½FREEDOM ! आधी आज़ादी

On today's Supreme Court Judgment

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:51:00 +0000

राष्ट्रीय अनुसूचित जनजाति आयोग के तात्कालीन अध्यक्ष श्री दिलीप सिंह भूरिया ने अपने द्वारा दिए गए एक "फैसले" में मेरे पिता जी को गैर-आदिवासी करार दिया था. छत्तीसगढ़ उच्च न्यायालय ने उस फैसले को आयोग के क्षेत्राधिकार से बाहर बताते हुए ख़ारिज कर दिया था. इस निर्णय को छत्तीसगढ़ शासन ने सर्वोच्च न्यायालय में चुनौती दी थी. आज माननीय सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने छत्तीसगढ़ उच्च न्यायलय के उक्त फैसले को सही बताया है. साथ ही यह भी निर्देश दिए हैं कि मेरे पिता जी की जाति पर निर्णय राज्य-स्तरीय छानबीन समिति सर्वोच्च न्यायालय द्वारा माधुरी पाटिल प्रकरण में निर्धारित विधि के अनुसार करेगी.

माननीय सर्वोच्च न्यायालय के इस ऐतिहासिक फैसले से यह सिद्ध होता है कि श्री दिलीप सिंह भूरिया ने अपने राजनैतिक दल (भाजपा) के निर्देश पर अपने संवैधानिक पद का दुरूपयोग करते हुए मेरे पिता जी के विरुद्ध दुर्भावनापूर्ण कार्यवाही करी थी. इस फैसले से हमारे देश की न्यायपालिका के प्रति मेरी आस्था और दृढ़ हुई है. मैं इसका स्वागत करता हूँ.

The Supreme Court today upheld the High Court's decision dismissing the then Chairman of the National Scheduled Tribes Commission (NSTC) Mr Dilip Singh Bhuria's finding that my father is not a tribal. In its judgment, the Supreme Court has said that the Commission- and Mr Bhuria- traveled beyond their jurisdiction in giving that finding. The apex court has also said that the issue of my father's caste shall be decided by the state-level Scrutiny Committee in accordance with the law laid down in Madhuri Patil's case.

Today's judgment is, therefore, a long overdue vindication of our stance that Mr Bhuria had misused his constitutional office of NSTC Chairman at the behest of his party (BJP) to politically malign my father.

PAPA'S PRESS NOTE

On Rest and Resurgence: Issues Before Chhattisgarh

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:33:00 +0000

The past three months- July, August and September- have been restful (though not entirely peaceable, as the novelist Julian Barnes might say!). More than anything else, I owe this rest to the monsoons, which had put a 100-day pause to my public work. Now, I intend to resume that work.

Everywhere farmers are complaining about black-marketing of fertilizers, which sold for as much as Rs. 900 (from a market price of Rs. 250)- and the damage caused to crops from incessant flooding. These are issues which have to be addressed on priority.

Taking advantage of the monsoons and the uplifting of the ban on creation of new districts (which had been in effect for the past 10 years), 9 new districts have been gerrymandered into existence: extremely valid claims of at least 3 regions- Pendra, Manendragarh (our version of Telengana) and Sarangarh- for district-hood have been ignored simply because of selfish and petty political considerations. To their credit, the people of these areas have cut across party lines and risen against this injustice, and it is important that we lend support to their fight.

I also intend to return to Janjgir-Korba, the site of Dr. Raman Singh’s mindless greed: our satyagrahas may have stopped the forceful eviction of landowners from their fertile, irrigated lands to pave the way for power companies but I do not for one moment believe that it is permanent; the companies, riding piggy-back on the state and district administrations, will no doubt return, and my best hope is that by then the Land Acquisition Bill would have been passed by Parliament with retrospective effect (on at least pending projects). The new law would make it mandatory for companies wishing to acquire land to obtain consent of not less than 80% of resident land-users; once that happens, it would mean that the latter can effectively re-take control of their lives.

It is a sentiment shared by Rahul Gandhi. Last month, he told Parliament that what is required to take the menace of Corruption head-on is a multi-pronged Response that is both comprehensive and in-built into our Constitutional framework. The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) is already in place: despite bureaucratic resistance, it has, over the past 6 years, become the single most powerful instrument in unearthing corruption in India. It now needs to be supplemented with equally powerful legislation that would curb and redress corruption in other areas, notably (1) political funding (the way political parties are funded), (2) land acquisitions, (3) illegal mining and (4) implementation of massive centrally-funded projects like MNREGA. In many ways, he has laid a blueprint for tackling corruption that is far wider than any of the several proposed versions of Lokpal, electoral reforms and judicial accountability.

