible for any such incidents without carrying out any investigation. One such horrendous incident took place on April, 28 at one of the hundreds of construction sites in Noida in which the security guards of the site opened fire on the labourers and in the process injuring some of them.

On the morning of the April 28, the workers of the 3C Lotus Panache company's constructions site at Noida's Sector 110 witnessed the naked reign of terror of the company's management. At the beginning of the morning shift at around 8 a.m., the workers had reached the construction site to join the construction work of the multi-story apartment complex, but they had to stand in a big queue because the security guards at the gate were taking long time in intensively checking each worker and making an entry. When some workers protested against this lax attitude of the guards and when they said that they had to listen to the supervisor's abuses if they are late even by one minute, a heated exchange took place between the security guards and workers and suddenly the guards started firing indiscriminately over the workers. As per the media reports, two workers were injured, but when a team of Bigul Mazdoor Data visited the workers settlement adjacent to the construction site, some workers said that the number of the injured workers could be four which includes a child as well and one of the workers is seriously injured and his life is in danger. As per the records of the district hospital in Noida, only one worker was admitted on April 28. Other workers were admitted to some private hospital.

The workers' settlement adjacent to the construction site where the incident took place

On probing further, the workers revealed that the security guards and supervisors used to routinely interact with the workers in abusive manner. Some workers said that the contractor did not give payment to the workers for last 3 months. The workers also told that the average daily wage of an unskilled construction worker was Rs. 140-150 whereas that of the skilled worker was around Rs 250. When the representatives of the Bigul Mazdoor Dasta told them that it was even below the minimum wages fixed by the government (which itself is ridiculously low), the workers said that whenever they demanded to increase the wages, the contractor had this to say that there are enough number of people ready to work on this wage and if they have to work on this wage then carry on or else they can leave.

A scene of the workers' settlement showing the pathetic conditions in which the workers are condemned to live

The living conditions of the workers' residence, a temporary settlement made of tin sheds, can be at best described as sub-human. Thousands of workers live in this settlement which can easily be called as construction labour camp. There is no drinking water facility. The workers have to buy the water. The electricity is temporary and quite infrequent. The toilet facilities are totally inadequate and hygienic condition is pathetic. Due to absence of drainage system, the water logging is a common problem faced by the workers in the rainy season. And to top it all, this entire settlement will be uprooted once the construction project is over and the workers will have to move to another equally bad or even worse settlement adjacent to a new construction site.

These stories of the naked exploitation do not appear in the mainstream corporate media. As it often happens, in this case as well, the reports local and the national media disregarded the plight of the workers and focused mainly on the violent actions taken by the workers out of desperation as they were very angry with the non-responsive behaviour of the police. The workers said that despite being present in the close vicinity, the police did not come when the guards were opening fire. After some time, huge police force and PAC battalions reached the spot to control the angry workers and they protected the guards from the fury of the angered workers. The workers said that the police released the guards as some of them were seen roaming freely the next day morning. The workers' colony was on the other hand was encircled with huge police force from all sides. It is quite clear that the police machinery is hand in glove with the management of the construction company to hold the workers reponsible for this incident. Thus the real estate mafia's reign of terror goes on under the protective cover of the police machinery and the workers continue to suffer.

Bigul Mazdoor Dasta

Response to Anand Teltumbde: To the Self-proclaimed Teachers and Preachers

2013-04-05T23:41:00.000+05:30

Anand Teltumbde's statements in the recently held Fourth Arvind Memorial Seminar on Caste Question and Marxism held in Chandigarh created a lot of controversy among the Ambedkarites particularly in Maharashtra which prompted him to write an article which was published in Sanhati.com and Couttercurrent.org. Below is the response to Anand Teltumbde's article, written by Abhinav Sinha on behalf of the organisers of the seminar:

Anand Teltumbde has announced his judgement about us (http://sanhati.com/articles/6366/). He has called us “self-obsessed Marxists” with “frozen mind”. What can we say? As he himself admits, his stay was of a few hours and in that short time span he was able to evaluate us conclusively and then declare his judgement. However, during that same short stay, we too, were able to make some impressions about Mr. Teltumbde. We shall start with some examples and then we shall proceed to a parawise reply of Mr. Teltumbde’s article.

Of Self-obsession and Similar Diseases…

1. In his first statement during the Chandigarh seminar, Mr. Teltumbde spoke for almost 1 hour. In that long speech, he mentioned his own name at least 3 or 4 times. He began with claiming, “Ambedkarites say that Anand Teltumbde is a Marxist and Marxists say that Anand Teltumbde is an Ambedkarite”! At one point, he says, “I don’t like people who immediately agree with me”; at another, “I saw a problem of mathematics pertaining to surplus solved by Marx using algebra, but I found that it was a problem of differential equation and then I thought why Marx has solved it using algebra…then I solved it using differential equation and sent it to an international journal and that was my first article (giggles) published in an international journal…many years later when I was in IIT I found that a Japanese scientist used my method in his research.” Again, “I became a Marxist at the age of 7 and I don’t think anyone present here became a Marxist at that age.” I can give several such examples. However, above examples suffice to show what is the real meaning of self-obsession. I think, Mr. Teltumbde is perfectly honest when he says that he curses himself for having gone to Chandigarh. However, the reasons that he is giving for this ostensible self-bashing, do not seem convincing to us. We have a different explanation for this self-bashing, to which we will come later. For this moment, we would like to argue that Mr. Teltumbde should tell what does he mean by “self-obsession”. If he is going by the dictionary meaning, then definitely he needs to ponder over his own attitude.

He claims that we were not open to free and frank discussions and were not encouraging participation from outsiders to enrich our approach paper. However, he does not give any reason for this particular charge. For example, had we not been open to free and frank discussions on our approach paper, we would not have brought Mr. Teltumbde from Jalandhar (he had already said that if we want him to participate in the seminar even for a few hours, we will have to bring him from Jalandhar to Chandigarh and then drive him back to Jalandhar, the same day, in the evening) and then driven him back to Jalandhar. In our statement too, we said that we are completely open to listen to him and learn from him. We had (and still have) very high respect for him. In his stay of a few hours, he spoke for at least one and a half hour and we listened without any interruption and in the end too we offered him to stay and speak more. Had we not been open to debate and discussion on everything, we would not have gone to that extent to ensure his participation in our seminar. However, we must our high expectations about him crumbled like a cookie during his first statement; we got to hear many things to which we could not find ourselves in agreement, and so we also presented our criticism. However, I guess, Mr. Teltumbde is not used to criticism and he had problems taking this criticism. He did not say a word of disagreement in his second statement and everything that he said was to express his agreement with what had been argued by myself and Sukhvinder and also with what was written in our approach paper. I completely disagree with this charge of Mr. Teltumbde that we were obsessed with being proven correct. After his second statement also, he did not utter a single word of reservation about the way in which the seminar was being conducted. In fact, we (Mr. Teltumbde and myself) in person exchanged our phone numbers and he agreed to come to Delhi for a longer discussion. However, Mr. Teltumbde is completely silent about this in his article. We are surprised.

Parawise reply to Mr. Teltumbde’s article

We have already responded to the first paragraph above. So I will start with the second paragraph of his article.

2. Anand Teltumbde charges us of mischief in throwing the “raw records of the seminar open for public discussion”. He believes that public is not at the same stage of understanding as that of the delegates of the seminar (so they cannot participate in the discussion!). This is a ridiculous line of argument. All over the world, the statements of participants in seminars organized by revolutionary groups or even academic institutions are recorded and put online. There is nothing “raw” about it. Had we edited the videos of seminar before putting them online, we would have faced the charge of fabrication of statements. Moreover, why Mr. Teltumbde is afraid of the “common” public? I do not think that common public is not in a position to listen to and understand what Mr. Teltumbde and other speakers said during the debate. We would urge Mr. Teltumbde to see the video again and tell us, what the ignorant “common” public would not understand. And how does this show that we do not understand the reality of caste? I mean, how does providing access to seminar debates to public is linked with our inability to understand caste? That is why, we said in the beginning that this is a ridiculous line of argument that does not lead us anywhere. We believe that not only providing common and general access to seminar debates by us, but the very participation of Mr Teltumbde in the seminar was traumatic for him, and that too, not for the reasons that he is mentioning, because he cannot support even a single charge against us with facts and details. So we would urge him to rethink his line of argument.

3. In the third para, first Mr. Teltumbde again puts the responsibility of “leaking” of his statement to the media on us and asks “can he (Abhinav) be absolved of this responsibility?” We would urge Mr. Teltumbde to learn to take the responsibility for whatever he says. He himself admits that he did say and in fact, he actually believes that all of Ambedkar’s experiments ended in a failure. Then what is the problem if a Hindi newspaper quotes it? And how does we become responsible for it? In all seminars, media is invited. It was not a closed door discussion of a Party and Mr. Teltumbde knew it. Once he had said what he said, he should not shy away from taking the responsibility rather than passing it on to somebody else. Secondly, Mr. Teltumbde puts forwards a plea to understand the context in which he “stood and spoke” there so that one can understand what he did in his second statement. However, we would urge him to make us understand that context. In his long speech, there was nothing to be deciphered or deconstructed. He said in the beginning of his speech that he found difficulty in reading the approach paper as it was in Hindi, but he managed to read the entire paper. He said that the paper was written with a brahmanical mindset and it smacks of casteism. Now he is saying that there was “only a thin line that differentiated it from casteist and brahmanist approaches”. Now, tell us Mr. Teltumbde, isn’t that a volte-face? Moreover, in his first statement, Mr. Teltumbde said that we are dogmatist Marxist. But in his second statement he said, “you said that Marxism is not a dogma, I also say that, so be it.” Isn’t that a volte-face, Mr. Teltumbde? Mr. Teltumbde said that we are trashing Ambedkar and Phule. We responded that we are not trashing them and we already acknowledged their contribution in the approach paper as well as our statements. However, that does not and should not stop us from presenting a critique of the philosophy, politics and economics of Ambedkar. There is no place of apologetics in the arena of criticism. We must call a spade a spade. To this, Mr. Teltumbde agreed and said that he too does not agree with Ambedkar’s politics and philosophy. However, in his first statement he claimed that many people do not know that Ambedkar followed the thinking of John Dewey, who was a progressive pragmatism; he argued further that Deweyan method is very akin to scientific method which tests every hypothesis (or set of postulates) on the basis of experimentation and then constructs a more advanced hypothesis (or set of postulates). He says that though he does not believe entirely in Deweyan method but it is very much akin to natural science. Then Mr. Teltumbde said that he comes from natural science background not social sciences where theories can be constructed. His statement is a de facto justification, or at least admiration for the pragmatism and instrumentalism of John Dewey. I criticized this approach of Mr. Teltumbde and argued that the Deweyan method claims to be scientific, but it is not. Because even science needs an a priori approach and world view. Then we presented a detailed critique of Deweyan method of Ambedkar. Mr. Teltumbde was nowhere critical of Deweyan method. Anyone who listens Mr. Teltumbde can understand that he is in fact admiring the Deweyan skepticism for all theory and its fetish for methodology, which is always “self-corrective”. In his second statement, Mr. Teltumbde withdrew his admiration of Deweyan pragmatism and agreed that he was one of the major pillars of American liberalism. Now, Mr. Teltumbde is saying that he only concentrated on one paragraph of the approach paper which allegedly distorted his views. Now, isn’t that a volte-face, Mr. Teltumbde?

4., 5., 6., and 7. In these four paragraphs, Mr. Teltumbde embarks upon the task of exposing our ignorance! Let us see how. He quotes our paper to show that we have put the charge of amalgamating Marxism with Ambedkarism on him, which in fact is baseless, because he has never used the word “samanvaya” (amalgamation). Mr. Teltumbde is not being fair here because since he has seen the video again (as is apparant from this article of Mr. Teltumbde), we had already responded to this argument of Mr. Teltumbde in the seminar itself. I said in my first statement that it does not really matter what you call yourself. The mechanism of naming things is always external to the things that we are talking about. It will always be the people in general who will give you names, not you yourself. I argued in my first statement that when you say that Ambedkar’s ‘Annihilation of Caste’ is to caste India what Communist Manifesto was for the working class, then you are giving a value judgement. Mr. Teltumbde said that he was using the term ‘Manifesto’ here as a generic term and he did not mean to equate ‘Annihilation of Caste’ with ‘Communist Manifesto’. However, I responded in my statement that even if you were using the term ‘Manifesto’ in a generic way, this metaphor was wrong and obviously had ulterior motives. Because if you were using it as a generic term, you could have given the example of any other manifesto like ‘Rights of Man’, or ‘Declaration of Rights of Women’, etc. But you chose ‘Communist Manifesto’! I argued that this whole metaphorization is value-loaded and whoever reads this statement of Mr. Teltumbde in the entire context knows that Mr. Teltumbde is not using the term ‘Manifesto’ in a generic way, rather, he is equating the importance of ‘Annihilation of Caste’ and ‘Communist Manifesto’, to which we, I think rightly, objected. Mr. Teltumbde’s defence (that he used ‘Manifesto’ as a generic term) was a really lame excuse. That is why Mr. Teltumbde did not utter a single word about our criticism of this analogy in his second statement.

Besides, Mr. Teltumbde accuses us of equating the division of castes to other divisions along the order of places in the production system (such as division between mental and manual labour, skilled and unskilled, etc and British and Irish workers, black and white workers). However, if you read the lines in the approach paper, we simply argued that everywhere the division of labour engenders some kind of division of labourers and Ambedkar was wrong in claiming that caste is not a division of labour but a division of labourers. Recent historiaography and evidences has now demonstrated beyond doubt that varna/caste system (a term preferred by Suvira Jaiswal, rather than simply using varna system or caste system) has its origins in the labour division which got ritualistically ossified and became a rigid division of labourers. In other places, the division of labour did engender a division of labourers but since elsewhere this division of labour did not get ritualistically ossified, it did not engender a rigid division of labourers based on birth. So the division of labourers in the case of Black/white, British/Irish is not rigid like the caste system. We have clarified this point while dealing with historiography of caste in the Approach Paper, as well as in the separate paper on the Historiography of Caste presented during the Seminar by me. But, Mr. Teltumbde has quoted us out of context to prove his point, a charge that, to our surprise, he puts on us! Mr. Teltumbde again accuses us of trashing all non-Marxist currents in the caste movements. However, we have clarified in the paper as well as in the statements that we had put forward in the seminar that it is not the question of trashing or completely adopting something. The real question is what can be learnt from Ambedkar and other currents in the caste movement and what should be criticized. Mr. Teltumbde, like always, has circumvented this real question. We have argued in our paper that the contribution of Ambedkar in establishing the Dalit identity and the sense of dignity should be acknowledged. However, we cannot adopt anything from his program of dalit emancipation, neither political program nor social or economic programs. And Mr. Teltumbde agrees on this point. So we end up wondering, what does he really object to! Because we have always particularized what we are criticizing, in all the papers that we presented in the seminar. Instead of putting a counter-critique on each and every point, Mr. Teltumbde has taken the convenient way of putting a vague charge on us, that is, we are in a rejectionist mode as regards the other currents in the caste movements. We say again and again that we are not rejecting, we are trying to establish a critical relation with everything, that is, we are trying to ascertain what can we learn from Ambedkar and what must be criticized in Ambedkar. Instead of arguing particularly about things, Mr. Teltumbde conducts a summary trial and announces his judgement on us. Now, is that an attitude of open and free debate and discussion, Mr. Teltumbde?

8. In the eighth para, Mr. Teltumbde raises the question of comparison of the ‘Communist Manifesto’ and ‘Annihilation of Castes’ about which we have already explained our position. However, he says an interesting thing to which we would like to draw your attention. He says that he is opposed to “hierarchize ideologies” which according to him is a “brahmanical tendency”. So what do we have here? According to Mr. Teltumbde ideologies or philosophies should not be hierarchized; in other words, they should be put at par! First of all, we were not hierarchizing theories. He can not produce a single sentence from the approach paper or the statements that we had presented which hierarchizes philosophies. What we presented was a critique of Ambedkar’s politics and philosophy from a Marxist standpoint. Mr. Teltumbde is at his Deweyan pragmatist best here, as he can imagine only two positions: one, of hierarchizing philosophies and two, of putting them at par, or not hierarchizing them. So where does Mr. Teltumbde stand? What is the ideological and political quality of Mr. Teltumbde’s stand? Marxist? or Ambedkarite? or something else? That is what we criticized Mr. Teltumbde for in the Seminar: this fetish for method, the method of hard science, to borrow from Dewey! And then test all theories and philosophies from the sans-theory sans-philosophy scientific method! Mr. Teltumbde forgets the basic teaching of science: you can’t escape theory; even those who claim to be purged of all theories are, in fact, putting forward a theory. In natural (hard) science too, one needs to take an a priori theoretical position, namely, the dialectical approach, otherwise they are obliged to fall in the pit of determinism or agnosticism, because at any given point, science cannot give answers for all questions. That was the tragedy of debate between the Copenhagen School (Hiesenberg and Bohr) and Einstein; a fetish for science always leads to this ‘dysjunctive synthesis’ of determinism and agnosticism. Mr. Teltumbde has actually justified our criticism of his hidden Deweyanism in his new article. So, supposedly, Mr. Teltumbde is not concerned about the “correctness or otherwise of these manifestos”. However, this supposition itself hides in itself the justification of a trans-theoretical and trans-historical super-method, as one can see. We on our part can say that everybody has a position, irrespective of his/her will and they criticize or admire anything from that position only. We criticized the theory and politics of Ambedkar from a Marxist perspective, because we believe that claiming to have a position over and above theory, in congruence with the scientifc super-method is a hollow claim. Mr. Teltumbde should clearly put forward his ideological position, because any ambiguity in this matter leads to traumatic results, as has been the case till now.