In Chhattisgarh, these 4 areas identified by Rahul ji- together with the systematic pilferage and mismanagement of funds and resources meant to deal with the growing problems of left wing extremism (LWE)- remain the biggest sources of corruption in public life. The use of RTI has been comparatively limited in the state and the bureaucratic opposition in furnishing information significantly stronger. This too needs to be remedied. Even so, it is necessary to wage a systematic fight against this evil: it would require mobilization of public support, particularly among the youth, and not just in urban areas but also in our villages.

In the coming days and months, we need to go to the people of the state to engage them in a constructive debate about the possible ways to weed-out corruption from public life, and ensure that the ideas and suggestions that emerge from that debate are implemented by our state legislature. Ultimately, what is required is a full-scale change of attitude towards corruption: the dawning of the realization that it is not something we are all condemned to live- and die- with, but that with the right approach, it can, and will, be uprooted. The events of these past 3 months have made it amply clear that this has already happened; from here, its no longer a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’. I am happy to know that on 30th October, the Youth Congress is organizing exactly such a public debate in Raipur, in which youth from all across the state, including students from the soon-to-be newly elected NSUI committees, are expected to participate.

As a political party that has remained in Opposition for a very long time mostly due to our own failings, we- the Congresspersons of Chhattisgarh- are acutely aware that the biggest reason for Dr. Raman Singh’s return to power in 2008 is the large-scale disbursement of funds, looted with impunity from the state exchequer, by the BJP during elections: put simply, they have not won elections but purchased them. This factor has become more pronounced in bye- or to be more apt, ‘buy’- elections. It is, therefore, all the more necessary for us to take the bull of corruption by its horns in Chhattisgarh: if we don’t, the chances of our returning to government in the state would be very slim indeed.

Other long-term goals remain, and we must continue to work towards their fulfillment. The state Youth Congress has already begun its “Sharab-bandi Satyagraha” demanding total prohibition on the sale of liquor in our state. I believe that liquor is the single biggest threat our youth face today: growing addiction to alcohol is not only destroying their lives but also preventing us from claiming our rightful place at the forefront of India’s emergent states. Foregoing Rs. 800 crores in excise duties is a small price to pay for saving Chhattisgarh’s future.

The other long-term goal is to bring pressure on the state government to implement the many promises it had made in its election manifestos: every government must be made to realize the penalty for not keeping its commitments to the people, and for fooling them not once but twice.

I believe that the best way to do all this is by going to the people, through Padyatras.

Reliving Tendukheda

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:02:00 +0000

शीशे का बदन था, पहाड़ों का सफ़र था
घर आ गया हूँ, आपकी दुआओं का असर था

I’ve read Le Bon’s fascinating treatise on mob mentality (La psychologie des foules). Last night, I lived it: on my way to Jabalpur from Mehaka, the farthest outpost of Jabera cut-off from the rest of this assembly constituency by incessant rains and floods, I stopped to have tea at a Congressman and former Nagar Panchayat president, Ramkumar Sahu’s home at Tendukheda; half an hour later, at about 9 pm, when we were about to drive off, a mob of about 200 armed hoodlums, led by Vinod Gotia, the BJP’s state vice president, and Ujiyar Singh, brother of BJP candidate Dashrath Singh, forcibly entered Mr Sahu's house, stoned our car, dragged us out, and beat us mercilessly till we lost consciousness. (Frankly, they could have done a lot worse, especially given the fact that we were totally defenseless and offered relatively no resistance: in that sense, at least, I am grateful to the mob that they- it- didn't go any further.)

Swatantra Agrawal, a close friend of the family, received heavy blows all over his back while bravely defending me from the assailants; Sandeep Sahu, the PYC state general secretary, sustained serious head injuries, and has partially lost hearing in his left ear (even so, he is more scared about what his wife, Seema, would do to him!); Anil Chouhan, my PSO (personal security officer), had his weapon, a pistol, snatched from the mob before he could do anything; Pratap Singh Lodhi and Sachin Yadav, two local Congress leaders, were, I am told, also beaten rather badly.

Mr Sahu’s home, where this incident took place, is less than 50 metres from the local police station. Despite repeated calls, no one came to our rescue. In fact, later at the police station, when Anil complained about the mob having taken away his pistol, the local SDOP, a certain Mr Tiwari, retrieved it in less than 5 minutes; we also heard him receive telephonic instructions from his superior, the SP of Damoh, to ensure that FIR is lodged against us as well (apparently, in the regime of Shivraj Singh, MP’s chief minister, getting beaten is also an offense): to my mind, this is as good a proof of police complicity as any.

Lying here in my bed in room 286 at the Dr Rajendra Prasad Eye Centre at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), fully conscious for the first time since last night’s incident, I cannot help but recall that this is not the first time I’ve witnessed the BJP resort to violence to brutally crush all opposition for the purpose of electoral gain: Dilip Singh Judeo, BJP MP, did it to Shailesh Nitin Trivedi, my father’s then-Political Secretary, on the eve of polling for Bilaspur Lok Sabha (April 2009); Kedar Kashyap, BJP minister, did it to Pappu Tiwari, a dhaba owner in Bhanpuri, on the eve of polling for Bastar Lok Sabha bye-election (May 2011). In both cases, the police turned a blind-eye- before, during and after the incidents. I have little doubt that this time would be any different.

In fact, the way I see it- unfortunately, now, with only my left-eye!- things are going to get a lot worse before they start to get better. My only hope is that the people of Jabera, when they rise to go to vote this morning, will not succumb to the BJP's terror tactics; that they will see it for what it really is, a neo-fascist outfit out to manipulate people’s mind with all sorts of lies and cheap-tricks; and that, when all is said and done, truth and justice- and tolerance- will prevail. For that is precisely what my late Mamu (Mummy's kid-brother), Ratnesh Solomon, who served this constituency with all this heart, mind and soul for the past 30 years, stood for.

With that happy thought, I shall now lie down, to let the painkillers take their affect.

PS- To read comments on this post, please visit here, here and here.

SHOWCASE: THE WORLD OF MOHAN TIWARI

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:07:00 +0000

That Mohan Tiwari has a razor-sharp insight into political life was a fact most of us, especially those dabbling in youth politics, are acutely aware of, having faced the full ire of his grilling based on an underlying disbelief of all that we say and do. What I did not know, nor could have imagined, was that his talents stretch beyond a masterly command of words and encompass the realm of visual representation. Needless to say, this combination of journalist and caricaturist is lethal: politicians everywhere now have one more reason to fear not just Mr. Tiwari's pen but also his pencil!

The public, on the other hand, ought to be more than grateful.

To sample more of Mohan Tiwari's acerbic caricatures on contemporary political life, facebook him.

WORDS THAT CONTINUE TO INSPIRE ME

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 23:24:00 +0000

I have ambitions, and even great ones; however, they do not consist in material satisfactions like holding high places and gaining large sums of money. I seek the realization of these ambitions in the success of a great idea which, while profiting my country, will give me the keen satisfaction of a duty worthily accomplished. That has been the principle of my whole life. I acquired it while I was still quite young, and I shall continue to hold it until my dying breath.

Kemal Atatürk, in a letter to Corinne Lütfü

मेरी महत्वाकांक्षाएं हैं, और महान महत्वाकांक्षाएं भी हैं; लेकिन उनमें उच्च पद रखने या बहुत सारा पैसा पाने जैसे भौतिक संतोष शामिल नहीं हैं. मैं अपनी महत्वाकांक्षाओं की प्राप्ति एक ऐसे महान विचार की सफलता में देखता हूँ, जो मेरे देश को लाभान्वित करने के साथ साथ मुझको अपना कर्त्तव्य योग्यता से निपुण करने की संतुष्टि देगा. यही मेरे जीवन का सिद्धांत रहा है. इसे मैंने उस समय हासिल किया जब मैं काफी जवान था, और मैं इसे अपनी आखरी सांस तक मानता रहूँगा.

कमाल अतातुर्क, कोरीन लुत्फू को लिखे एक पत्र में

REPORT: BASTAR LOK SABHA BYE-ELECTION 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Thu, 19 May 2011 09:44:00 +0000

Note: It gives me some satisfaction to note that in the 25 booths we visited during our Bastar Satyagraha last June (2010), the Congress candidate led by a total of 1256 votes. For me, personally, the battle in Bastar is not so much political as it is moral and ideological. This Report, however, focuses primarily on electoral issues.

1. INTRODUCTION

For the Congress in Chhattisgarh, the Bastar LS bye-election, necessitated by the sudden demise of 4-term BJP MP Baliram Kashyap in April, presented its biggest problem as well as its greatest opportunity. We failed to form our government in the state primarily, if not solely, due to our near-total wipeout in the 12 seats of Bastar division both in 2003 (when we won 3 seats) and in 2008 (when we managed to win only 1 by a margin of about 100 votes). In fact, the last time Bastar voted for the Congress was 13 years ago, in 1998. Since then, the RSS-VHP-BJP troika, through its affiliate organizations vis-à-vis the (now) more than 500 Ekal Vidyalayas, 200 Saraswati Shishu Mandirs, 500 Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams and 23 Salwa Judum camps, has, with the state administration’s active backing, penetrated the remotest parts of this predominantly tribal hinterland, and systematically succeeded in indoctrinating vast tracts of the population. The bye-election, therefore, gave us an opportunity to mobilize all our resources from across the state, and concentrate on salvaging as best as we could this most important constituency from the clutches of the state-sponsored saffron brigade.