9. In the ninth para, Mr. Teltumbde, while criticizing his Ambedkarite critics, has tried to make the Deweyan thought more tolerable to Marxism and Science. Deweyan thought never aims to enrich any theory as Mr. Teltumbde thinks. It is consciously anti-theory. Dewey was skeptical of all theories all his life. For him, what matters is the pure and pristine method of the “hard sciences”; the so-called social sciences create theories, rather construct them out of nothing and so Dewey has a disdain for all social sciences. Now, this is a completely different matter altogether that Dewey himself was following a theory, the theory of pragmatism and instrumentalism which biologizes everything. For instance, for Dewey every organism lives in a context and it has to adapt and readapt constantly to survive. For Dewey, in nature the process of development does not have ruptures or breaks; it is a smooth progression in which the organism adapts and re-adapts itself according to the context. So, for Dewey, in society too, the pattern of development should not include ruptures (revolutions/revolts); the human beings should make a good use of intelligence. The state is the best mechanism to represent this good use of intelligence and reason. Violence is waste. We cannot go here in a detailed critique of Dewey. However, it seems that either Mr. Teltumbde needs to have a serious relook on the works of Dewey, or he is trying to misappropriate Dewey to make him tolerable! We questioned Mr. Teltumbde’s argument that scientists follow the same method in the laboratories. This is the method of the instrumentalists in Quantum theory who raise the slogan of “shut up and calculate”; in fact, that is precisely the slogan of cybernetics also, with which Mr. Teltumbde seems to be fascinated. In these schools, we are told to follow a trans-theoretical, pure and pristine scientific method to test and calculate without any “theoretical prejudice”, and this is precisely what Mr. Teltumbde does again and again in his latest article: and eternal disdain for theory and an incorrigible fetish for method. However, we know now that this itself is a prejudice and there is another school within the so-called “hard” sciences to which people like Sakata, Gould, Yukawa, etc. belong, which believes in having an a priori dialectical position, even before entering the laboratory. So, Mr. Teltumbde’s claim that neither is he in support of anything, nor does he oppose anything, is an unscientific claim. Irrespective of your wish and will, you always do that as soon as you make a political statement or value judgement. Such theoretical indifference or non-partisan attitude is a myth.

Moreover, we never said that Mr. Teltumbde was trashing Marx or talking about his failure. It was in fact said by the self-proclaimed well-wishers of Mr. Teltumbde, that is, the five comrades of Republican Panthers who attended the seminar, who did not utter a word during the seminar, but immediately issued a statement against us and in supposed support of Mr. Teltumbde! Besides, we are curious regarding why Mr. Teltumbde is always in the teacher-preacher mode? He claims that he was trying tosensitize (!?) people present in the seminar who were intoxicated by this or that ‘-ism’! Again, Mr. Teltumbde is at his Deweyan best. He is avert to call himself an Ambedkarite or a Marxist, or any ‘-ist’ for that matter. He is in a trans-theoretical methodological position or pulpit, from where he is supposed to sensitize us, and we are supposed to hear his sermons! Is that not a self-obsessed attitude on part of Mr. Teltumbde? We also know and do not need Mr. Teltumbde to make us realize that Revolutions happen in reality; neither in the paper nor in our statements, did we show any dogmatic or closed-ended approach to Marxism. Even, Mr. Teltumbde corrected himself in his second statement and said that he did not call us dogmatist (though he really did!) and he was referring only to the paragraphs of the approach paper that mentioned his name. But if you listen to the first statement of Mr. Teltumbde, you will find that he had not been referring to those paragraphs only; he was commenting on the paper in general, and that too, without reading it properly. What should we call this, if not a U-turn, a volte-face?

10. In the tenth para, Mr. Teltumbde argues that the distrust of Ambedkar towards Marx stemmed from Marx’s claim to a ‘grand theory’. (Such a claim was ascribed to Marxism by the postmodernists. Marx himself never claimed that he is creator of a ‘grand theory’. We will come back to this point later.) However, in the Seminar, he himself admitted that Ambedkar had not read Marxism properly and his list of books that he studied shows that he had a very supreficial understanding of Marxism and he had never read Marxist classics. Clearly, Ambedkar’s skepticism to Marxism had nothing to do with his dislike for ‘grand theories’ (Marx never made such a claim; he only claimed, together with Engels, to be the creator of the dialectial and historical materialist science of history and society). Ambedkar’s skepticism stemmed from two sources: one, his own class position and two, his academic training in the US where he became a Deweyan instrumentalist and pragmatist and in London School of Economics, where he was influenced by the Austrian school of economics, of Carl Menger. These intellectual sources are bitterly critical of Marxism. This in itself was enough for Ambedkar to become diametrically opposed to Marxism. Whenever, he strove to form an alliance with Communists, his prime mover was never the politics of the working class, but the same good old pragmatism of Dewey. Secondly, the account of Ambedkar’s political history that Mr. Teltumbde himself gives in the tenth para, bears a testimony to the throughout compromising, non-radical, non-massline and surrenderist approach of Ambedkar. We do not need to deconstruct the text of Mr. Teltumbde’s article here to show this, because it is self-evident. Mr. Teltumbde’s narrative itself shows that the Congress was always willing to co-opt Ambedkar in its political scheme. Does not this fact itself tell a lot about the politics of Ambedkar? Mr. Teltumbde seems to be in the awe of Ambedkar’s plan for so-called ‘state-socialism’ which has nothing to do with socialism! Socialism does not mean state ownership of means of production. The defining characteristic of Socialism is the class character of the state itself. As Engels had already shown in the 19th century, State capitalism (one can read socialism as well) is nothing, but capitalism pushed to extreme. Ambedkar’s economic program was a paraphrasing of Deweyan economic program, for which state is the most rational actor and therefore it should have the monopoly over economic activities and planning. We expect Mr. Teltumbde at least to be aware of this much. However, he is much too eager to perform a Marxist appropriation of Ambedkar, though in a clandestine fashion, while claiming that there is no meeting point between the ideas of Ambedkar and Marxism.

11. The eleventh para is probably is most interesting para in Mr. Teltumbde’s article. It claims that Mr. Teltumbde follows Marxist methodology (note: not Marxist theory/ideology/philosophy! The same old Deweyan skepticism for theory and fetish for method), but he would not call himself a Marxist because a lot of Marxists are dogmatic! However, Mr. Teltumbde does not mention that I criticized this position in my response in the Seminar, to which he did not say a word in his latest article. One calls himself a Marxist, or a liberal, or a post-structuralist, not because what the alleged followers of these ideologies do! Such a logic will lead us to non-sensical conclusions. One calls himself a Marxist because he/she believes in the approach and method of what he/she believes to be the Marxist approach and method. If majority of people have become indifferent to pain, tragedy, etc and have become inhuman, would you stop calling yourself a human being? No! Then why do not you call yourself a Marxist, if you believe in Marxism? However, we know the answer to this question already! Again, identifying with a theory and ideology always scares a Deweyan away! Secondly, never in the paper did we say that Marxism is a dogma and it cannot be developed. On the contrary, the major part of our paper is not a critique of Ambedkar and Ambedkarites, but of the Communist movement of India, which failed to understand the problem of caste and apply Marxism creatively in the Indian conditions. But, apparently Mr. Teltumbde had launched an attack on our paper without reading it properly.

Moreover, the iconoclasm, radicalism, etc of Ambedkar might be the personal views of Mr. Teltumbde and we might or might not differ in this regard. But our concern in the paper as well as in the entire seminar was not to analyze how deeply and passionately Ambedkar felt about the problem of caste, but what program does Ambedkar have for the solution of the problem and it is in this context that the criticism of Ambedkar put forward by our approach paper should be seen and understood.

Also, it does not matter at what age did Mr. Teltumbde become a Marxist! It does not affect the merits or lacunae of his arguments today and in any case it does not give any advantage to his logic. Kautsky was a much older Marxist that Lenin was. Does that influence the way in which Kautsky went haywire in his theorizations about Imperialism?

12. In the twelfth para, Mr. Teltumbde shows how everything that Ambedkar did for the emancipation of dalits failed miserably and goes to the extent of exclaiming, “The less said of Ambedkarite politics, the better it is.” However, he does not trace the origin of these mistakes, that is, the incorrigibly bourgeious liberal, pragmatist, instrumentalist, regressive thoughts of Ambedkar. He did not believe in the revolutionary energy of the masses, but believed in the power of heroes and specifically, the state. The reason for Ambedkar’s failure lies in his philosophy and politics and that is what we have subjected to criticism in our paper, not the intent of Ambedkar. Theoretical discourse never takes the issue of intent into consideration because this issue is a highly subjective issue. What is at stake in any political discussion is the scientific and philosophical character of a theory and its historical role. What the carriers of a theory might have felt at different moments does not matter in history, as Mr. Teltumbde himself claimed in his first statement, “individuals don’t matter in revolutions”. The conspicuous absence of a serious political and philosophical criticism of Ambedkar in any of the statements put forward by Mr. Teltumbde is troubling. He stops at mentioning a fact, that is, all of Ambedkar’s experiments ended in a grand failure. But he never asks the question “why?” Why does Mr. Teltumbde forget his celebrated scientific method here? This is a curious emission, as we can see.

13., 14., 15., 16. and 17. In these paragraphs, again, Mr. Teltumbde once again, is in his Deweyan glory. He talks about the failure of almost all great men in history. However, we would like to remind him that the task of the approach paper (and other papers as well) was not to assess the failure of men and their particular experiments. The real question is the assessment of the theory and methodology given by these men. Men fail and succeed. That does not matter much in history. The basic question is whether Marx was able to give a science of history? Whether he was able to give an approach and a method which is scientific? Obviously, Marxism is not an aggregation of the statements of Marx. Marxism is name of the approach (worldview) and the method that Marx gave. Marx might himself have failed to use this dialectical materialist method at a number of instances, for example, his theory of Asiatic mode of production, or his assessment of the British rule in India, etc. However, that does not make any difference as far as Marxist approach and method are concerned. A number of his expectations, judgements and statements were proven wrong by history. That might be called, in a limited sense, the failure of some of speculative judgements of Marx, the individual. But Marx could not be right in all his judgements (wouldn’t it be non-dialectical to expect such infallibility!?). The point here is to understand the difference between different statements of a person and his approach and method. Marx himself believed that dialectical materialism will develop with the changing world, because the basic premise of this science is to study the world in its motion. So, the theory of imperialism was developed by Lenin, not Marx, because finance monopoly capitalism came into proper existence only during the lifetime of Lenin. However, again the basic point to note here is that Lenin followed the same approach and method to study the world, that Marx had followed. So, to talk about the “failures of great men” at such a length and then claim that the failure of Marx was more catastrophic than that of Ambedkar does not make any sense. It is like the history of men, in the 17th century style, that does not tell anything about anything! Mr. Teltumbde argues that Marxism needs to be developed constantly in such a way, as if he is the first person to say so, or, as if we have said something different in the paper. Neither in the paper, nor in our statements did we say that what Marx said was the last word! We would not have felt the need to organize a 5-day Seminar to discuss any question at all, had we believed so. We have written in our approach paper about the mistakes committed in analyzing the problem of caste by Marxists and Communists. Then why Mr. Teltumbde is erecting an imaginary Marxist figure and then raining it with his bows and bayonets?

Besides, Marxism never says that revolutions are inevitable. That would amount to economism. Therefore, to try to prove the “catastrophic failure of Marx” by arguing that Socialist experiments fell down, or, revolutions did not take place, is utterly useless! The economic crises of capitalism themselves never lead automatically to revolution. Every crisis presents dual possibilities: the revolutionary possibility (if the revolutionary vanguard is in a position to lead the masses to revolution) or the reactionary possibility (Fascism). There is always a possibility of counter-revolution and all the great Marxist thinkers were aware of it, including Marx, Engels, and Lenin. So, the fact that sustainable revolutions did not take place in the twentieth century, does not show in anyway, the failure of the alleged ‘grand theory’ of Marx. Marxism gives the tool to analyze the failure of revolutions too, and a number of Marxists have subjected the Soviet and Chinese experiments of socialism to Marxist criticism and through such analyses only, that more advanced socialist experiments can be conducted. This is whatWalter Benjamin called ‘redemptive activity’ of theory. Every science develops through such redemptive activity and Marxism, that is, the science of society is no exception. In such a historical movement, the failures of individuals do not matter. What matters is the approach and method given by them. Marxists have not reacted in the vein of Ambedkarites, who have been targeting Mr. Teltumbde without any substantial reason and in this respect, we completely empathize with the agony and anger of Mr. Teltumbde. However, Mr. Teltumbde himself is to blame for this ironic situation. Taking a position above ideology and theory always leads to such a mess.

Moreover, what Mr. Teltumbde claims to have said in regard of the new developments which cannot be explained from classical Marxist position was this: Mr. Teltumbde argued that Marx talked about labour-saving devices, but in contemporary capitalism, we cannot talk about labour-saving devices but labour-displacing devices. Now, everyone who has read the elementary Marxist political economy knows that every labour-saving device becomes a labour-displacing device under capitalism. Mr. Teltumbde is immensely overjoyed in his discovery; but sadly, this discovery has already been made, and even more sadly Mr. Teltumbde is 150 years late! There is not real difference between labour-saving and labour-displacing devices. Mr. Teltumbde was seriously concerned about the scenario where it would become possible to run a factory with one worker! This very fear has led a number of intellectuals to conclude that working class is vanishing from the scene of history. Such a conclusion only shows that the person in question does not understand Marxist political economy. Such a situation will only create even larger army of the unemployed which Marx had called ‘grave diggers of capitalism’. Working class is not vanishing; on the contrary it would be pushed towards revolts. Needless to say, such revolts would not transform into revolution without a revolutionary theory and a vanguard armed with such a theory. Obviously, there are new developments in the modus-operandi of Imperialism after the Second World War which need to be analyzed and understood from Marxist perspective. However, these very ever new developments have been the prime mover in the development of Marxism as the science of history and society; just like the so-called “hard sciences” of Mr. Teltumbde! What is so stupefying about this? In a nutshell, Mr. Teltumbde needs to differentiate between assessment of men and assessment of approaches and methods. From that standpoint, it can be asked whether Marxism or Ambedkar provide the correct approach and method to understand everything that exists around us. Mr. Teltumbde believes that Ambedkar had no theory and he was a pragmatist who kept experimenting with newer things. However, this itself was his theory, which Mr. Teltumbde admits, he liked! And this very theory was subjected to criticism during the Seminar. What is wrong in that? Does that amount to trashing or rejecting Ambedkar? We don’t think so.

In the seventeenth para, Mr. Teltumbde traces the ideological origins of Ambedkar. However, again, he is trying to misappropriate Ambedkar. Ambedkar’s dislike for Marxism did not only stem from his experience of Indian Communists, but his class position and his academic training. Secondly, he never used Marxism as a benchmark, as Mr. Teltumbde wants us to believe; he had called Marxism “pigs’ philosophy” which shows his clear attitude. We have criticized this attitude of Ambedkar without using the derogatory terminology used by Ambedkar. We do not find anything wrong in it.

18. In this para, Mr. Teltumbde is again in his teacher-preacher mode. He rightly points out that Ambedkar has a huge contribution in putting the question of caste on the national agenda. He is also right about the contribution of communists in this, who empirically fought militantly against caste oppression. Indian communists as well as Ambedkar failed to devise a program for the annihilation of caste. In the beginning of his article, Mr. Teltumbde says that hierarchizing is a brahmanical attitude. However, he adopts this brahmanical attitude according to his convenience. Here, he says that the contribution of Ambedkar was much greater that Communists in democratization! He does not feel it necessary to back his statements with logic and reason. So he performs another intellectual somersault and adds that he says so rhetoricallybecause he wants communists to think about the opportunities that they have lost! Again, Mr. Teltumbde is quite obsessed with his teaching capabilities. Nobody denies the fact that there is a need to analyze the mistakes of Communist movement on the question of caste and that is what we have done in our paper, apart from a brief critique of Ambedkar. But this hierarchizing of Mr. Teltumbde is surprising and we do not agree to the hierarchy of contributions proposed by Mr. Teltumbde. At least, he should stay consistent in his approach and should not shift positions so rapidly, following Ambedkar.

19. and 20. In the nineteenth para again, Mr. Teltumbde argues in a way as if we cling to the metaphor of ‘base and superstructure’ mechanically and goes on to claim that all dalit Marxists (we’re not sure what does that mean!) have abandoned it and there has been a debate in international Marxism about this metaphor. We believe, and we have made it clear in the paper, that the metaphor of base and superstructure is an analytical tool to study any social formation and it cannot be used in a mechanical and instrumentalist fashion, as Indian communists have often done, specially while studying caste. We have particularly criticized certain communists of Indian communist movement who believed that caste belongs to superstructure. On the contrary, we have argued in the paper that caste belongs to the base as well as the superstructure. However, we can not go in detail about it; those who are interested can download the approach paper from the website of Arvind Memorial Trust and read our position. But here again, Mr. Teltumbde is erecting an imaginery Marxist figure for the purpose of bashing.