2. CAUSE FOR HOPE

Despite our defeat, it is important to consider the following, which, I hope, might give us cause for hope:

2.1 Unity, finally: Thanks to the efforts of BK Hariprasad, the newly appointed AICC GS, and Nand Kumar Patel, the newly nominated PCC president, the Congress was able to put up, with one regrettable (but understandable) exception, a brave and united front during the campaign. After a long time, all the 3 Big Leaders vis-à-vis Vidyacharan Shukla, Motilal Vora and Ajit Jogi, addressed public meetings jointly. Despite their health, both Vidyacharan Shukla and Ajit Jogi campaigned extensively for the Congress candidate: while the former travelled to parts as remote as Bhairamgarh and Bijapur, the latter took more than 60 public meetings, travelling no less than 6000 kilometers by road and helicopter. For the first time in 8 years, everybody- including the BJP- felt that the Congress was not giving a walkover but actually fighting the election.

2.2 Reduced margin despite higher polling: In the last 2 bye-elections, our margin of loss had more than doubled from 17000 to 35000 in Bhatgaon (January 2011), and from 5000 to 10000 in Sanjari Balod (March 2011). This time, however, we were actually able to reduce the margin from 140000 in 2004 and 102000 in 2009 to 89000 even though there was a 7% increase in polling percentage (from about 44% to more than 51%).

2.3 Number of booths won have doubled: In terms of total number of booths won by the Congress, the figure has almost doubled: from 126 in 2004 and 346 in 2009 to 559 in 2011. All said and done, this bye-election is the best fight Congress has put up against the BJP in Bastar in the past 13 years.

2.4 CPI vote-bank reduced by half: Even though the BJP had heavily funded the CPI candidate with the design to split the non-communal votes- for the first time, they had managed to open campaign offices in all assembly segments, put up hoardings and even take out newspaper advertisements soliciting votes- the CPI vote share was reduced by almost 40%, from almost 80000 in 2009 to 49000. In the future, it should be our strategy to target the CPI vote-pockets.

2.5 Dummy Kawasi takes 35000 votes: The dummy candidate with the same name as our candidate, who was mischievously fielded by the BJP to divert our votes, took about 35000 votes. Our margin, therefore, effectively narrows down to 54000 votes. (Compared to this, the 3 candidates fielded by us with the same first name as the BJP candidate managed to take about 20000 votes.)

2.6 Morale-booster for workers: During the past 8 years, the number of grassroots Congress workers in Bastar has come down dramatically, with at least 60% of them shifting to the BJP. (This was evident from the ‘List of Booth Level Workers’ submitted by the District Congress Committees to the Congress candidate.) The few remaining grassroots party workers were left to face the full brunt of BJP’s terror tactics, especially in the 2 constituencies represented by state ministers Kedar Kashyap (Narayanpur) and Lata Usendi (Kondagaon). Unfortunately, no party office-bearer- at the block, district or state levels- had, partly due to fear but mostly because of the pervading feeling of ‘Salwa Judum’ (amity between the BJP and Congress leadership), offered them support of any kind, leaving them feeling totally helpless and demoralized. This bye-election has, if nothing else, reassured them that they are not alone in their fight against the BJP.

2.7 Decline in pre-poll (as opposed to post-poll) rigging: Due to the high alertness of Congress workers, the level of booth-level rigging has come down significantly: LWE-effected booths that previously used to poll more than 80% votes, polled not more than 0-5 votes each. (This did not, however, prevent tampering of machines after the polling ended, with active complicity of top election officials. A video CD documenting this, shot in the mining township of Kirandul, has also been released to the Press.)

3. REASONS FOR DEFEAT

3.1 Large-scale Shifting of Polling Booths: More than 200 booths were shifted by the district administration at the last moment: citing ‘security reasons’, it was decided that no polling booths would be set-up in certain villages, and the villagers, if they wanted to vote, had to traverse anywhere between 25-90 kilometers to vote at the shifted booth. In several other cases, villages with as many as 4 booths (i.e., about 3000-4000 voters) were deprived of polling booths, and directed to cast their votes at smaller, remoter places. The only visible criteria for this last minute, haphazard shifting of booths was to make it next to impossible for traditionally Congress-minded villages to cast their votes. This effectively meant the disenfranchisement of more than 65% of the electorate- most, if not all, Congress-minded voters- of South Bastar (Konta, Bijapur and Dantewada assemblies).

3.2 Polling by helicopters: Polling parties were sent by helicopters to about 70 booths. While previously, these parties comprised of a presiding officer and at least 3 other officials, this time only 1 officer, i.e., the presiding officer, was sent. This is contrary to all electoral practice, and when we objected, we were told that this was being done ostensibly due to ‘shortage of helicopters’. Needless to say, the polling parties never reached their destinations and returned with EVMs stuffed in BJP’s favor.

3.3 Role of Naxalites, SPOs, Koya Commandos and Salwa Judum: As is their custom, the Naxalites gave a call for total boycott of the election. They also distributed leaflets with “death to Chidambram, death to Karma” slogans, and physically prevented party workers from taking part in the campaign and voters from casting their votes. Consequently, in South Bastar, voting took place predominantly in Salwa Judum camps situated alongside the state highways, where the Special Police Officers (SPOs) and Koya Commandos- the unlawful and out-of-control armed militias raised under the banner of Salwa Judum- not only prevented Congress workers from entering the camps- in Jangla Camp, they actually threw a disemboweled body in front of the camp’s gates to discourage Congress workers from going in- but also compelled inmates to vote for the BJP. Also, due to the continuing escalation in violence, there has been an exodus, particularly among the able-bodied youth, from South Bastar to neighboring states of Maharashtra, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. All this has damaged us more than it has the BJP for the simple reason that people in the effected areas are/were traditionally Congress voters.

3.4 Money, Money, Money: Elsewhere, particularly in North Bastar, the BJP lured voters with what can only be described as ‘carpet bombardment of money’, offering as much as Rs. 1000 per vote. Not only this, truckloads of jewelry and saris were distributed among women voters; and liquor, as much as 200 gallon per booth, was offered to male voters by BJP workers. In the few instances where Congress workers opposed this, they were mercilessly beaten. (Such is their fear that they refuse even now to lodge police complaints against them.)

3.5 Misuse of administrative machinery: From the beginning, the BJP state government put everything it had into winning this election: at least 2 state ministers were personally stationed in each assembly segment, where they openly and brazenly directed officials, from the district to the panchayat levels, to work as agents of the BJP. Top-level district officials were personally present at ministers’ party meetings. Panchayat secretaries were instructed to take back ration cards from villagers with the threat that these would be returned only if the BJP won from their village. Mitanins (rural healthcare workers) were also roped in along with SHGs and Van Samitis (forest committees) to openly work for the BJP. The entire police machinery turned a blind-eye when BJP leaders, led by state ministers Kedar Kashyap and Lata Usendi, were physically terrorizing our workers. In Bacheli and Kirandul townships, the police physically removed all our polling agents from the booths, giving a free reign to the BJP. Excise officials actively distributed liquor for the BJP. Officials posted on election duty were personally handpicked by the BJP despite their dubious antecedents. They were asked to rig the elections by the Returning Officers themselves. We have submitted video footage of EVMs being tampered with openly in Kirandul, after polling had ended. The most obvious proof, however, in support of this contention is this: when polling ended on the eve of May 8, the administration announced a polling percentage of 40%; in the next 2 days, this increased to almost 55%.

3.6 Failure of ECI to Act: Despite our repeated complaints to ECI Observers, running into hundreds of pages supported with photographs and video footages, not one action was taken against the erring officials. This only seemed to embolden them in their blatant efforts to help the ruling party’s candidate. Copy of one such letter submitted to the ECI is reproduced below (see endnote).[1]

3.7 “Bhanpuri Syndrome”: Our maximum losses in this Lok Sabha were from the erstwhile assembly constituency of Bhanpuri: this is because ever since delimitation, the leaders of that erstwhile constituency are focusing only on Bastar assembly, leaving parts of it now in Narayanpur and Kondagaon assemblies totally neglected. Thus, even though we won from rest of Narayanpur and Kondagaon constituencies, our losses in the erstwhile regions of Bhanpuri assembly were so heavy as to cost us the entire assemblies by margins in excess of 14000.

3.8 Dummy Kawasi: The dummy candidate with the same name as our candidate fielded by the BJP to divert our votes took about 35000 votes. (Compared to this, the 3 candidates fielded by us with the same first name as the BJP candidate managed to take about 20000 votes.)