Moreover, the criticism that Indian communists failed to understand the question of caste and class was put forward by Mr. Teltumbde. We ourselves have criticized the Indian communist movement for this failure. But Mr. Teltumbde presented the matter in a way, as if Indian communists did not take up the question of caste and called it their biggest sin. We objected to this because it is factually wrong. Sukhvinder responded to this criticism of Mr. Teltumbde and criticized him for impeaching communists for what they are not guilty of. He argues in his latest article, “Surprisingly, there is no admission ever from the Marxists (regarding this mistake)”. Again, Mr. Teltumbde is distorting the facts. Our paper itself bears testimony to a bitterly critical approach towards the mistakes of the communists in understading the question of caste. In fact, a larger share of the paper is dedicated to the criticism of communist movement, rather that Ambedkar and Phule. As far as, the question of base and superstructure is concerned, one can refer to the approach paper. Our understanding is completely different from what Mr. Teltumbde is portraying it to be.

21. In this para, Mr. Teltumbde continues in the tone of teaching-preaching. He claims that it was he, who has been saying all along that castes basically seek hierarchy and cannot survive in non-hierarchical waters; under external pressure they contract together, but without external pressure they start splitting. He again claims that all caste movements have failed to note this core characteristics of caste. This again is a hollow claim. Historians like Suvira Jaiswal and R.S. Sharma have already drawn our attention to precisely these characteristics. However, like always Mr. Teltumbde is stupefied at his own “inventions” and “discoveries” and as always these inventions and discoveries have already been made and Mr. Teltumbde is sadly late! Mr. Teltumbde argues that the dalits and lower castes have to understand that its not caste identity but class identity which has the emancipatory potential and he also advises the communists to show to the dalits that they have changed. We believe that the communists can show this only through struggles and a proper understanding of the question of caste. We also believe that (and we have said this in the paper) without the participation of dalits there can be no revolution and without a revolution there can be no dalit emancipation. However, Mr. Teltumbde does not even mention that. Secondly, he again shows his skepticism for theory and ideology when he argues that there should be a convergence between the dalit and communist movements, not ‘-isms’ and such a convergence will quickly fructify into Indian Revolution. Revolution is first of all a matter of science; without a proper scientific and revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement, to borrow from Lenin. Mr. Teltumbde invokes the authority of Lenin according to his convenience. Lenin was very particular about the theory which guides the movement. Mr. Teltumbde’s Deweyan deviation is apparent once again.

22. and 23. In these paragraphs, Mr. Teltumbde presents his own alternative concept of reservation, which should be limited to the SCs only, who face exclusion at the hands of the society. The state should deploy other methods, according to him, to do away with the backwardness of the BCs and tribals. The reservation policy should not only include the public sector but the entire social sphere, which includes public as well as private. According to Mr. Teltumbde such a policy would have been free from the malaise of the present policy of reservation that has become the most potent weapon of the ruling class in dividing the people at will. Then, Mr. Teltumbde adds several more conditions to his alternative policy of reservation. He believes that in such a scheme the burden of annihilation of caste would have fallen on the society and the latter would have been obliged to do away with caste discrimination. Though, we would like to know more about his alternative vision of reservation policy, it seems to us that, first, even if the policy of reservation is extended to entire societal sphere, the dalits would not be destigmatized; on the contrary, as far as we can visualize, dalits would be stigmatized even more. But the ways in which stigma is attached to them, would become more subtle, rather than being crude and ‘in-the-face’. second, this would not in anyway, make it the burden of the society to do away with caste. Caste cannot be annihilated without the withering away of class, state, the interpersonal disparities of mental and manual labour, town and country and industry and agriculture. Even after revolution, several cultural revolutions would be required to annihilate caste. However, we are open to know more about the ‘intricate’ model of reservation suggested by Mr. Teltumbde. Anyway, that is not the point here. We would still suggest that had Mr. Teltumbde been this diligent and meticulous in adopting a more sound theoretical position, there would have been less problems. The basic question in our opinion today is that the problem is not with any particular model of reservation policy, but the policy of reservation itself. It might have been a democratic right till a certain time after independence; however, any model of reservation would only create an illusion today. Our demand should be free and equal education for all and employment for all. Only such a demand can push the system to its point of impossibility and in struggle for such a demand the caste boundaries could be weakened.

Mr. Teltumbde’s thinking is too much dependent on the role of the state, and what else can we expect from a true Deweyan! He thinks that if state implements his model of reservation, the society would be obliged to do away with caste. This is like a fool’s paradise. State can never oblige a society to think or act in a particular way. It is the concrete political, social and economic struggles that shape the ways in which the society acts, in which the state is sustained or destroyed, in which a new state is established. State through any possible kind of ‘affirmative action’ cannot oblige the society to think, say or do anything. Mr. Teltumbde did not explain even this “alternative” Deweyan understanding of reservation policy in the semiar, and now he is rebuking us for our closed-ended approach. Is that fair?!

24. In this para, Mr. Teltumbde wants to prove at any cost that our paper does not offer anything new as far as the solution part is concerned. He argues that such propositions can be found in any communist document on caste and that even Ambedkar’s proposals were more radical than that of the approach paper presented by us. First of all, unlike Mr. Teltumbde, we do not have any particular fascination with the claim to novelty. What is right, is right, irrespective of the fact that a number of people have already said it. Secondly, he only mentions the propositions which are common to any radical charter on the caste question. We have two parts in the section pertaining to our proposed program on caste question. The first deals with long term tasks and the solution of caste question by a socialist society and the other with short term tasks that must be performed immediately. We would urge Mr. Teltumbde to go through the entire section of the approach paper again to understand the particularity of our position. Our stand on reservation is not shared by any of the Left organizations. Our stand on new type of anti-caste organizations also is not shared by the majority of the communist groups. It would be useless to mention each and every proposition here. We would request interested readers to visit the website of Arvind Memorial Trust (arvindtrust.org) and download the pdf file of the approach paper and read it. Mr. Teltumbde should compare proposal by proposal to prove that Ambedkar’s proposals were more radical, though according to Mr. Teltumbde, such a hierarchizing approach smacks of brahmanism, yet he becomes brahmanical according to his whims and fancies! We do not think in terms of “more” or “less” radical. It is question of standpoint. Anyone who reads our paper, would understand that ours is an alternative communist program of annihilation of caste, which is not dogmatic and open-ended. We never claim that our program is final and best; on the contrary, we believe that many things could be added into it or even subtracted from it. It is a humble proposal open for debate. We mentioned this in the seminar too. But Mr. Teltumbde is much too eager to prove that we have reproduced the old communist program! So we definitely cannot convince him.

25. In this para, once again the self-obsession of Mr. Anand Teltumbde is best apparent. Mr. Teltumbde argues that he has devised a practical blue print for the annihilation of caste in his book ‘Anti-Imperialism and Annihilation of Caste’. Now look at his findings, which he claims to be new and unprecedented. He says that he found that since the capitalist onslaught from the colonial period through the 1960s, the ritual castes are weakened and to speak about castes in a classical hierarchy is fruitless.Now, any student/academician/activist familiar with the modern historiography of caste knows that this finding of Mr. Teltumbde has nothing new in it. Irfan Habib in his famous article ‘Caste in Indian History’ makes the same argument. Historians like Suvira Jaiswal, R.S.Sharma, Vivekanand Jha had shown this way before Mr. Teltumbde wrote his book. So Mr. Teltumbde claim to novelty in this respect is at best hollow and at worst, a false one. The relation of caste system with rural bourgeoisie and rural proletariat also has long been established. Mr. Teltumbde is again making a false claim of novelty. Even documents of various communist groups in mention this facet of the caste system in the rural areas. How the economic interests of the kulaks and farmers express themselves in caste terms also is a known fact for a long time now. The same could be said about his “findings” about the nexus between the state and the class of the rural bourgeoisie. The fourth point of Mr. Teltumbde regarding the role of the advanced elements of society in educating the people against the evil of caste through political economy, also is an old one and has been put forward by many people including Ambedkar. However, we are skeptic about this hope of Mr. Teltumbde. Lastly, the Left is given the role of dealing “physically” with the elements who are incorrigible and participate in caste atrocities! Amazing! (The role of the Left is reduced to dealing “physically” with the perpetrators of caste atrocities while the role of teaching/preaching/sermonizing is secured for Mr. Teltumbde, because in his view, it it Mr. Teltumbde who has provided a blue-print for annihilation of caste!) To make his argument somewhat more tolerable, he says that through this role the Left can win the confidence of dalits, which will strengthen the forces of revolution and annihilation of castes. Then, Mr. Teltumbde gives his final teaching, “Do this much, and you will find yourself close to Annihilation of Castes.” To render his propositions more credibility, Mr. Teltumbde tells us that his model his supported by his own research in cybernetics! We can see Mr. Teltumbde going back, again, to his Deweyan “scientific” determinism. Whatever Mr. Teltumbde says, this much is clear: his claims to novelty are baseless and he has nothing new to offer as far as annihilation of caste is concerned.

26. In this para, Mr. Teltumbde claims that he did not retract his statements. He said that what I (Abhinav) strove to refute in my statement (the Deweyanism of Ambedkar and of Mr. Teltumbde in a different way) was not shared by Mr. Teltumbde. However, he himself admits that he liked the Deweyan method and found it akin to the method of science. This is what I refuted! I argued that Deweyan method projects itself to be the scientific method, but it is not. I have already shown in this response how Mr. Teltumbde is a true Deweyan. His whole line of argument is Deweyan in nature. Now Mr. Teltumbde is trying to show that he has no liking for Deweyan pragmatism and instrumentalism! Secondly, he did say that he agrees with what had been said by me. He said, “many good things have been said here and I agree with them.” Now, he is saying that he was referring to the paper. This is stupefying! And even if he was referring to the paper, he actually did reject the entire paper as being casteist and brahmanical in his first statement. (One can see all this in the video, the link of which is given below). Then he retracted his charge in the second statement. Mr. Teltumbde makes an amusing statement here. He says that he spoke something uncomfortably to get out of there, which cannot be construed as agreement with us! Now we leave the task of judging this bizarre statement to the readers. We would ask the readers as well as Mr. Teltumbde to see the video again. His tone in the first statement was like that of a preacher/teacher who came there to educate the ignorant Marxists. In the second statement, he “uncomfortably” expressed his agreement with “much of what had been said there” (in the paper or in my critique of Mr. Teltumbde, it does not matter, because there is no contradiction in the stand put forward in the paper and what I said). I would say the change is apparent between the tone of the first statement and the tone of the second statement itself, and it is so apparent that anyone can see it. He quotes me (“aisa mujhe dhwanit hua ki aapka comment pure paper par tha”). However, anyone who sees the video can understand that I was saying in a humble way that “yes, Mr. Teltumbde, you actually did reject our paper as casteist and brahmanical”. However, my tone could only be humble, because, as Mr. Teltumbde himself says, he is a “senior activist”! Now he can call it hallucination, or whatever he likes. But the video of the debate speaks for itself. This is very lame defence of his shifting positions by Mr. Teltumbde, to say the least.

27. In the last para, Mr. Teltumbde has bitterly rebuked the Ambedkarites who have been attacking him since his participation in the Chandigarh Seminar. However, here too it is not clear what he is defending in Ambedkar: the individual or his ideas. Because as far as thoughts are concerned, we do not know what can we learn from Deweyan pragmatism in our task of annihilation of caste. In fact, at several other places, Mr. Teltumbde himself says that Ambedkar never had a program for annihilation of caste.Then which ideas/thoughts of Ambedkar should be defended? Then again, Mr. Teltumbde shows his self-obsession and his baseless belief in the “innocence of dalits”. Let us have a look at some statements made in this para: “It is not I but you who have insulted Babasaheb Ambedkar in the process by exploiting the sentiments of his innocent people against someone (that is Mr. Teltumbde himself!) who has worked singularly for them keeping away from the camp of the ruling classes.”; “I am the one who has never shown any iota of bhakti to Babasaheb Ambedkar ulike your tribe but sincerely followed his role model in excelling in whatever I did, in standing firm on the side of the oppressed masses, securing capability of analyzing the world around us on their behalf…” Now one can see, to what extent Mr. Teltumbde is a sad victim of political Narcissism and self-obsession. He thinks of himself as the self-proclaimed hero of the dalit cause. And curiously enough, he has charged us of self-obsession!

In the end, we can only say that everyone should watch the video of our debate with Mr. Anand Teltumbde again and see the change in everything: the tone, the content, and the form. Watching the video itself is sufficient to understand the hollow claims made by Mr. Teltumbde in this article. We have given a parawise reply so that there is no possibility of confusion and all comrades can understand our refutation of Mr. Teltumbde clearly. We are again giving the link of the video for everyone’s convenience.

Link of the video of the entire debate : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYZPrNd4kDQ

काटजू महोदय, आपकी न्‍यायशीलता की ज़रूरत 'सेलिब्रिटीज़' से ज्‍़यादा आम जनता को है!

2013-04-05T23:11:00.004+05:30

जस्टिस काटजू अपने बेबाक़ बयानों को लेकर आये दिन चर्चा में रहते हैं। वे मीडिया से लेकर न्‍यायपालिका और विभिन्‍न राजनीतिक दलों के नेताओं की ग‍़लतियों के खि़लाफ़ एक रैडिकल तेवर लेते दिखाई पड़ते हैं। जो बातें वो कहते हैं उनमें से ज्‍़यादातर सही ही प्रतीत होती हैं। मिसाल के लिए उनकी इस बात से भला कौन इन्‍कार कर सकता है कि भारतीय मीडिया की कवरेज ज्‍़यादातर 'सेलीब्रिटीज़' पर केन्द्रित होती है और आम जनता के दुख़ों और तकलीफ़ों की मीडिया कोई परवाह नहीं करता। ऐसे में कोई भी जस्टिस काटजू से यह उम्‍मीद करेगा कि वो खुद आम जनता के साथ होने वाले अन्‍याय के ख़िलाफ़ आवाज़ उठायेंगे और खासकर भारतीय पूंजीवादी राज्‍यसत्‍ता द्वारा आम मेहनतकश आबादी (मज़दूर, गरीब किसान, आदिवासी आदि) के बुनियादी अधिकारों पर लगातार जारी हमले की मुख़ालफ़त करेंगे भले ही ये मीडिया की सुर्खियों में न आते हों। परन्‍तु यह बात समझ से परे है कि ऐसा क्‍यों है कि मीडिया की इतनी लानत- मलानत करने वाले जस्टिस काटजू ज्‍़यादातर उन्‍हीं मामलों पर अपने रैडिकल तेवर दिखाते हैं जो पहले से ही मीडिया की सुर्खियों में रहते हैं। संजय दत्‍त की सजा का मुखर विरोध करने की वजह से जस्टिस काटजू एक बार फिर सुर्खियों में हैं। मीडिया के तमाम 'सेलीब्रिटीज' पत्रकार जस्टिस काटजू से सवालात पूछ रहे हैं। लेकिन इस देश की जनता तो जस्टिस काटजू से यह सवाल पूछेगी कि काटजू महोदय! क्‍या संजय दत्‍त जैसे 'सेलीब्रिटी' के पक्ष में बोलने वालों की कमी है जो आप भी तमाम नेताओं और 'सेलीब्रिटीज़' से सुर में सुर मिला रहे हैं? क्‍या यह सच नहीं है कि न्‍याय के पक्ष में आपके रैडिकल तेवरों की ज़रूरत आम मेहनतकश जनता को है जो सरपट पूंजीवादी विकास की वजह से दिन-ब-दिन और घंटे-दर-घंटे होने वाले शोषण और उत्‍पीड़न की चक्‍की में पिस रही है? मिसाल के लिए क्‍या आपको यह नहीं पता है कि हरियाणा पुलिस ने मारूति सुजुकी मैनेजमेंट की शह पर पिछले 8 महीने से के 147 मज़दूर जेल की सलाखों के पीछे रखा हुआ है? इनमें से ज्‍़यादातर अपने परिवारों के अकेले कमाने वाले सदस्‍य हैं! क्‍या आपको यह घनघोर अपराध नहीं नज़र आता कि विगत 18 जुलाई की घटना के बाद कंपनी ने लगभग 2000 मज़दूरों को काम से निकाल दिया। तब से ये मज़दूर और उनके परिजन अपने साथ हुए इस अन्‍याय के खि़लाफ़ हरियाणा और दिल्‍ली में आन्‍दोलन कर रहे हैं। कहीं कोई सुनवाई न होने पर आज से उन्‍होंने आमरण अनशन भी शुरू कर दिया है। ऐसे मामलों में जस्टिस काटजू की चुप्‍पी हैरत करने वाली है। पूरे मारूति प्रकरण में मीडिया की कंपनी मैनेजमेंट के पक्ष में एकतरफा कवरेज पर भी जस्टिस काटजू ने एक शब्‍द भी नहीं बोला। काटजू महोदय मीडिया की सनसनीखेज प्रवृत्ति की कितनी भी आलोचना करें, क्‍या वे इस सच्‍चाई से इन्‍कार कर सकते हैं कि उनकी खुद की न्‍यायशीलता मीडिया की सनसनीखेज सुर्खियों पर आश्‍चर्यजनक रूप से निर्भर है?

एक तानाशाह की मौत पर 'दुनिया का सबसे बड़ा लोकतन्‍त्र' हुआ ग़मगीन

2013-04-05T23:08:00.002+05:30

अभी कुछ दिनों पहले की बात है, जिस कम्‍पनी में मैं काम करता हूं वहां की कैन्‍टीन में काम करने वाला एक कर्मचारी बड़े ध्‍यान से टी वी की ओर देख रहा था। टीवी में एक न्‍यूज़ चैनल पर यह ख़बर आ रही थी कि बाल ठाकरे की हालत नाज़ुक है। मैने उससे पूछा कि क्‍या तुम इस ख़बर से दुखी हो? उसने तपाक से जवाब दिया, नहीं जी! मैं तो भगवान से दुआ कर रहा हूं कि वह जल्‍दी मरे! कारण पूछने पर उसने कहा कि यूपी,बिहार का भला ऐसा कौन सा आदमी ऐसा होगा जो बाल ठाकरे के मरने पर शोक मनायेगा। मैंने मन ही मन सोचा कि यूपी,बिहार का ही नहीं बल्कि जनवादी मूल्‍यों और इन्‍सानियत में यकीन रखने वाला कोई भी शख्‍़स बाल ठाकरे जैसे फ़ासीवादी मानसिकता के तानाशाह के मरने पर खुश भले न हो,ग़म तो नहीं ही मनायेगा।

लेकिन आज बाल ठाकरे के निधन के बाद 'दुनिया के सबसे बड़े लोकतन्‍त्र' की 'मुक्‍त मीडिया' को देखने पर तो ऐसा प्रतीत हो रहा था कि मानो देश में कोई आपदा आ गई हो। हर चैनल पर तरह तरह के बुद्धिजीवी और पत्रकार लोग बाल ठाकरे की शान में कसीदे गढ़ रहे थे और यह समझाने में लगे थे कि उनकी म़ृत्‍यु से देश ने एक करिश्‍माई नेता खो दिया है। कोई उनके कार्टूनों की तारीफ़ कर रहा था तो कोई उनकी क़रिश्‍माई भाषण शैली का बख़ान कर रहा था। कुछ लोग दबी जुबान से उनको एक विवादास्‍पद नेता कहने की हिम्‍मत कर भी रहे थे तो फौरन एंकर कह उठता कि तमाम विवादों के बावजूद हमें यह तो मानना ही पड़ेगा कि अपने बेजोड़ और करिश्‍माई अन्‍दाज़ से उन्‍होंने भारतीय राजनीति को एक नई दिशा दी। मीडिया के इन प्रकांड पंडितों की बात सुनकर ऐसा लगता है मानो राजनीतिक दिशा देना अपने आप में एक महान काम होता है और इस बात से कोई फ़र्क नहीं पड़ता कि इस नई दिशा का आम जनता की जि़न्‍दगी पर क्‍या असर पड़ा और अगर राजनीति इसी दिशा में अग्रसर रही हो देश का भविष्‍य क्‍या होगा।

बहरहाल, मीडिया के मुताबिक पूरा देश शोकाकुल है। अरविन्‍द केजरीवाल, सचिन तेंदुलकर, अमिताभ बच्‍चन, लता मंगेशकर जैसे 'सेलिब्रिटीज़' तक दुखी हैं! दिवंगत 'हिन्‍दू ह्रदय सम्राट' की पदवी के सबसे तगड़े दावेदार नरेन्‍द्र मोदी ने अपने 'मार्गदर्शक' 'योद्धा' को शोक सन्‍देश भेजने में कोई कोताही नहीं की। इस सन्‍देश को सुनकर ऐसा लग रहा था मानो वो यह सम्‍प्र‍ेषित करना चाह रहे हों कि उनके जाने के बाद भी उनके नक्‍़शे कदम पर चलने वाला 'युद्ध' तो जारी ही रहेगा। यह बात दीग़र है कि नरेन्‍द्र मोदी ने अपने सन्‍देश में अपने समर्थकों से यह बात नहीं बताई कि उनके 'मार्गदर्शक' के 'युद्ध' के शिकार सिर्फ गैर हिन्‍दू ही नहीं थे। अगर नरेन्‍द्र मोदी और उनके अन्‍ध भक्‍तों को असली इतिहास जानने में ज़रा भी दिलचस्‍पी होती तो उन्‍हें मालूम होता कि दरअसल बाल ठाकरे की शिवसेना ने भारतीय राजनीति को नई दिशा देने की शुरूआत हिन्‍दुत्‍व की राजनीति से नहीं की थी बल्कि उनके युद्ध का पहला निशाना मुम्‍बई में रहने वाली गुज़राती आबादी थी जिनके खि़लाफ पहली बार मराठी मानुसों को एकजुट करने की शुरूआत हुई थी। बाद में इस फ़ासिस्‍ट राजनीति के निशाने पर दक्षिण भारतीय, दलित, मज़दूर और यू पी बिहार के प्रवासी लोग आये। बाल ठाकरे को 'हिन्‍दू ह़दय सम्राट' की पदवी तो बाद में जाकर मिली जब शिवसेना ने राममन्दिर आन्‍दोलन की बाढ़ में डुबकी लगाने की ठानी और भगवा वस्‍त्र धारण कर मुसलमानों के खि़लाफ़ खुले आम ज़हर उगलना शुरू किया।

पिछले कई दिनों से 'दुनिया के सबसे बड़े लोकतन्‍त्र' का 'मुक्‍त मीडिया' हमें यह यकीन दिलाने में लगा है कि इन्‍सानियत का तकाज़ा है कि हमें एक तानाशाह के मरने पर भी दुखी होना चाहिए और शोक मनाना चाहिए। इस लोकतन्‍त्र और इस मीडिया के पाखण्‍ड का खुलासा इसी बात से हो जाता है कि जहां एक ओर एक तानाशाह के मरने पर शोक की लहर फैलाने की फ़रेबी कवायदें की जा रही हैं वहीं दूसरी ओर गाज़ा में इसी दौरान इज़राइल द्वारा किये जा रहे नरसंहार,जिसमें रोज़ाना बच्‍चों और महिलाओं समेत दर्जनों निर्दोष जानें जा रही हैं, का जिक्र तक नहीं हो रहा है। इस पूरे प्रकरण से एक बार फिर यह साबित होता है कि भारत को जब 'दुनिया के सबसे बड़े लोकतन्‍त्र' कहा जाता है तो यह लोकतांत्रिक मूल्‍यों के आधार पर नहीं कहा जाता। यह दुनिया के बाज़ार में भारत के ब्राण्‍ड को बेचने के एक मार्केटिंग हथकंडे की तरह ही होता है। यह सच्‍चाई से उतना ही दूर होता है जितना कि हमारे दिलो दिमाग पर रोजाना हमला कर रहे भांति-भांति के उत्‍पादों के विज्ञापन ।

अण्‍णा पार्टी और उसके उत्साही समर्थकों से चन्द असुविधाजनक सवाल

2012-08-12T20:50:00.000+05:30

अण्‍णा पार्टी* और उसके उत्‍साही समर्थकगण,

यह अच्‍छा ही हुआ कि आखिरकार आपने ‘सिविल सोसाइटी’ वाले मुखौटे को उतार फेंका और गैर-राजनीतिक आंदोलन का लबादा खूंटी पर टांग भारतीय पूंजीवादी लोकतंत्र की चुनावी गटरगंगा में छलांग लगाने का फैसला ले लिया। आपके तमाम विरोधी और यहां तक कि कुछ पूर्व समर्थक भी इस फैसले की कड़ी आलोचना कर रहे हैं। लेकिन मैं उनकी आलोचनाओं से सहमत नहीं हूं। मेरे विचार से प्रत्‍यक्ष राजनीति हर हाल में परोक्ष राजनीति से बेहतर होती है। लेकिन मेरे जेहन में कुछ सवाल उमड़-घुमड़ रहे हैं जिनको मैं आपके सम्‍मुख रखना चाहता हूं। ये सवाल नये नहीं हैं, मेरे जैसे तमाम लोग आपसे ये सवाल पिछले साल से ही पूछते आये हैं लेकिन आप अभी तक भ्रष्‍टाचार और उसमें भी जनलोकपाल के अलावा किसी मुद्दे पर बोलने से कतराते आये हैं और आपमें से कई तो ऐसे किसी सवाल को पूछने की जुर्रत करने वालों पर फौरन ही भ्रष्‍टाचारी और देशद्रोही का लेबल चस्‍पा करते रहे हैं। लेकिन मुझे यकीन है कि अब जब आपने अपनी राजनीतिक महत्‍वकांक्षा इस देश की जनता के सामने जाहिर कर दी है, आपको ये एहसास तो हो ही गया होगा कि अब आपको जनलोकपाल कानून के घोंघे से बाहर निकल कर इन सवालों से रूबरू होना ही पड़ेगा।

जंतर मंतर पर आपने अपना अनशन तोड़ने के साथ ही ‘आज़ादी की दूसरी लड़ाई’, ‘जनक्रांति’ और ‘व्‍यवस्‍था परिवर्तन’ का आहृवान भी किया। हलांकि आपने इस किस्‍म के आहृवान पिछले साल भी किये थे, लेकिन चूंकि तब आपने राजनीतिक महत्‍वकांक्षा नहीं जाहिर कि थी इसलिए आपको संदेह का लाभ दिया जा सकता था कि भ्रष्‍टाचार के खिलाफ़ लड़ाई को धारदार बनाने के लिए आप इन शब्‍दों को महज़ जुमले की तरह इस्‍तेमाल कर रहे थे। लेकिन अब इस तरह की जुमलेबाजी अक्षम्‍य है। अब आप इन शब्‍दों के असली मायनों में यकीन रखने वालों से मुंह नहीं चुरा सकते।

आपने देश की जनता को भरोसा दिलाते हुए कहा कि उनके जो अधिकार और ताकत जो संसद और नेताओं के हाथ में केंद्रित है, उनको फिर से जनता के हाथ में वापस दिलायेंगे। बहुत खूब! लेकिन आपने यह तो बताया ही नहीं कि इस देश की मेहनतकश जनता की हाड़-तोड़ मेहनत और प्राकृतिक संसाधनों की लूट से अर्जित की गई अपार संपत्ति जो टाटा, बिरला, अंबानी, मित्‍तल, जिंदल जैसे कॉरपोरेट घरानों की पूंजी में तब्‍दील हुई है उसको देश की जनता को वापस करने के बारे में आप क्‍या राय रखते हैं। क्‍या आपको यह नहीं लगता कि आज़ादी के बाद से जारी यह विधिसम्‍मत लूट-खसोट जो कि नेताओं और बाबुओं की भ्रष्‍टाचार और गैर कानूनी तरीके से अर्जित की गई संपत्ति से हज़ारों गुना ज्‍़यादा है उसको भी जनता को वापस दिलाने के बारे में भी आपको संज़ीदगी से सोचना चाहिए ? लूट तो आखिर लूट ही होती है चाहे वो गैर कानूनी तरीके से की गई हो या फिर लुटेरों द्वारा लुटेरों के पक्ष में बनाये गये कानूनों के ज़रिये। इस बात से तो आप भी सहमत हैं कि संसद पर लुटेरों का कब्‍ज़ा है। आखिर इसी कानूनन लूट की वजह से ही तो आलम यह है कि जहां एक ओर अरबपतियों की संख्‍या में वृद्धि के मामले में तो भारत ने विकसित देशों को भी पीछे छोड़ दिया है वहीं देश के लगभग 47 फीसदी बच्‍चे तथा लगभग 70 फीसदी माएं कुपोषण की शिकार हैं और इस मामले में भारत का रिकार्ड तो अफ्रीका के तमाम देशों की तुलना में खराब है। क्‍या आपको यह सरासर अन्‍याय नहीं लगता कि आज़ादी के 65 सालों बाद भी जहां एक ओर देश की कुल जनसंख्‍या के हिसाब से मुठ्ठी भर लोग विलासिता और ऐशो आराम भरी जिंदगी जी रहे हैं वहीं देश की बहुसंख्‍यक आबादी इंसानी जिंदगी की बुनियादी ज़रूरतों से भी महरूम है, 18 करोड़ लोग बेघर हैं और इससे कहीं ज्‍यादा झुग्‍गी झोपडि़यों के अमानवीय हालात में जीवन बसर कर रहे हैं? ज़ाहिर है कि इन समस्‍याओं के समाधान के लिए आपको अपनी सोच को जनलोकपाल के संकुचित दायरे से बाहर निकलना होगा और अपनी कल्‍पना को नयी उड़ान देनी होगी।

आपकी पार्टी के भावी नेता अरविंद केजरीवाल ने अपना अनशन तोड़ने के बाद कहा कि जिंदगी में पहली बार इतने दिनों तक भूखे रहने के बाद उन्‍हें यह एहसास हुआ कि भूख क्‍या होती है और पहली बार देश के लाखों किसान जो भूखे सोते हैं उनकी पीड़ा का एहसास हुआ। चलिए देर से ही सही आपको ये एहसास तो हुआ! लेकिन अब इस एहसास को थोड़ा गहराई देकर यह भी सोचिए इसका कारण क्‍या है। पिछले दो दशकों से जारी उदारीकरण, निजीकरण और भूमंडलीकरण की नीतियों की वजह से कृषि की लागत में भारी बढ़ोत्‍तरी हुई है, लाखों किसान आत्‍महत्‍या करने के लिए मजबूर हुए हैं, विकास के नाम पर करोड़ों लोगों को उनकी जीविका के से साधनों से बेदखल कर उनको विस्‍थापित कर दिया गया है। इन नीतियों के बारे में आप क्‍या सोचते हैं?

इस देश के गावों और शहरों में लगातार बढ़ती बेरोज़गारी, अर्द्ध-बेरोज़गारी और प्रच्‍छन्‍न बेरोज़गारी से तो आप वाकिफ़ ही होंगे। आप इस सच्‍चाई से भी अनजान न होंगे की इस देश की काम करने वाली आबादी का 93 प्रतिशत असंगठित क्षेत्र में काम करता है जो बेहद अमानवीय परिस्थितियों में 12-14 घंटे काम करने के बावजूद इतना भी नहीं कमा पाते कि उनके परिवार की दो जून की रोटी, उनके बच्‍चों की शिक्षा और स्‍वास्‍थ्‍य की सुविधायें हासिल हो सकें। जो थोड़े बहुत अधिकार श्रम कानूनों में दिये गये हैं उनका कहीं कोई पालन नहीं होता है। उल्‍टे अब श्रम कानूनों को ज्‍यादा से ज्‍यादा पूंजीपतियों के पक्ष में करने की कवायद की जा रही है। ऐसे में ‘जनक्रांति’ और ‘व्‍यवस्‍था परिवर्तन’ का दावा करने वालों को तो अपने घोषणापत्र में यह साफ साफ लिखना चाहिए कि वो सत्‍ता में आने पर काम करने के अधिकार, काम करने की मानवीय परिस्थितियों के अधिकार, सभी नागरिकों के लिए शिक्षा ही नहीं बल्कि स्‍वास्‍थ्‍य और पोषणयुक्‍त भोजन के अधिकार को संवैधानिक संशोधन के ज़रिये मूलभूत अधिकारों का दर्जा देंगे। क्‍या आप यह साहस कर पायेंगे ? शायद आप कहेंगे कि इसके लिए पैसा कहां से आयेगा। आप तो जानते ही हैं कि इस देश के पूंजीपतियों, नेताओं और बाबुओं के पास जो अथाह संपत्ति है वह देश की जनता की ही तो है। जिस प्रकार आज़ादी की पहली लड़ाई में ज़मींदारों और राजे रजवाड़ों की संपत्ति जब्‍त करने का वायदा किया गया था। क्‍या उसी प्रकार आज़ादी की दूसरी लड़ाई में यह न्‍यायसंगत न होगा कि मौजूदा शासकों की संपत्ति, जो दरअसल जनता को लूट खसोटकर ही अर्जित की गई है, को जनता के हित में इस्‍तेमाल करने का वायदा किया जाये। यही नहीं इस देश के मंदिरों, मस्जिदों, गुरूद्वारों, गिरजाघरों और बाबाओं के आश्रमों में जो अकूत संपत्ति पड़ी हुई है, वो भी तो जनता की है। उसको भी जनता के हितों में लगाने के बारे में आपकी क्‍या राय है ?

आप अपने मंचों से अक्‍सर कहते आये हैं कि आप अहिंसा में विश्‍वास करते हैं। आपको तो मालूम ही है कि इस देश के शासकों ने तथा‍कथित माओवादियों से लड़ने के नाम पर पिछले कुछ सालों से इस देश की ग़रीब आदिवासी जनता के खि़लाफ़ अघोषित युद्ध छेड़ रखा है जिसकी चपेट में मासूम बच्‍चों से लेकर बुजुर्ग और महिलायें तक आ गये हैं। उम्‍मीद करता हूं कि जनता की आपकी परिभाषा में फेसबुक पर आपको ‘लाइक’ करने वालों लोग ही नहीं बल्कि ये आदिवासी भी आते होंगे। जनता के खिलाफ़ शासकों की इस हिंसात्‍मक कार्रवाई को तुरंत बंद करने के बारे में आप क्‍या राय रखते हैं? पिछले कुछ सालों से जनता के पक्ष में बोलने वाले तमाम बुद्धिजीवियों को अंग्रेजों के जमाने से चले आ रहे देश द्रोह कानून के तहत मुकदमे चलाये जा रहे हैं। गौरतलब है कि इसी काले कानून के तहत गांधीजी पर भी मुकदमा चलाया गया था। यही नहीं, आज़ादी के बाद इस देश के देशी शासकों ने (जिनको अन्‍ना सही ही काले अंग्रेज कहते हैं) न सिर्फ अंग्रेजों द्वारा बनाये गये काले कानूनों को ज़ारी रखा बल्कि तमाम नये काले कानून (मसलन यू ए पी ए, राष्‍ट्रीय सुरक्षा कानून) बनाकर जनता के जनवादी अधिकारों का धड़ल्‍ले से हनन किया। ऐसे मे जनता आपसे उम्‍मीद करेगी कि आप इन तमाम काले कानूनों को रद्द करने का वायदा करें।

मैं यह भी उम्‍मीद करता हूं कि जनता की आपकी परिभाषा में पूर्वोत्‍तर के राज्‍यों और कश्‍मीर के लोग भी आते होंगे। यह जनता दशकों से अपनी स्‍वायत्‍तता और आत्‍मनिर्णय के अधिकार के लिए संघर्षरत हैं। अब तक तो आप बड़ी ही चालाकी से ऐसे मुदृों से कन्‍नी काटते आये हैं। लेकिन अब जब आपने अपना राजनीतिक स्‍वरूप उजागर कर दिया है, आपको इन इलाकों की जनता के सवालों और संघर्षों से भी रूबरू होना ही पड़ेगा। आप तो अपना अनशन दस दिन तक भी नहीं चला पाये। मणिपुर की इरोम शर्मिला तो भारतीय सेना की ज्‍्यादतियों के विरोध में और ए एफ एस पी ए कानून को वापस लेने की मांग पर पिछले दस साल से भी ज्‍्यादा समय से अनशन पर हैं। उनकी मांगों के बारे में आपके क्‍या विचार हैं?