3.9 Failure to mobilize human resources statewide: While the BJP was able to mobilize all its resources- including manpower- from all across the state, this was not the case with the Congress. Despite the PCC chief’s clarion call to every Congress worker of the state to come to Bastar, very few actually showed up. With the exception of 16 MLAs (out of 39), none took up their allotted charges even though duties were assigned by the Election Committee to all of them. Likewise, the PCC chief issued a circular directing all BCC and DCC presidents to come, but less than 20% turned up. This may be partly due to fear of campaigning in a violence-prone region like Bastar, but it prevented us from realizing our fullest potential.

4. RECOMMENDATIONS

4.1 To begin, it is necessary to revamp the entire party organization in Bastar:

4.1.1 A separate Bastar Cell, with extraordinary powers, should be set up by the PCC with the explicit objective of preparing for the 2013 assembly elections.

4.1.2 Sector-wise meetings of workers should be organized within the next 30 days, preferably attended by the candidate or his duly authorized representative, to identify areas of weaknesses and strengths, and to discuss possible strategies for the future. Reports of these meetings should be duly filed with the Bastar Cell, along with updated Booth-wise list of party workers and supporters.

4.1.3 Disciplinary proceedings, beginning with serving of show-cause notices, should be initiated against all those against whom there are complaints of anti-party activities and sabotage.

4.1.4 “Indira Gandhi Shakti Kendras” comprising of no more than 15-20 polling booths should be set-up. Each IGSK shall be placed under the supervision of a Coordinator (sanyojak). He shall serve as a direct link between the Cell and the IGSK.

4.1.5 The IGSKs should be free to choose their own agenda, depending on local factors, and the Cell shall facilitate, fund and monitor their working.

4.1.6 All DCCs and BCCs in Bastar should be dissolved forthwith, and new committees appointed based solely on workers’ performance in the elections. This will send the message that those who work- and help the party win- get rewarded, while those who do not are punished. The new committees shall be placed under the Bastar Cell.

4.2 From a realistic viewpoint, it is preferable not to disperse our limited energy- and resources- on all the 12 assembly seats of Bastar, but instead to concentrate those energies and resources on a few chosen seats (5-6), based primarily on past election results. Thus the bulk of our focus should be on those seats where the margin of loss is manageable vis-à-vis Antagarh, Keshkal, Bhanupratappur, Bastar and Konta. Candidates for these seats should be decided and announced at least 18 months before the assembly election.

4.3 The party would have to clarify its stand on a number of issues affecting the people of Bastar, particularly Salwa Judum (SJ) and our policy towards LWE (Left Wing Extremism). The general feeling, both among the public as well as the Maoists, is that in simultaneously funding SJ and opposing it, we are indulging in double-speak.

4.4 Likewise, the role of the MHA, insofar as they seem to unconditionally back the policies of the state government, has to be more in tune with the line taken by the party at the state and local levels. For this, informal channels of communication need to be opened between them at the local level.

4.5 To check the rampant abuse of administrative machinery during elections in Bastar- more so, when the role of administration assumes a life-or-death significance for the voters- it is necessary to promulgate President’s Rule in the region, if not the state, at least 6 months before the assembly election. (God knows there are more than adequate grounds for doing so, given the total anarchy rampant in no less than 65% of Bastar's areas.)

4.6 The Union of India must, preferably through a senior level minister, announce a separate package for the development of Bastar. If not, then our ministers should at least be instructed to regularly visit the region, and take credit for the work already being done by the UPA for the people of Bastar- especially the food subsidy given by the Union as part of the Rs. 2 per kilo rice scheme (for which the state government has managed to take full credit)- while also not failing to criticize the rampant corruption prevalent in the state government.

4.7 To put an end to the mass-exodus of party workers to the BJP, it is necessary to strengthen grassroots workers by facilitating them to secure works from such PSUs as NMDC, Bhilai Steel Plant and NTPC, and Railways as well as in other projects implemented by the central government. Currently, all this work, under influence of the local and state administrations, is being awarded to BJP workers.

4.8 Likewise, it would be prudent for the central revenue authorities (income tax department etc.) to look into cases of disproportionate assets acquired by BJP ministers and their supporters, and take suitable steps against them. This will, at the very least, help reduce the rampant use of money-power by them during the election.

4.9 One of the lessons that we have learnt the hard way in Bastar is that the tribal votes are not with the tribals, but with the far more influential non-tribals. They are all with the BJP today. This will have to change: so instead of talking only about Adivasis, it would be more prudent to start speaking in terms of the more inclusive “Bastaria”. (In this election, we tried this strategy, and were able to substantially reduce our loss in Jagdalpur City Corporation from 27000 to about 1900 votes.)