आपने अपने मंच से यह भी कहा कि आप धर्म निरपेक्षता में यकीन रखते हैं। ऐसे में देश की जनता आपसे उम्‍मीद करेगी कि आप सांप्रदायिक ताकतों के खिलाफ़ खुलकर संघर्ष करें। धर्म निरपेक्षता में यकीन रखने वाले तमाम नागरिकों का मानना है कि आज़ादी के बाद हुए सांप्रदायिक दंगे इस देश की प्रमुख राजनीतिक पार्टियों के नेताओं की शह पर हुए, हलांकि इस देश की सड़ी गली न्‍यायिक व्‍यवस्‍था की वजह से किसी भी बड़े नेता को कोई सजा नहीं हुई । क्‍या आप इस देश की जनता को भरोसा दिलायेंगे कि जगदीश टाइटलर, सज्‍जन सिंह, बाल ठाकरे और नरेंद्र मोदी जैसे राक्षसों के खिलाफ नरसंहार का मुकदमा चलायेंगे?

आपने भारतीय राजनीति की दिशा बदलने के लंबे चौड़े दावे और वायदे किये हैं। अब तो आपको जनता के असुविधाजनक सवालों का सामना करना ही पड़ेगा। आप इस किस्‍म के दावे और वायदे करने वाले पहले लोग नहीं हैं। जे पी और वी पी सिंह के आंदोलनों ने भी कुछ ऐसा ही दावा किया था। लेकिन चूंकि वो इन सवालों का हल ढूंढने का साहस नहीं कर सके इसलिए उनका हश्र हमारे सामने है। अगर आप भी यह साहस न कर सके तो जनता की निगाहों में आप भी उन्‍हीं नेताओं की फेहरिस्‍त में शामिल हो जायेंगे जिनका आज इतना बढ़ चढ़ कर विरोध कर रहे हैं।

* चूंकि अभी तक पार्टी का कोई नाम नहीं सुनने में आया है इसलिए 'अण्‍णा पार्टी' नाम का इस्‍तेमाल किया गया है।

Maruti, Media and Middle Class

2012-08-12T20:47:00.000+05:30

The urban middle class in India has grown immensely in the last few decades and so has its most coveted dream of owning a car.The story of the amazing growth of Maruti in India has progressed side by side with the story of growth of its consumer - the Indian urban middle class. The sutradhar of the two stories - the media - has acted as a link between the two. The media created and inflated the dreams of the great Indian middle class and in the process helped the companies like Maruti to grow at an exponential rate. But there was a missing link in these media narratives which was deliberately kept away from the consuming middle class and in the process it helped to create a fetishism of the commodity called car. This fetishism prevented the consumers to see that their dream cars were actually produced in factories where human beings like them toiled hard in inhuman and sub-human conditions. It also prevented them to see that while these human beings toiled hard to fulfill the luxurious dreams of the middle class, they themselves were deprived of even the most basic necessities of life.

After the July 18 incident at Maruti's Manesar plant, the media added a new twist in its narrative. It informed its consumers that in the factories which produced their dream cars, those who worked were not human beings but murderers, arsonists and rioters. So the human beings who were the real producers of the goods necessary for the realisation of middle class dreams suddenly turned into villains who were hell bent to destroy their dreams. The middle class is outraged and has a sudden realisation of a 'sense of justice'. It wants the destroyers of their dreams to be summarily executed without trial. Even a cursory look is sufficient to see that this 'sense of justice' has a distinct class bias because at its receiving end are mostly those who are incapable of defending themselves in that leviathan called Indian criminal justice system.

This skewed 'sense of justice' prevents the middle class to see the stark difference in the response of this system vis-a-vis poor and downtrodden on the one hand rich and powerful on the other. That's the reason it does not find it astonishing that while in the Maruti incident, 3000 people were immediately charged for the killing of one person followed by arrests and massive witch-hunt, those responsible for gruesome mass murders roam freely and even occupy the high positions of power. This biased sense fails to see injustice in the fact that hundreds of labourers die and thousands are injured at workplace on daily basis for want of basic safety arrangements. It is because of this distinct class character of the middle class peoples' 'sense of justice' that they doesn’t get outraged with the fact that their fellow beings belonging to class lower than theirs who produce the goods necessary for fulfilling their dreams cannot dream of a dignified and distress free life for themselves and their children. How could they see these blatant injustices! After all the purveyor of their 'sense of justice' - the media - does not find such stories news-worthy or worthy of an emotionally charged reality show like the 'Maruti Mayhem'!

सत्यमेव जयते के उद् घोष की आड़ में खोखली जागरूकता फैलाने का कारोबार

2012-08-12T20:40:00.001+05:30

हमारे देश में बच्‍चों को फिल्‍मों, पाठ्य पुस्‍तकों, धार्मिक उपदेशों और अन्‍य सांस्‍कृतिक माध्‍यमों के ज़रिये यह बताया जाता है कि झूठ बोलना, चोरी करना, भ्रष्ट कार्य करना, दहेज लेना आदि बुरी बाते हैं और ये सब पाप हैं जिनसे हमें दूर रहना चाहिये। जब बच्‍चा कुछ बड़ा होता है, जवानी की दहलीज़ पर कदम रखता है और इन आदर्शों को गंभीरता से लेने लगता है तो उसको दुनियादार बनने का पाठ पढाया जाता है और उसको बताया जाता है कि ये आदर्श किताबों और फिल्‍मों में तो ठीक हैं, लेकिन इनको गूथकर दो वक्‍त की रोटी नहीं बनायी जा सकती और इसलिए युवाओं को अपने कॅरियर पर ध्‍यान देना चाहिए, उन्‍हें अपने बारे में सोचना चाहिए, अपने परिवार के बारे में सोचना चाहिए। शासक वर्ग के विभिन्‍न हिस्‍सों के बीच अपने-अपने मीडिया और प्रचारतंत्र के ज़रिये युवाओं में यह जागरूकता पैदा करने की होड़ लगी रहती है कि उन्‍हें राजनीतिक और सामाजिक पचड़ों में पड़ने की बजाय अपने घर, अपनी गाड़ी अपनी आने वाली पीढी के भविष्‍य के बारे में सोचना चाहिए (लड़के की शिक्षा और लड़की की शादी के लिए) तथा अपने सुखी रिटायरमेंट के लिए संपत्ति बनाने में जुट जाना चाहिए। इस प्रकार उम्र के इस निर्णायक मोड़ पर उनको सामाजिक और राजनीतिक मुद्दों से काटकर कर एक सुनियोजित तरीके से उनका अराजनीतिकरण कर दिया जाता है। दूसरे शब्‍दों में उनको कूपमण्‍डूक बना दिया जाता है और उनको य‍ह यकीन दिला दिया जाता है कि ज़िंदगी की चूहा-दौड़ में पशुवत उछल कूद कर दूसरों को पछाड़ना ही ज़िंदगी का मक़सद है।

लेकिन जब ज़िंदगी की इस चूहा-दौड़ का अवश्‍यंभा‍वी दुष्‍परिणाम सामाजिक और आर्थिक समस्‍याओं और संकटों के रूप में सामने आता है तो शासक वर्ग को यह डर सताने लगता है कि कहीं युवा पीढी में यह जागरूकता न पैदा हो जाये कि दरअसल इन समस्‍याओं और संकटों की जड़ घोर असमानता और मुना़फ़े की अंधी हवस पर टिकी सामाजिक और आर्थिक व्‍यवस्‍था है और कहीं उसकी चेतना इस सच्‍चार्इ तक न पहुंच जाये कि तमाम समस्‍याओं और संकटों से निज़ात पाने के लिए इस व्‍यवस्‍था को बदलकर एक मानव केंद्रित व्‍यवस्‍था का निर्माण करना न सिर्फ़ ज़रूरी है बल्कि संभव भी है। इसलिए शासक वर्ग एक नया पैतरा अपनाता है। अपने उसी प्रचारतंत्र के माध्‍यम से युवा वर्ग में ऐसी खोखली जागरूकता पैदा करने का आडंबर रचता है जिससे लोगों को समस्‍याओं की जड़ पता ही न चले और उनमें यह भ्रांति फैल जाये कि समस्‍यायें दरअसल व्‍यवस्‍थागत नहीं बल्कि चंद बुरे लोगों की वजह से हैं और लोगों में जागरूकता की कमी की वजह से हैं। एक बार लोग जागरूक होकर इन बुरे लोगों को हिक़ारत भरी निगाह से देखने लगेंगे तो सारी समस्‍यायें छूमंतर हो जायेंगी। इस प्रकार मौजूदा व्‍यवस्‍था पर कोई आंच भी नहीं आयेगी और लोगों में यह भ्रम भी बना रहेगा कि धीरे-धीरे करके लोगों में जागरूकता पैदा होगी और समस्‍याओं का समाधान हो जायेगा। यही नहीं, उदारीकरण, निजीकरण और भूमंडलीकरण के युग में पिछले दो दशकों से इस प्रकार की नपुंसक जागरूकता पैदा करने को न सिर्फ़ व्‍यवस्‍था विरोधी आग पर ठंडे पानी के छींटे फेंकने के काम के लिए बढावा दिया गया है बल्कि इसलिए भी कि यह बेहिसाब मुनाफ़ा पीटने का विश्‍वव्‍यापी कारोबार भी है। दुनिया भर में लाखों एन जी ओ खोखली जागरूकता पैदा करने के इस घृणित कारोबार में लिप्‍त हैं और उनको फंड करती हैं, दैत्‍याकार बहुराष्‍ट्रीय कंपनियां और उनसे संबद्ध फंडिंग एजेंसियां और इस पूरे गोरख धंधे की ब्रांडिंग के लिए इसे नाम दिया जाता है कॉरपोरेट सोशल रिस्‍पांसिबिलिटी या ठेठ भाषा में कहें तो धंधेबाजों की सामाजिक जिम्‍मेदारी। इसी धूर्तता भरे धंधे को अंजाम देने के लिए लोगों की ज़िंदगी, बीमारी और तकलीफों से सौदेबाजी करने वाली बहुराष्‍ट्रीय फार्मा कंपनियां अपने अकूत मुनाफे़ का छोटा सा टुकड़ा स्‍वास्‍थ्‍य के बारे में जागरूकता पैदा करने वाले एन जी ओ को देती हैं, पर्यावरण को बेइन्‍तहा तबाही पहुंचाने वाली तेल, गैस और ऑटोमोबाइल कंपनियां पर्यावरण के प्रति जागरूकता फैलाने के अभियानों को फंड करती हैं तथा आकंठ भ्रष्‍टाचार में डूबे कॉरपोरेट घराने भ्रष्‍टाचार विरोधी मुहिम का पुरज़ोर समर्थन करते हैं।

यूं तो भारत में से खोखली जागरूकता फैलाने का यह गोरख धंधा पिछले कई वर्षों से जारी है, लेकिन पिछले दिनों इसमें जबर्दस्‍त कारोबारी उछाल देखने में आया है। कारण है सामाजिक मुदृों के प्रति जागरूकता फैलाने का नया रियैलटी शो सत्‍यमेव जयते। लोगों में जागरूकता का वहम कुछ इस कदर पैदा करने के लिए कि शोषक व्‍यवस्‍था को खंरोच तक न पहुंचे, एक ऐसे अभिनेता की दरकार थी जो इस पाखण्‍डपूर्ण कार्य को बखूबी अंजाम दे सके और इसके लिए 'मिस्‍टर परफेक्‍शनिस्‍ट' आमिर खान से बेहतर और कोई नहीं अभिनेता हो ही नहीं सकता था जिन्‍होंने सामाजिक मुदृों से सरोकार रखने वाले चिंतनशील अभिनेता के रूप में सुनियोजित ढंग से खुद की 'ब्रांड बिल्डिंग' की है। युवा वर्ग के अच्‍छे खासे हिस्‍से में इस 'ब्रांड बिल्डिंग' का असर इतना ज्‍़यादा है कि यदि आप सत्‍यमेव जयते की आड़ में चल रहे गोरख धंधे के बारे में कोई आलोचनात्‍मक टिप्‍पणी करने के ज़ुर्रत कर बैठते हैं तो आमिर खान के उत्‍साही प्रशंसक तपाक से बोल पड़ते हैं कि तो क्‍या हुआ कि वह पैसे कमा रहा है, पैसे तो सभी कमाते हैं। वो हमें सत्‍यमेव जयते के सकारात्‍मक पक्ष को देखने की राय देते हैं कि किस प्रकार आमिर खान इसके माध्‍यम से लोगों में जागरूकता फैला रहा है। इस राय को गंभीरता से लेते हुए और अपनी इस जिज्ञासा को पूरा करने के लिए कि आखिर वो कौन सी जागरूकता है जो करोड़ों रूपये की एवज में सत्‍यमेव जयते के माध्‍यम से फैलायी जा रही है, हाल ही में मैंने यू-ट्वूब पर इस कार्यक्रम के कुछ एपिसोड देखे। निचोड़ के रूप में सत्‍यमेव जयते के अब तक प्रसारित चार एपिसोडों में आमिर खान ने करोड़ों रूपये की एवज में यह जागरूकता फैलायी है कि हमारे देश में बड़े पैमाने पर ल‍ड़कियों को पैदा होने से प‍हले ही मार दिया जाता है, हमारे देश में बाल यौन शोषण बहुत बड़े पैमाने पर होता है, हमारे समाज में दहेज नामक प्रथा प्रचलित है जिसमें शादी में लड़की वालों को लड़के वालों की फ़रमाइश पूरी करनी होती है और ऐसा न करने पर लड़की को भीषण यातनायें सहनी पड़ती हैं तथा हमारे यहां स्‍वास्‍थ्‍य सेवाओं में जबर्दस्‍त भ्रष्‍टाचार है जिसकी वजह से गरीबों को समुचित स्‍वास्‍थ्‍य सेवायें नहीं मिल पाती हैं। यदि इस किस्‍म के सामान्‍य ज्ञान को जानकर कोई विदेशी व्‍यक्ति अपने आपको भारत की समस्‍याओं के बारे में जागरूक होने को दावा करता तो बात समझी जा सकती थी लेकिन जब कोई भारतीय ऐसा दावा करता है तो उससे बस यही कहा जा सकता है कि यह आमिर खान की अभिनय क्षमता से ज्‍़यादा उस व्‍यक्ति के भारतीय समाज से कटाव और उसकी कूपमण्‍डूकता को दर्शाता है।

कार्यक्रम में कुछ भावुक दृष्‍यों को नाटकीय ढ़ंग से प्रस्‍तुत कर दर्शकों की आंखों में गुस्‍से की जगह आंसू लाने के बाद आमिर खान अन्‍त में इन आंसुओं को पोछने के लिए कुछ नुस्‍खे भी बताते हैं जब वो दर्शकों से अपील करते हैं कि एक दिये गये नंबर पर एस एम एस करें और कुछ चुनिंदा एन जी ओ को आर्थिक सहयोग करें। और इसके बाद वो यह सत्‍यमेव जयते के जनकल्‍याण सहयोगी के बारे में दर्शकों को बताते हैं। जी हां, इस सहयोगी के नाम का अनुमान लगाने पर कोई पुरस्‍कार नहीं है, ये है रिलायंस फाउंडेशन । आज़ाद भारत में लूट-खसोट, शोषण और भ्रष्‍टाचार का प्रतीक और सभी पार्टियों के नेताओं और तमाम वरिष्‍ठ नौकरशाहों को अपनी जेब में रखने के लिए मशहूर रिलायंस समूह अब सत्‍य की विजय की नैसर्गिक चाहत को भी अपनी मुठ्ठी में कर रहा है। इसी से सत्‍यमेव जयते और आमिर खान के पाखंड की कलई खुल जाती है।

इतिहास गवाह है कि अब तक किसी भी देश में सामाजिक कुरीतियों और बुराइयों का ख़ात्‍मा शासक वर्गों द्वारा प्रायोजित खोखले जागरूकता अभियानों से नहीं बल्कि व्‍यापक जनता की भागीदारी वाले जनांदलनों द्वारा ही संभव हुआ है। निश्चित रूप से लोगों को तमाम समस्‍याओं के विभिन्‍न पहलुओं के बारे में और उनके सामाजिक और आर्थिक संरचना से जुड़ाव के बारे में जागरूक करना जनांदलनों में यकीन रखने वाले लोगों का एक बेहद ज़रूरी कार्यभार है लेकिन उतना ही ज़रूरी कार्य यह भी है कि लोगों में खोखली जागरूकता फैला कर गुमराह करने की प्रायोजित मुहिमों का पर्दाफ़ाश किया जाये।

Diluting the idea of Revolution

2011-08-23T17:57:00.000+05:30

One of the most reactionary aspects of Anna movement is the brazen manner in which it tries to dilute the idea of revolution. While the government's repression of this movement on August 16 was indeed fascist and which was rightly opposed unequivocally by all democratic minded people, the way in which this movement has progressed since then must raise an alarm bell to all those who dream about not only a corruption-free society but more importantly exploitation-free society and who are striving for a fundamental restructuring of socio-economic and political system to address the problems of abject poverty, hunger, chronic malnutrition, catastrophic environmental degradation etc., corruption being one of them and certainly not the most important one. Enthused by the swelling support of youths in the major urban centers of India and abroad and the international headline which he is attracting, Anna triumphantly proclaimed on the sixth day of his fast from the huge stage at Ramlila ground with a Gandhi's portrait at the background that India has witnessed a revolution and described it as superior to all other revolutions in the world because it was a bloodless revolution. The supporters cheered and applauded him as they believed that India had indeed witnessed a revolution.