4.10 Inclusion of forest-dwelling communities as STs: By an administrative oversight, a vast number of forest-dwelling communities of Bastar, such as Maharas and Halba-Telgas who number almost 300,000, have been excluded from the list of Scheduled Tribe. This has had the affect of depriving them from all schemes intended for the welfare of STs. This needs to be corrected, and due credit taken by the UPA for it.

5. CONCLUSION

After our debacle in the Bhatgaon, Balod and Bastar bye-elections, the general feeling among Congresspersons in Chhattisgarh is that the prospects of our returning to power, at least in 2013, are next to impossible. Urgent- and bold- steps are therefore called for. The bitter truth is that without Bastar, we are, quite simply, out of the game. As this Report has shown, all is not lost, and with a little foresight and a lot of political will, we can still win the Bastaria's trust.

ENDNOTES

[1]

LETTER TO ECI

URGENT

To,

The Chief Election Commissioner

Election Commission Of India

New Delhi

Dated: 23.04.2011

Sir,

This is to thank the Commission for the early and positive response sent to me by return no. 99/EPS/2011/475 dated 15.4.2011.

As you know Bastar Parliamentary Constituency has several special features and factors, which make the conduct of free & fair polls extremely difficult. I am describing them below:

1. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has come down very heavily upon the formation and activities of SPOs & ‘Koya Commandos’ in Bastar. The SPOs are armed with guns and have no police or military training whatsoever. They are being paid every month from the state exchequer. As a result they have been acting as armed agents of the state government and defying law with impunity. Allegations of murder, rape, loot and arson against them are very common. Obviously during the election if they are allowed to move and act as freely as they do, they will coerce innocent tribal voters either to vote for the ruling party in the state (BJP) or face severe punishment by them. Obviously the presence of the SPOs and the Koya Commandos has made free and fair polls an impossibility in this Lok Sabha Constituency. It is therefore requested that the State Government should be directed to physically keep the SPOs & Koya Commandos out of this constituency during the period of campaign. Those who are registered as voters of this constituency could be permitted to exercise their right to vote through postal ballot.

2. Almost the entire constituency is engulfed by the left wing extremism (LWE) and there are incidents of violence everyday. It therefore becomes impossible to travel by road in most part of the constituency. As a result, in large number of places, the polling parties are airlifted by helicopters to places near polling booths. Massive and one-sided rigging takes place at that place because the polling parties and the security personnel at that level are motivated by the senior state officials to do so. These parties do not bother to go to their polling booth and they obviously do not want to take the risk of travelling by road. It therefore suits them all to conduct false polling at the place where they land by the helicopter.
The commission may have to consider a way out to stop rigging of the votes at that level. My suggestion is that helicopters should also carry representatives of national parties with them so that they remain present all through out the day of the polling and the entire polling process gets completed in their presence. The other alternative would be to postpone the election of these booths by at least a week. In the mean time, the representatives of all the political parties can reach these places and the election process should take place in their presence in relation to these booths.

3. Though the state government had been claiming before the Supreme Court that the infamous Salwa Judum camps have almost been closed, the fact is that according to official figures (tabled before the state Assembly) about 27000 people are still residing in these camps. They are continuously under police protection and they depend on the state government for everything. In these conditions, it is impossible for them to vote for anybody except the ruling party in the state. It is reliably learnt that they are not even allowed to vote and all their votes are polled by the in-charge state officials themselves. There is absolutely no fair play and camp inmate-voters have no independence to exercise their votes. Thus, in this case, there is almost cent percent rigging of votes. These voters can exercise their votes freely only if they are taken back to their villages, if needed under police protection, at least about two days before the actual date of polling. In their village and at their home they can exercise their votes in the polling booth prepared for them. The other alternative is to postpone the poll for the Salwa Judum Camp voters at least by a week. In the meantime the representatives of the political parties could be permitted to interact with them and be present on the day of poll so that the possibility of rigging of votes is reduced.