Ironically a large chunk of supporters this movement consists of urban middle class who work in the corporate sector and who have been the real beneficiaries of the policies of privatisation, liberalization and globalization which has actually led to such a mindboggling corruption which they are ostensibly opposing. For obvious reasons, their anger is not directed against the increasing privatisation of all the resources of the country which is leading to unprecedented social inequality and accumulation of wealth in the fewer hands and increasing the marginalization, dispossession and displacement of the tribals, small peasants, landless labourers and unorganized sector workers who constitute the overwhelming majority of Indian population. This is not the first 'revolution' that this class is celebrating; they and their ancestors celebrated the 'green revolution', the 'while revolution', 'IT revolution', 'Telecom revolution' etc. which benefitted them even while deteriorating the conditions majority of Indians. But this is for the first time this class has got the opportunity to hit the streets in the full media glare without the risk of facing bullets and lathis to prove that they also care about social issues and they also can bring about a revolution in the society. So all those who were till yesterday producing fake travel bills , tweaking their electricity meter, producing fake receipts to evade taxes and doing cash payment to real estate agents have suddenly found a new pilgrimage to purify them and to unleash their jingoistic energy. Anna movement has provided them a new spot in a long list of such old and modern pilgrim centres - Vaishno Devi, Shirdi, Tirupati, Sabrimala, Art of Living, Patanjali Yogpeeth being the most prominent among them. It is not surprising that because of the crazy media hype, this movement is swelling its support base and now all kinds of fascist, communal and casteist groups are converging at this new pilgrimage centre, the most interesting of such groups being Krantikari Manuwadi Morcha Party which claims to bring back the 'merit based' Manuwadi system in India.

While no one can deny the right of the supporters of this movement to take part in this purification drive, they have no authority to dilute the idea of revolution which has evolved in the collective conscience of mankind as an outcome of the supreme sacrifices of the countless people all over the world. While ridiculously calling this movement as the 'second freedom struggle' when they chant 'Vande Matram', 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' and 'Inquilab Zindabad' in the same breath, do they have any idea as to what Shahid-e-Azam Bhagat Singh and his comrades of HSRA(Hindustan Socialist Revolutionary Association) meant by 'Inquilab' when they popularized this slogan during the struggle for independence!
This is what Bhagat Singh's idea of revolution was, which he enunciated in the session court in the Bomb case:

By "Revolution" we mean that the present order of things, which is based on manifest injustice, must change. Producers or labourers in spite of being the most necessary element of society are robbed by their exploiters of the fruits of their labour and deprived of their elementary rights. The peasant who grows corn for all, starves with his family, the weaver who supplies the world market with textile fabrics, has not enough to cover his own and his children's bodies, masons, smiths and carpenters who raise magnificent palaces, live like pariahs in the slums. The capitalists and exploiters, the parasites of society, squander millions on their whims. These terrible inequalities and forced disparity of chances are bound to lead to chaos. This state of affairs cannot last long, and it is obvious, that the present order of society in merry-making is on the brink of a volcano.
The whole edifice of this civilization, if not saved in time, shall crumble. A radical change, therefore, is necessary and it is the duty of those who realize it to reorganize society on the socialistic basis. Unless this thing is done and the exploitation of man by man and of nations by nations is brought to an end, sufferings and carnage with which humanity is threatened today cannot be prevented. All talk of ending war and ushering in an era of universal peace is undisguised hypocrisy.
By "Revolution", we mean the ultimate establishment of an order of society which may not be threatened by such breakdown, and in which the sovereignty of the proletariat should be recognized and a world federation should redeem humanity from the bondage of capitalism and misery of imperial wars.
This is our ideal, and with this ideology as our inspiration, we have given a fair and loud enough warning.
If, however, it goes unheeded and the present system of Government continues to be an impediment in the way of the natural forces that are swelling up, a grim struggle will ensure involving the overthrow of all obstacles, and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat to pave the way for the consummation of the ideal of revolution. Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind. Freedom is an imperishable birth right of all. Labour is the real sustainer of society. The sovereignty of the ultimate destiny of the workers.
For these ideals, and for this faith, we shall welcome any suffering to which we may be condemned. At the altar of this revolution we have brought our youth as an incense, for no sacrifice is too great for so magnificent a cause. We are content, we await the advent of Revolution.
"Long Live Revolution."

If the enthusiastic supporters of this movement have any respect to the slogan of 'Inquilab Zindabad' and to the supreme sacrifice of the martyrs they must either tread on the path suggested by the revolutionaries or must stop using their slogans in such a casual manner. Ironically most of these supporters often take the side of the ruling classes when it comes to the issues like workers' rights, tribal displacement and dispossession and government's war against them, the struggle of the people of peripheral nationalities in their fight for the rights of self determination, the people's struggle against draconian laws like AFSPA, Sedition Act, UAPA etc. Most of them are apathetic to the sufferings of the 77 percent of the population which is living on Rs 20 a day at a time of skyrocketing inflation as they believe that poverty, inequality are natural and destiny driven. They are supporting this movement because they feel that if a Lokpal comes into existence, it would eradicate corruption and some black spots of their "shining India" would be removed and India would become a "super power". Many intellectuals are criticizing Kiran Bedi's scream at Ramlila maidan that 'India is Anna and Anna is India'. But in my view she was right as she was referring to this "shining India". It is another thing that the majority of Indians who produce the food and commodities to feed and sustain this "shining India" continue to toil hard in the farms and factories, unaffected and unbothered by the Anna wave which seems to have swept the nation.

Gorakhpur Workers' Struggle - A report

2011-05-15T21:58:00.000+05:30

On 3^rd May, in a shocking incident of firing on workers of Ankur Udyog Ltd., a yarn factory in the Bargadwa area of Gorakhpur (eastern U.P., India), 19 workers were injured, one of them got a bullet lodged in his spine and is still in a serious condition. The workers had just returned from Delhi after attending the May Day rally at Jantar Mantar as part of Workers’ Charter Movement where thousands of workers from different parts of the country had gathered to present their 26 point charter of demands to the Parliament and the Prime Minister. The workers of Gorakhpur had managed to reach Delhi despite all the efforts of threat and intimidation by the factory owners to stop them from participating in this movement. The firing was conducted by the hired goons of the factory owner Ashok Jalan. Pradeep Singh, a notorious criminal of the region, was leading this assault.

The workers had laid siege to the factory and encircled the goons when the police arrived. After arrival, the police dispersed the workers and in the pretext of arresting the goons the police took the goons along with them and freed them at an unidentified location. The police also detained few workers and was planning to implicate them on false charges.

When the workers went in a procession to the divisional commissioner's office he refused to talk to their representatives saying he will not talk to "outside elements". He was referring to Pramod Kumar, who was leading the workers. Mr Kumar belongs to a group called Bigul Mazdoor Dasta which has helped in organising the workers of Bargadwa and also works with the Textile Workers Union formed a year ago. When no official of the district administration was ready to hear them, the workers announced to launch a "Workers Satyagraha" from 9th May.

The resolute struggle of the workers and public pressure forced the administration and the factory owners on the back foot and ensured a partial victory for the workers agitation. The officials released all the detained leaders and workers by late evening and brought the factory owners for talks. The owners agreed to take back all the 18 workers dismissed from Ankur Udyog and start the factory from the next day.

Shocking as it may appear, this entire episode is just an extension of a series of shenanigans resorted by the industrialists in complicity with the administration which has been going on since last two years ever since the workers of Gorakhpur began organizing to press for their just and lawful demands.

Industrial Landscape of Gorakhpur and condition of workers

There are two industrial areas in the Gorakhpur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. On the southern border of the city exists the Bargadwa industrial area and in the east there exists GIDA (Gorakhpur Industrial Development Authority) in Sahjanwa which is 15 km away from the main city. There are around 20 factories in Bargadwa which include 3 yarn mills, a garment mill, iron rod mill and factories making bicycle rim, utensils, plastic sacks, hen’s fodder, ice cream, biscuits etc. Around 80-1000 workers work in each of these factories. About half of these labourers come from the surrounding areas and others come from Bihar. They live in inhuman conditions. No labour law is implemented in these factories. The provisions of minimum wages, fixed working hours, overtime, bonus, PF, job card, ESI etc. exist only on paper. After toiling for 12-14 hours a day, the workers get the wages which is just sufficient for them and their family members to remain alive. There are frequent accidents in these factories in which the workers suffer injury and many of them have even died. Despite working in a hazardous environment, the workers do not get any safety facility. In some of the factories the workers have to work in an environment where temperature reaches up to 80-100 degree centigrade and in order to save electricity the owners even used to switch off the fans. They are often harassed by the supervisors and owners and even beaten up. If they protest, they are fired from their work. The same is the condition of the workers working in GIDA industrial area.

Beginning of an organized movement

It was two years ago in June 2009 that around 600 workers of fibre yarn factory Ankur Udyog Ltd. in Bargadwa industrial area began an organized movement for their basic demands of reducing the working hours, minimum wages, weekly holiday, PF, ESI etc. Soon, another 300 workers of a nearby yarn factory V.N. Dyers also joined the struggle. The owners adopted various strategies of threat and intimidation to break this unity of workers. Their leaders were beaten up brutally by hired goons of factory owners. But despite this, the owners had to yield before the resolute struggle and unity of the workers. On 29 July 2009, the owners of the two factories agreed to meet the demands of the workers in a meeting with the representatives of the workers and the Deputy Labour Commissioner. It was the first victory of the workers of Gorakhpur who had been living a hellish life for years. The factory owners had to buckle under the all round pressure from the workers’ agitation which was amply supported by the ordinary citizens and local intelligentsia.

Industrialist-bureaucrat-politician nexus against the workers

The victory of the workers of the three factories inspired the workers of other factories in Bargadwa region to organize and wage a struggle. In August 2009, around 1000 workers of Modern Laminators and Modern Packaging Ltd. also began an organized struggle for their basic demands. Due to this unprecedented unity of workers, the industrialists of not only Gorakhpur but of entire eastern U.P. were worried as they could see this unity of workers as a threat to their profitability. Suddenly reports started appearing in media that the industrial peace of the eastern U.P. is at risk because of some “outside elements”. Gorakhpur is also a typical case study for the links between the capitalists and fascist political superstructure. The Member of Parliament of Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath belonging to Hindu Nationalist Party BJP, who openly flaunts his fascist inclination and dreams of making Gorakhpur the next laboratory of Hindutva experiment has very close connection with the industrialists of the region. In 2009 when workers started organising, he gave statements that the movement was run by the “Maoists” and “terrorists”. He even tried to communalise the issue by claiming that the movement is being “funded by the church”.

Mobilization of workers under Workers’ Charter Movement 2011

Despite the initial victories achieved by the workers, no substantial improvement in their living standard was discernible. The factory owners backtracked from their commitments in many cases. Whatever little hike in the wages took place was more than compensated by the ever increasing inflation. There is a realization among the worker that their problems are not only because of the individual factory owners but because of the entire capitalist class which lives on the surplus extracted through exploitation of their labour power. It was against this backdrop that the workers started organizing under the banner of Workers’ Charter Movement which contains wide-ranging economic and political demands of the entire working class of India in 21^st century (www.workerscharter.in). This movement is initiated by some independent trade unions, workers' groups and a workers’ newspaper. A large number of workers from Bargadwa and GIDA were mobilized as part of this movement and had announced to join the rally to be held on 1^st May at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. The factory owners of Gorakhpur were nervous because of the growing popularity of this movement among the workers. They again resorted to threats and intimidation. The labour leaders were arrested again but after the pressure from the workers’ agitation they were soon released. The owners did not grant leave to the workers to attend the rally in Delhi. In the run up to the May Day rally, the industrialists threatened the workers that they would “teach them a lesson” if they dared to take part in any such movement. Even the Commissioner of the Gorakhpur division issued a statement that “outside elements” who were instigating the workers would not be spared.

Workers attending the May Day rally in Delhi as part of the Workers’ Charter Movement

The gruesome incident of firing on the workers of Ankur Udyog Ltd. by the hired goons of factory owners needs to be looked against this backdrop. It is a conspiracy by the industrialists in complicity with the local administration to threaten the workers against uniting and organizing for their demands. But far from breaking the unity, this incident and the subsequent repression has only served to enhance the solidarity of the workers.

The workers’ struggle in Gorakhpur has shown that the workers can succeed only if they wage a united and organized fight against the onslaught of capital. The workers have remained united against all attempts to divide them along caste or communal lines, threats, rumours and money and muscle power. In the process they have also achieved what bigger forces have failed to do earlier. They have exposed the anti-poor and pro-rich real face of the BJP MP from Gorakhpur, Yogi Adityanath, who treats the region like his fiefdom and has been running a viciously communal campaign with his fascist brigade called Hindu Yuva Wahini. A remarkable aspect of the Gorakhpur workers’ struggle has been the enthusiastic participation of women. Right from the beginning of the struggle, the women took active part along with their male counterparts. Community kitchens were run by women to express solidarity. The movement also witnessed a marvellous solidarity between different cross sections of people. The workers from all the factories of Gorakhpur including those from GIDA industrial area openly supported the agitating workers. The peasants from adjoining villages supplied food grains and vegetables to the agitating workers. The middle class residents of Gorakhpur also came out openly in support of the workers’ movement. Various mass organisations and pro-people intellectuals put pressure on the administration to stop the repression of workers’ movement.

An appeal to express solidarity with the Workers' Charter Movement 2011

2011-04-21T20:28:00.003+05:30

India has experienced unprecedented rate of economic growth in the last two decades. A section of the urban middle class has been the beneficiary of this growth apart the big corporate houses which have appropriated extremely high profit. However, it is also true that the section of the population which has benefited from this growth constitutes not more than 15 percent of the population of our country. The overwhelming majority of the population of the country which consists of factory-workers, landless laborers, small and marginalised peasants continue to live in sub-human and inhuman conditions. The people below poverty line, the malnourished children and anaemic women about whom we sometimes read in the media belong to this section of society only. The needs and aspirations of such a large section of the population remain unaddressed by the political and economic system and even the media largely ignores the issues affecting the people whose toil is chiefly responsible for the high rate of growth in the first place.

Under these circumstances, few revolutionary mass organisations, labor activists and independent unions have come together to draft a charter of demands of the working class people in the 21st century India. These demands are mainly related to the revision of the minimum wages act and its proper implementation, fixed working day of 8 hours, abolition of contract system, just and humane conditions of work. Besides there are some special demands for the woman laborers, migrant laborers,rural laborers and domestic workers and regarding the abolition of child labor.It is important to note that all these demands are well within the ambit of the Constitution of India but under the pressure of the corporate sector the Government has so far failed to fulfill its constitutional obligations.

Using various means such as street plays, cultural shows, night meetings, the activists have been working day and night in the slum areas of the cities where the majority of the workers live to mobilise them and spread awareness among them about the significance of these demands.This movement is termed as the Workers' Charter Movement -2011. It is intended to run in several phases and cycles. To kick start this movement, a demonstration is being organised at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on the coming 1st May which incidentally is the 125th anniversary of the glorious 'Labour Day'. It was 125 years ago in 1886 that the workers of America demonstrated in Chicago for their demand of 8 hours working day and since then this day is celebrated all over the world by all those who yearn for a just, humane and egalitarian society.

There is a sense of anguish amongst the urban middle class against the rampant corruption especially in interface between the government and big busines, and rightly so. But isn't it true that to deny the majority of the population their right to live a dignified life is perhaps the worst form of corruption and without addressing these issues the fight against corruption could not be effective and meaningful. There may not be some celebrities like Anna Hazare or Kiran Bedi behind this movement and there may not be the excessive media gaze on this movement but the issues raised by it have far reaching repercussions on the way Indian society is headed. Therefore, all the sensitive, justice-loving, pro-people individuals who want a genuine social change must express their solidarity with the Workers' Charter Movement -2011.

Below are the few things you can do to express solidarity with this movement:

Visit and share your thoughts on the website of this movement (www.workerscharter.in)
Join the facebook community of the movement and give your comments (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Workers-Charter-Movement-2011/217462924935252)
Spread awareness among the people about this movement with a word of mouth and by circulating this mail to as many people as possible.
Extend financial support to this movement since it is totally funded by people's contribution and there is no political party involved in it.
Be there at Jantar Mantar on 1st May 2011.

An open letter to Anna Hazare

2011-04-08T02:02:00.003+05:30

Dear Anna,

Got to know about your fast unto death for Jan Lokpal Bill through the cacophony of media! Not sure whether you are aware or not, sitting as you are on fast on hot summer days at Jantar-Mantar, your fast has already provided a new ‘breaking news’ to the great Indian media which was eagerly waiting for one in the interregnum between the World Cup and the IPL. In the drawing rooms of the great Indian middle class and in the cyberspace, your fast has already become a new reality show, a sort of ‘Fast [Live]’. We are told that the ‘second freedom struggle’ and even a ‘revolution’ is in the offing. ‘Fight against corruption’ is the latest buzzword and a hottest selling news item in this week. Film stars, celebrities, civil society, NRIs, media personalities, industrialists, opposition parties, Sonia Gandhi and even the government have come out in support of your cause saying that they are on the same side insofar as the fight against corruption is concerned. Anna, I am confused! who is on the other side of this nebulous fight?

It is interesting to know that your fast is striking the chord of which section of society. No doubt, the feelings of the well-to-do Indian middle classes are getting resonance in your campaign, who are concerned about corruption because it adversely affects the ‘brand value’ of their otherwise ‘Shining India’ and is a hurdle to their ambition of making India a super power. But, does your fast resonate the cry of the 47 percent children of this country who are malnourished and dying of hunger? Does your campaign strike the chord of the 77 percent of the population of this country who are condemned to live on Rs 20 a day which includes the informal sector’s workers, small peasants and landless labourers. Does your campaign offer any hope to the toiling millions who are suffering from the yoke of capitalism whose inevitable byproduct is the mindboggling corruption which you claim to eradicate within the confines of this system? The answer is certainly NO because if it did, your campaign would have included the issues like the right to life and livelihood, right to food, housing, health and education to every citizen of this country apart from the issue of corruption. But you chose to observe your fast on as narrow an issue as merely the enactment of a legislation to fight corruption and you want us to believe that it would end the corruption!

The ruling classes would be too happy to see a movement like this which could be easily managed and which does not even given them a few sleepless nights. That is why your campaign is nowhere headed towards a real mass movement – a movement whose specter could haunt the ruling classes. The emancipation of masses calls for a broad based movement which is not narrowly focused on one legislative issue. Such a movement would not depend on the plea and prayer before the criminals, exploiters and oppressors but on the assertion of the collective strength of the people for their inalienable rights as human being. May be your campaign would catch millions of middle class eyeballs before TV set and attract millions of mouse click in the cyberspace, but a fast unto death of Gandhian style cannot be a role model for the movement of the emancipation of the toiling masses; instead it calls for the sacrifice and martyrdom like Bhagat Singh and his comrades!

Revolutionary salute to the people of Egypt!!!

2011-02-12T00:01:00.002+05:30

The collective power of the people has finally overthrown the oppressive and corrupt regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. It is a path breaking event not only in the history of Arabia but also that of the world history. The discontent of the people which was accumulating in the last thirty years of the tyrant rule of Hosni Mubarak turned into a stormy rage taking inspiration from the successful Tunisian revolution last month. The anger of the people ultimately got expressed heroically on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria. The Tahrir square has become a symbol of the triumph of people’s power over an oppressive government. The events of Egypt and Tunisia have once again proved the basic law of social development viz. “Oppression breeds resistance”. While the intensity of the resistance goes through the phases of ups and downs, there do occur crucial junctures at which “all society is sprung in the air” and the dreams can be realised in the clear light of the day.

Given the fact that the spontaneous mass uprising in Egypt does not have any consistent and cohesive alternative vision, it is too early to say how far the Egyptian people will be able to realise their dream of a poverty-free and corruption-free democratic nation. Nevertheless, the triumph of the people’s power definitely deserves to be rejoiced. It has surely boosted the morale of all those who genuinely believe in the role of the people’s resistance in determining the course of history and of those who yearn for a society free of exploitation, misery and corruption. At the same time this successful uprising would surely send shivers down the spines of the exploitative and oppressive ruling classes all over the world including in India. In the countries like India where there is no naked dictatorship, the ruling elite have so far been able to contain the anger and disaffection of the people. Not that there is any less corruption and misery here, it’s only that here all exploitation, oppression and repression takes place under the cover of democracy which in reality is nothing but a sham. However the history of human civilisation and most recently the developments in Egypt bears testimony to the face that social development takes place independent of the will of the rulers. The revolutionary forces of the society might appear to be on the losing end at some phase of history but the oppression of the rulers are bound to strengthen the people’s resistance and the revolutionary forces of the society. The direction of wind would surely flow in favour of the revolution in India as well. It is not a question of if but of when.

The chllenges ahead...

2011-01-16T02:54:00.001+05:30

Beginning of a new year is the time when we review the year gone by and plan for the future. When we look at the year 2010 in retrospect we find that on the one hand a tiny minority of the population of our country appeared to be touching the summits of pleasure, prosperity, opulence and wantonness while on the other hand, at the foothills of these peaks of opulence existed the overwhelming majority of the masses, distressed from the unbearable rising prices, struggling day and night to fulfill even the basic necessities of human life. In addition, scams, immeasurable plunder of the national resources and unprecedented repression of the people’s resistances were the order of the day which added salt to the injury of masses already suffering in pain.

It would not be an exaggeration to call the year 2010 as the year of scams. Though corruption is an old disease in our country, the scams in last year left the old scams like Boforce scam, Fodder Scam, Hawala episode, share scam, Tehelka episode far behind. The scams of different hues hitting the headlines were the order of the day and every new scam appeared to break the previous record. First the vulgar reality behind the glitter of the IPL was revealed and then we witnessed the reckless plunder of the public money in the name of national pride towards the preparation of the CommonWealth Games; Then the Adarsh Housing scam broke out which was followed by the 2G scam and Niira Radia Tape episode which exposed the blatant anti-people character of the entire socio-economic and political system. The people were disenchanted with the Parliament, government, politicians, police and bureaucracy long ago but the events of the last year showed that even the institutions which were considered relatively untainted also advocate the interest of the propertied class and not that of the masses.

Apart from these scams the unbearable price rise continued to haunt the people and consequently the problems of starvation and malnutrition took gigantic proportion. Amidst this anarchy of corruption and profiteering it needs to be noted that the question is not just that of the illegal plunder of the nation’s resources. The illegal plunder is but a miniscule proportion of this plundering system. The real question is that of the day-to-day and hour-by-hour exploitation of the toiling masses in the factories and farms which enjoys the legal sanction in this system. In a country where 77 percent population lives on an average Rs. 20 a day, why is it that the number of billionaires is increasing every year? What is the secret behind the few sky-scrappers of opulence amidst ever expanding slums of poverty? Why is it that while the food grain gets rotten in the government godowns and eaten by rats, the starvation and malnutrition is rampant in the country?

Our generation is faced up with such paradoxes which are plenty. We have to confront them like a brave, justice-loving, sensitive, human-loving warrior.

Micro Finance institutions: capitalist avatar of sahukars

2010-11-22T01:17:00.003+05:30

In the last few months, many cases of the poor committing suicide have come to light. Most of the people who committed suicide were in debt of one or another micro-finance institutions. There is a great commotion in the rulers both at the state level and at the centre due to the blatant exposure of this barbaric and exploitive facet of these microfinance institutions. These institutions were promoted as the forerunners of the expedition to alleviate poverty; they are not being able to remove the poverty, instead the poor are getting eliminated due to the heavy debts of these institutions. Even in the bourgeois media, which until recently was busy singing the apotheosis of these isntitutions, the criticism of these institutions have started appearing.

Microfinance appeared on the stage of world capitalism around two decades ago as a new phenomenon in the name of an endeavour to fight poverty, especially in the third world countries. Since it is required to own a certain amount of property to get a loan from the capitalist banks, most of the poor remain outside the reach of these banks. Traditionally, the poor used to depend on loans from the usurers or the money-lenders (mahajans or Sahukars) of their villages to fulfil their agricultural and family needs. The interest rates on these loans used to be extremely high and a big share of their income was consumed in repaying these debts due to which the poor were trapped in a vicious cycle. The micro-finance institutions were greatly promoted in the last two decades in the name of saving the poor from these usurers. These organizations organise the poor in the form of a group (self help group) and grant loans to the whole group instead of an individual. These groups are encouraged to invest in small enterprises such as making baskets, making pickles, poultry etc. Women are given preference in these groups in the name of women empowerment. A cursory look might mislead anyone to believe that these organizations are really committed to the effort of fighting poverty. But a deeper investigation into the organizational structure, work practices, sources of funding, interest rates on the loans granted by them exposes the inhumane character of these organizations and we are faced with the hideous truth that infact these institutions are even more barbaric in exploiting the poor than the usurers of yore and the top executives of these institutions fill their vaults with treasures soaked in the blood of the poor.

The microfinance institutions grant loans(micro credit) to groups instead of an individual and give preference to women so that the repayment of the loans is assured. Their loan repayment percentage close to 100, a figure which will mock even the largest banks. The secret behind this is that these organisations do not hesitate in taking assistance from goons and hooligans when the repayments are not made on time. Most of the time these institutions collect the interest on weekly basis. The interest rates are 28-30% and in some cases even more than that. The very fact that loans for the luxury items like car, fridge, air-conditioner etc for the well to do middle class are available at cheap rates around 6-10% while the loans given to the poor in the name of fighting poverty have interest rates 30% and more, is sufficient to understand the character of the capitalist system alongwith that of these organizations. In addition these micro finance organizations are engaged in the hideous businness of taking loans in the name of social work from banks (under the priority sector lending category) at extremely low interest rates and giving the same money as loans to the poor at exorbitant interest rates.

The microfinance institutions have been having their heyday since the inventor of the microfinance, Mohammad Younus, was given a Nobel prize in 2006. The enterprises that suck poor peoples’ blood were given the medal of the messiah of the poor and the vanguards of peace. Now they could claim the prestige of doing social work along with generating unlimited profits. The salaries, bonus and allowances of the executives on the top management posts in microfinance organizations are comparable and sometimes even more than those in the corporate sector. The largest microfinance company SKS Microfinance (Swayam Krishi Sangam) enjoyed an increase of 700% in profits in 2007. To raise the funds from the share market this organization recently issued its IPO which turned out to be very successful. It is noteworthy that most of the farmers committing suicide in Andhra Pradesh had taken loans from this very organization. In 2006 the Time magazine included the founder of this organization, Vikram Akula, in its list of 100 people who shaped our world. By 2010 the whole world has discovered how inhuman shape people like Vikram Akula have given to this world. Even Narayan Murthy, the poster boy of bourgeois media, considered to be the embodiment of morality, is filling his treasure vaults in the name of helping the poor by investing in SKS Micfofinance. Apart from national capitalists, these organizations also have huge amounts of imperialist capital invested in them.

After a sudden spurt of suicide cases , the Andhra Pradesh government hurriedly passed an ordinance for regulating the microfinance institutions to pacify the public fury. Even the RBI came to action after all round criticism in the media and announced the formation of a committee to regulate the activities of microfinance organizations. But it is well known that the objective of all this exercise is not the welfare of the poor but preventing the occurrence of these events which expose the true anti-people nature of the whole system. It is not at all possible to protect the human right to life of the poor and deprived within the confines of this capitalistic system because the capitalist vultures keep inventing new schemes to suck the last drop of the blood from the poor on a daily basis. Microfinance is nothing but one of such hideous capitalist schemes.

The patience of the sufferers has got exhausted

2010-11-17T00:15:00.003+05:30

Sahibabad is amongst those industrial areas where there has been a glorious history of labour struggles. The martyrdom of Safdar Hashmi of Jan Natya Manch at this place is also a testimony of the labour struggle here. But, at a time when there has been an ever increasing onslaught on the rights of the workers in the era of liberalisation and privatisation and when the administration and industrialists are taking resort to authoritarian means to prevent the workers from getting organized, it is but natural that the workers’ anger would be vented at some or the other place. It is to be recalled that it was not without reason that the ex-president of India K.R.Narayanan had stated, “The patience of those who are suffering for long has got exhausted which can lead to an explosive situation”. If we look back, the reports of the simmering anger of the workers amidst the exploitation, repression, oppression and suffocation have been surfacing in the last decade (The recent labour struggles in Gurgaon, Ludhiana, Gorakhpur and Graziano are testimony to this fact). But this time the anger was released in Sahibabad Site-4.

On 13th November a bloody struggle took place between the management and the workers on the lawful demands of the workers of the Indo-Japanese Combo Allied Nippon Company situated in Sahibabad Site-4 in which the manager of the company Yogendra Chaudhary lost his life. Immediately after this episode the administration and the institutions of the industrialists were alerted to teach a lesson to the workers. The entire media with its clamouring tone is hell bent on terming the workers as murderers. Let us first learn the history of the conditions and struggles of the workers of the Allied Nippon Company before reaching to any conclusion.

What transpired on 13th November?- The Union had earlier declared a strike and the company management wanted to halt it. On the ill fated day at 2 o’clock in the afternoon the HR Head of the company Mahendra Chaudhary went to the two wheeler clutch wiring department along with Yogendra Chaudhary. Some altercation ensued with the workers there. After that Yogendra Chaudhary opened fire and in 4-5 rounds of fire a bullet hit a worker named Brijesh. Subsequently the angry workers valiantly fought with the officials and in an act of defence by the workers, the manager lost his life. Many people were injured from both the sides.

The real cause of the incident – There was a tension between the management and the union from last three months on the issues of contract, bonus and salary hike. Besides the demands of the permanent workers, there was a demand to make those workers as permanent on the priority basis who were working for last 6-8 years. The company had also kept 7 casual workers out of work and there were demands from the management regarding this and a concerned case was pending with the DLC. On the other hand the owner-management did not want to accept these demands. About six month ago the owner had secretly given lakhs of rupees to the so called management (in reality the white collared goons) – Yogendra Chaudhary and his colleagues Rajkumar, Omvir,Mahendra Singh Chaudhary and Narendra Dabas for breaking the union. Since then this so called management was arbitrarily running the factory. It was quite common for them to roam inside the factory openly carrying the guns in order to terrorise the workers. There was a surge in the incidents of threatening and intimidation to the workers, beating them and expelling them on the frivolous grounds so that the owner does not have to regularize any worker and a ground is prepared for not honouring the contract. Whoever was showing any sign of protest was shown the door at some pretext. All this caused enormous indignation among the workers. The workers were living in a condition of fear. If anyone dared to complain he was sure to lose his job. A worker was always living in a dilemma of his economic needs and fear. He was always fearful that if he would protest he would have to lose his job and face economic hassles. On the other hand he was also thinking of salvaging his dignity and self-esteem. This condition was gradually taking a dangerous turn and on 13th November it took an explosive form.
The reality of the so called management – After talking to the workers of the neighbouring locality we came to know that Yogendra Chaudhary used to utilize his influence and contacts to break the union and for intimidation. The workers told that he had earlier done this act of breaking the unions at Rama Steel, TCL and at other places. Yogendra’s wife Sheela Chaudhary is posted at Ghaziabad police department as sub-inspector and he had links with top shots in police, bureaucracy and politics owing to which he used to succeed in breaking the unions. He was running this kind of enterprise at other places as well. In the management of this company as well he had continued to recruit and retrench the people arbitrarily so that his purpose is served soon. But 4 years ago after the formation of the union, the owner had agreed to accept the demands of the workers. But there was a tussle between the management and the workers on the issue of implementation. There was a plan to organize a three day long strike from 16-17-18 November. But on 12th November the DLC ordered a stay on the strike by imposing rule-4 of the Industrial Dispute Act. The union got this information in the evening itself and gave its response on 13th.

Strength of the workers - There are around 300 permanent workers in the Allied Nippon Company and the same would be the approximate strength of the casual workers. Further around the same number of workers work on contract. The workers formed their union in 2006 against the increasing exploitation of the company.

The empire of the company – The workers tell that owner of the company has 4-5 other factories in Gurgaon and other places. There is a big show room in Delhi. The owner’s son’s name is Rohan Talwar.

The authoritarian behavior of the administration with the workers – Yogendra’s relative and the security officer of the company Omvir Singh has lodged an F.I.R. in the Link Road police station against 377 people and by naming 27 workers this case. Police has arrested 8 persons in this connection. Right from the day of the incident, the SSP Raghuvir Lal has been saying that the clash was initiated from the workers’ side. On the other hand the labour department has already stayed the strike by the union by taking refuge to Industrial Dispute Act. The stand of the administration is very clear. The entire site-4 has been converted into a police cantonment and the police teams are conducting raids at different places in the workers bastis. On the other hand the leadership of CITU which claims to represent the interests of workers is maintaining a conspicuous silence over this issue.

Some questions which remain unanswered by the administration- Clearly the death of the manager cannot be justified but the question arises if the pistol is the way how the management wanted to hold a dialogue with the workers? If a case can be filed against 377 workers then why not against the management which carried out a fatal attack on the workers. Secondly if the management at the time of the formation of the union had promised to implement the demands of the workers and now when they have betrayed the promise and arbitrarily retrenching the workers, the union did not have any other means than to go on strike which is a constitutional right of every citizen.

377 workers guilty of murdering one manager – The incident of the site-4 Allied Nippon Company reminds one of the similar incident at Greater Noida’s Graziano in which 136 workers were sent to jail for the death of the CEO of the company and a case was filed under the National Security Act against 6 workers. The incident at the site-4 has once again shown that in the struggle between the owners of capital and the workers the capitalists and government, police, administration,courts, broker trade unions all are united against the workers. Nobody is punished for the death of the industrial accidents in India which are indirectly an outcome of the actions of the management. The murderers of the workers of Bhipal tragedy, Metro Rail Jamroodpur site or Korba episode are not punished till date. The blatant class prejudice of the so called independent and impartial judiciary is seen in this incident as well. When a person belonging to the propertied class is arrested in connection with a crime such as murder he gets bail immediately. On the other hand a case is filed against the workers without any proof of murder.

-Bigul Mazdoor Dasta

...and they call it Democracy!!!

2010-10-16T03:17:00.010+05:30

Quite often we hear the urban elite in India extolling the virtues of the ‘world’s largest democracy.’ ‘Shining India’, ’ Emerging India’, ‘Incredible India’, ‘super power in the making’ are the terms used to decorate this construct of India. However these tall claims fall flat to the ground when one looks at the manner in which this so called democracy functions which results into the pathetic living conditions of the majority of the people of this country. In our school classes we were taught that democracy is the form of governance by the people for the people and of the people. But very cleverly the rulers of this country with the help of their lackeys have constricted the meaning of democracy to that of merely conducting the ritual of elections. Since this ritual of elections has been conducted at the regular interval except for the period of emergency and because large number of electorates take part in them while most other neighbouring countries are struggling to conduct such a ritual regularly, it is reason enough for them to shower praises on this mental construct which has no resonance with the ground realities.

It is ironic that the people who boast this construct of democracy on the basis of its capacity to conduct regular elections are mostly those who themselves never bother to vote. After all they don’t need to vote so long as they have the power of note. It is interesting to investigate this mammoth machinery of elections which is claimed to be the bedrock of democracy in this country. The cost of conducting Indian elections is among the highest in the world. According to a survey conducted by the Centre for Media studies (CMS) an estimated Rs. 10,000 crore ( $ 2 billion) were spent in the 2009 LokSabha elections which exceeded even the cost of presidential election of the USA. In fact it is with the unaccounted expenditure in elections that the giant machinery of corruption in India sets in motion. The electorate who vote in these elections do not vote on the basis of the grand policies and ideas mentioned in the redundant manifestos of the political parties but on the basis of caste, religion or allurement of material and monetary incentives such as cash, alcohol, sari, blanket, television sets etc. The choices before the people are not those of principle based parties having the diverse ideas and vision to enhance the standard of life of the people and bring peace and harmony in the society; instead the choice is between the dynastic, pseudo secular parties on the one hand and the communal, sectarian, casteist parties on the other.In other words the choice is between the different camps of plunderers who seek vote to get the 5 yearly contract of plundering the country. After the months of chaotic, vulgar and exorbitant election campaign, the party which enjoys the so called mandate of the people hardly manages to get the votes of more than 25 percent of the people who voted which constitutes not more than 10-12 percent of the total population of the country. The media also goes gaga about these elections as they provide them valuable TRPs which act as oxygen for their survival. The psephologists of all hues appear on the TV studios who apply their brains to solve the arithmetic of caste, region, religion etc to predict the outcome. The outcome of this whole arithmetic exercise comes in the form of weirdly fractured mandate leading to the suspense of horse-trading which are covered live now a days. After the deals are struck and government is formed when we see as to who are the people to occupy the positions of power in the cabinet and the legislature, we find that most of them fall in the category of crorepatis, murderers, rapists, history-sheeters etc. In the current Loksabha none of the parties could manage to win absolute majority but the party of crorepatis is the clear winner. More than 300 MPs out of the strength of 545 are crorepatis. Similar or even worse is the story of Rajya Sabha and state legislative assemblies. This is the ugly reality of the tamasha of Indian elections which is the basis of the ‘world’s largest democracy’.In order to conceal this ugly face and present a respectable face, some non-tainted english speaking suave people are inducted into the cabinet from back door so that the people continue to have faith in the ability of the system to provide opportunity to the honest people to reach the top echelons of power.

After the tamasha of elections it is even more amusing to investigate how a government functions. The people who spend money during the elections do not do it for the sake of charity or out of patriotic feeling. It is an investment decision for them. After the formation of government now it’s their turn to get the return on the investment. It is not surprising that the whole government machinery gears itself to ensure that the people who invested in the elections get their due. Fulfilling the constitutional obligation of building a ‘secular,socialist,democratic republic’ and providing justice,equality and liberty to the people of India is only given a lip service. Evaluating the performance of ‘Indian democracy’ as per the criteria mentioned in the Indian Constitution itself gives us a picture of a miserably failed state. The directive principles were included by the makers of the Constitution a yardstick to measure the performance of any government. One such principle is mentioned in the Article 39 as follows:

The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing

(a) that the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means to livelihood;

(b) that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good;

(c) that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment

After 60 years of Indian republic we have a situation in which one hundred richest people hold the asset worth one quarter of the GDP of the country. Despite having the second highest economic growth rate in the world, India has more poor people than 26 of Africa’s poorest countries put together? On the other hand we have the fastest growing population of the billionaires in the world. What better proof of total governance failure can be given than the fact that poors are dying of starvation while the food grains are rotting in the government godowns. And all this in the tenure of the government which claims to rule in the name of ‘Aam Aadmi’.

Another directive principle proclaims (Article 45) :

The State shall endeavour to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years.

Let’s compare this lofty promise with the performance of the six decades. The adult literacy rate in India was 66 percent in 2007 while the world average is 84 percent. India has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of illiterate people than in any other country in the world. Not to talk of the quality and equal access to the educational opportunity.

Yet another directive principles proclaims (Article 47) :

The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties.

More than 9000 children die of hunger and starvation every day in India.47 percent children are the victim of malnutrition. Half of women are anemic. People die of minor diseases like cholera, diarrhea, malaria,dengue, encephalitis etc. whose cure has been found long ago.What is the most disgusting is that there has been a decline in the public expenditure in the social service such as health and education in the last two decade of liberalization.Not surprisingly India’s ranking in the in the Human Development Index nosedived in recent years; it is 134 th now among the 182 countries much behind the countries like Peru,Guatemala, Indonesia, Srilanka etc.

The probity in the public life is at the lowest ebb. The cancer of the corruption is increasingly engulfing all the institutions - legislature, executive, judiciary and media. India remains one of the most corrupt nations in the world and the brunt of the corruption is mostly borne by the weak and underprivileged sections of society.

Even with regard to the political, civil and socio-cultural rights there has been increasing curtailment. In the name of dealing with insurgency and terrorism people’s rights of free speech and movement are being restricted not only in the border areas but now even in the heartland of the country by bestowing the security forces with the draconian power. The religious and linguistic minorities are tortured and harassed with increasing frequency and bestiality.The rights of workers which they won after the decades of struggle are being increasingly revoked making it difficult for them to put forward their demands collectively. All this is leading to increasing pauperization and dehumanization of the masses.

It is now clear that the ‘tryst with destiny’ which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru promised on the midnight of 14-15 August 1947 has turned out to be a ‘tryst with tyranny’ for the Indian masses especially for the unorganized workers, small and marginal peasants and landless rural labourers ,tribals and minorities. But there is another face of India which is indeed shining. The glittering shopping malls, the luxury apartments, world class airports,super highways and express ways, the hill resorts, amusement parks, private jets and yachtes, luxury cars and sports bikes etc. are also an aspect of India which is enjoyed by a tiny minority of Indians. Curiously it is this tiny minority which is at the forefront of eulogizing the Indian democracy. It is this yawning fault line between the tiny minority of haves and overwhelming majority of have-nots which gives an indication of the necessity and inevitability of the revolutionary storms in the future towards which all the efforts and energies of revolutionary forces need to be directed.

Why Religion still survives.....

2010-10-06T02:40:00.024+05:30

We are living in a stage of the evolution of human civilisation which can easily be termed as the era of science and technology. Science affects every moment of man’s life from womb to tomb. Rapid advance of modern science in the last few centuries has led to the development of a scientific world outlook which has exploded all the myths created by a religious world view. And yet we are still finding that religion refuses to go out of the imagination of mankind. There are signs that people are asserting their religious identities more than ever. It is indeed intellectually stimulating to unravel the mystery behind this contradiction. While the believers present it as the vindication of their belief about the existence of God who wants man to have faith in Him, many non-believers feel that people are stupid to follow an irrational creed of religion. Both these explanations, however, are too simplistic to make us understand the complexity of religion and the role it has played in the evolution of mankind. Therefore it is important to scientifically analyse the myriad factors which lead to the origin and evolution of a religious beliefs and why such beliefs still persist despite the unprecedented march of scientific and secular thought processes particularly in last couple of centuries. Following quote of Engels gives an indication towards this:

“All religion,.. is nothing but a fantastic reflection in man’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces."

The reasons for the emergence of religious thoughts and their prevalence in the modern era cannot be understood in isolation with the evolution of the human civilisation in general and the development of different phases of the production processes in particular which enable mankind to control the forces of nature. While the clerics want us to believe that the religious beliefs and practices are absolute and unchanging, the fact is that the religious beliefs and practices of a tribal society is different than that in a feudal society which in turn are quite different than those in a modern capitalist society. For a man living in a primitive tribal society the forces of nature – the intense energy of sun, the soothing light of moon, life sustaining rivers, imposing mountains, devastating storms, bewildering variety of flora and fauna etc would have been found to be infinitely complex and amazing on which they had very little control. Not surprisingly the nomadic and semi-nomadic people mostly worship the forces of nature. The hymns in the Vedas are in large part an admiration of the forces of nature. The main Gods in Vedas are not Brahma,Vishnu, Mahesh,Ram, Krishna but Indra, Marut, Varun, Aditi etc which all are the representation of the forces of nature. So are the numerous Gods in other ancient civilisations such as Persians,Greeks,Romans,Germans etc.
As the hunters and gatherers moved towards a settled society they started controlling the forces of nature albeit in a small way. The domestication of animals, agricultural practices, invention of fire etc. were all giant steps towards greater control over the forces of nature. While the man was trying to master the forces of nature, a new powerful force began haunting him which he found as perplexing and extraneous or perhaps more than the forces of nature. This new force was the social force of civilised society. The agricultural surplus ensured that not everyone needed to work now as some people could survive on the surplus created by the labour of others. The society got divided into the classes – the ruling classes and the ruled ones. Another concomitant development was the coming into being of a patriarchy in the society. The ruling classes needed justification for their supremacy over the ruled ones and men needed justification for the subjugation of women and thus they had to invent new philosophies to justify the class and patriarchal society. Thus emerged the new philosophies which defended the class and patriarchal society and enriched the religious world view. So the new Brahmanic scriptures evolved which blatantly justified the barbaric caste system and in the same way Aristotle justified the inhuman slavery being a philosopher of the ruling slave owning classes which he undoubtedly was. Now we know why religious scriptures and practices are so discriminatory and contemptuous towards women!

With the emergence of the class society also emerged the great class struggle between the ruling classes and the ruled ones which goes on till this day albeit in a different form. It is not as if religion has always acted as a weapon of the ruling classes; many a time religion came to the rescue of the emerging new classes and masses in general. Buddhism and Jainism emerged as new philosophies in response to the prevailing Brahmanic philosophy which was non egalitarian and excessive indulgent in its belief in sacrifices, rituals and ceremonies. Christianity in its beginning indeed represented a progressive force for the emancipation of the slaves of Roman empire. Similarly advent of Islam was a progressive uniting force for the warring tribes of Arabia. Bhakti and Sufi traditions in India also represented a progressive force against the non egalitarian nature of the mainstream religions of their times. However, in due course all these progressive forces were co-opted by the ruling classes and turned into regressive conservative forces. Unscientific religious thoughts as they were, could not be expected to provide an effective weapon to the masses against the onslaught of the ruling classes.

The most potent challenge to the religious world outlook arose from the development of modern science in Europe. Modern science was not just another thought which mankind developed in his brain but it was different with all the hitherto philosophies insofar as its proponent not only propounded the new theories but had also the onus of proving them with the rigorous scientific experiments. The sun centric theory of universe developed by Copernicus, Galileo and keplar completely shattered the Aristotelian myth of a perfect universe with earth at the centre. The remaining work was done by Newton with his gravitational model. However Newton did not out- rightly reject the role of God in the universe; what he did was to curtail His power from being an all powerful, omnipresent entity to the one who just provided the “initial impulse”. Once this impulse led to the creation of this universe, God does not have any control over it and the universe works with its own laws which man could master through experimentation. Thus the role of God in Newtonian model was akin to the one of a constitutional monarch enjoying very limited power as compared to the earlier models in which He enjoyed the power of an absolute monarch without whose will, not a hair could fall from the head. Further when Laplace presented his theory of “The Systems of the World”, answering Napoleon’s question as to why God did not appear in it, he famously responded “But Sir, I find no need of that hypothesis”. Furthermore the remaining myth of man being the most special creation of God was exploded by Darwin’s theory of evolution. All this helped Marx and Engels to give a scientific direction to the utopian socialist movement in Europe. They wrote in unequivocal terms that a religious world outlook is an impediment in the path of the working class towards ending the exploitation inherent in capitalism.

More than a century has elapsed since the era of Darwin and Marx. Modern science has further enabled mankind to master the forces of nature like never before. One would have expected that religion would retreat but what we are witnessing now is the resurgence of religion in a big way. How else could one describe the increasing attraction of Americans to Church after recession, the increasing size and number of Ganesha idol in Ganesh Chaturthi , mashrroming growth of Babas and swamis in India, growing usage of the terms such as Fatwa and Jihad in the Islamic world?
Capitalism waged a magnificent battle against the religious world view in Europe while it was struggling against the regressive feudal system; but once the capitalist class came into power it turned into an exploitative regressive force and began compromising with the religious orthodoxy to fight against the emergent forces of socialism. After the restoration of capitalism in Russia and China there is no socialist power in the world to promote scientific world outlook which could lead to a positive social change towards an egalitarian society. The current capitalist rulers pay only lip service to science and secularism; in practice they are hand-in-glove with the sectarian and regressive forces of religion as their interest coincide with them. What is more, Capitalist system has converted God into the most profitable commodity now-a-days. The ruling capitalist classes of India unabashedly declare religion and spirituality to be their biggest export. God is also the best selling insurer amidst the anarchy created by capitalism. The family, school, market, media all reinforce unscientific religious world outlook and science is just confined to the laboratories. While science might have enabled the mankind to greater understanding of the forces of nature, the social force of capitalism continues to be an enigma for the people. The fluctuation in the stock market indicator in any part of the world now impacts the lives of billions of people in every corner of the world. The insecurity and uncertainty of the people gets accentuated by the breakdown of the traditional joint family and the spirit of community life. The alienated and dehumanised man searches the qualities of love, compassion, respect, magnanimity and devotion which in reality are inherent attributes of mankind into something external to him. The more he gives these qualities to God, the less he keeps them within him. Under such a situation if religion is proving to be a tranquiliser for the people, it is hardly surprising. Marx’s famous quote most aptly describes this situation:

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion”

Now the question arises: can a time come when religion would vanish and a scientific world outlook would have the last laugh over the religious world view. Such a situation can evolve only when mankind is able to build a society which is free of exploitation and where the people make a conscious effort towards developing a production system in which the production is carried out by the freely associated men according to a settled plan geared towards meeting the needs of society at large instead of the profits for few. Obviously it would require a revolutionary change in the society. Till that time religion would continue to be present both as an instrument of exploitation in the hands of ruling classes and as an illusory heart of this heartless world.

A magnificent victory of the power loom workers of Ludhiana

2010-10-02T02:41:00.001+05:30

The power loom workers of Ludhiana’s Gaushala, Kashmir Nagar and Madhopuri areas gained a magnificent victory on the 15th day (30th September) of their strike under the leadership of the Karkhana Mazdoor Union (KMU) .The factory owners had to relent under the combined strength of the workers. A representative group of the owners of 26 factories held a meeting with the workers’ representatives for negotiations in presence of the Assistant Labour Commissioner and finally they agreed to sign a written agreement. As per the agreement a hike of 11-12 percent in the piece rate/salary has been promised for the different categories of power loom workers. The agreement would be implemented in all the 59 factories whose workers were participating in the strike. After the signing of the agreement the workers decided to call of their 15 day long strike and to join the work from 1st October.

This is the third phase of the successful strikes of the power loom workers of Ludhiana under the leadership of the Karkhana Mazdoor Union (KMU). Earlier the workers of the 42 power loom factories of Shaktinagar, Tibba road forced the factory owners to accept to their demands after 8 day long strike from 24th August to 31st August. This was followed by another successful strike in Jindal Textile factory. In the history of last 18 years of Ludhiana’s labour movement it is the first occasion when the workers have achieved a worthwhile success against the combined might of the factory owners. There has been a new awakening among the workers of Ludhiana after these recent successes. Much more significant than the monetary hike is the fact that the workers have now managed to form their militant organisation. It is the organization which is the main weapon with the workers for ensuring that the agreement is properly implemented and also it would act as a platform in future for uniting the workers on the various issues affecting their life and livelihood.

With revolutionary greetings,

Lakhwinder,
Secretary, Karkhana Mazdoor Union
Ludhiana