4. A few officers at the senior level posted in the districts are openly and blatantly working for the ruling party in the state. They include the following:

Serial No.	Name	Designation	Code of Conduct violation
1.	Mr NLS Ken	Collector, Narayanpur	He sanctioned and personally distributed funds from the ‘Mantri Swechha Anudan’ (Minister Voluntary Fund) and MLA Development Fund of state minister and local MLA, Mr Kedar Kashyap on 7.4.2011, well after mode code of conduct came into effect on 31.3.2011.
2.	Mr Prakash Sarve	SDM, Narayanpur	He was present with the minister, Mr Kedar Kashyap, on 20.4.2011 at Narayanpur.
3.	Mr Rajat Kumar	Collector, Bijapur	He was personally attending to state ministers, Mr Brijmohan Agrawal and Mr Kedar Kashyap, during their campaigning in Bijapur on 19.4.2011.
4.	Mr Komal Netam	SI, Narayanpur	He was present with the minister, Mr Kedar Kashyap, on 20.4.2011 at Narayanpur.
5.	Mr Rajendra Jha	Dist. Project Coordinator, Jagdalpur	As head of Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission, he is actively and openly directing shikshakarmis to work for the BJP.
6.	Mr P Dayanand	CEO, Jila Panchayat, Dantewada	A close relative of BJP leader Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, he is brazenly directing all shikshakarmis to work for the BJP.
7.	Mr Lalit Baghel	CO, Chhindgarh Janpad	He is a close relative to Mr Dinesh Kashyap (BJP candidate) and his brother Mr Kedar Kashyap (state minister).
8.	Mr SL Dewangan	CO, Sukma Janpad	He accompanied Mr Kedar Kashyap (state minister and brother of BJP candidate) to the Sukma Mela on 20.4.2011.
9.	Mr Santesh Singh Mandawi	CO, Konta	He personally instructed Mr Bhima, sarpanch of Chintalnar, to work for the BJP, failing which he was threatened with dismissal.
10.	Mr Ajay Pal	Tahsildar, Sukma	He accompanied Mr Kedar Kashyap (state minister and brother of BJP candidate) to the Sukma Mela on 20.4.2011.
11.	Mr L N Patel	Acting CO, Koakunda Janpad & Zonal Officer	He is a grade III officer, but due to his service to the BJP, was made acting CO of Janpad, and now has also been assigned duties as Zonal Officer so that he can rig the election in its favor.
12.	Mr SK Deep	BO, Konta	His wife is the Nagar Panchayat President of Konta, elected from the BJP.
13.	Mr R C Rana	Block Resource Coordinator, Kaokunda	He was present at the BJP Workers’ Meeting presided by Mr Ramesh Bais, MP, at Geedam on 20.4.2011.
14.	Mr Barman	Head, Mitatnin, Bastar Div.	He is using his office to organize meetings of Mitanins for BJP state ministers and leaders.
15.	Mr Ajay Sahu	Project Officer ICDS, Kondagaon	He was present in the local minister, Ms. Lata Usendi’s public meetings at Baniyagaon and Dahikonga on 22.4.2011.
16.	Mr RS Tandon	Tahsildar, Kondagaon	He was present in the local minister, Ms. Lata Usendi’s public meetings at Baniyagaon and Dahikonga on 22.4.2011.
17.	Mr Neelkant Sardul, Mr Nirmal Sardul, Mr Shiv Prakash Sharma, Mr UPT Peter, Mr Tahir Khan	Shikshak, Kondagaon	They were present in the local minister, Ms. Lata Usendi’s public meetings at Baniyagaon and Dahikonga on 22.4.2011.
18.	Mr Ashwini Rathore	TI, Madded	He has been transferred 6 months ago to Korba but continues to stay here. He openly told Chandu Suddhu, up-sarpanch, Kamalapalli, to work for the BJP, failing which he would be arrested ‘as a Naxalite’.
19.	Mr Satish Singh	TI, Madded	He has been transferred 6 months ago to Raipur but continues to stay here. He is openly telling influential persons to work for the BJP, failing which they would be arrested ‘as a Naxalite’.
20.	Mr Nilin Shukla	Teacher, and acting i/c of SHGs, Nagar Nigam, Jagdalpur	He is directing all SHGs to vote for the BJP, and be present at their rallies, failing which he is threatening to withdraw funding.

The Commission should immediately verify their credentials and transfer them temporarily from this area so that they do not abuse their offices to campaign for the BJP. This list is not exhaustive and based only on preliminary reports. Our party would be updating this information and would be sending it to you from time to time.

5. The ruling party in the state depends heavily on the use of money. They take undue advantage of abject poverty in the Bastar region and virtually purchase votes of the poor and innocent people. Commission will have to take extra precaution to prevent distribution of money, distribution of jewelry and distribution of other articles of use among the tribals. Similarly very large quantities of Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) are distributed to the voters during the period of campaign. All liquor contractors/ vendors are under the state government. They provide free and abundant quantities of liquor to them, which is distributed by their party workers, and even government officials, in almost every town and village in the constituency. The Commission should keep special vigilance in this regard because state officials not only allow this but actively abet it.

6. Massive misuse of Government machinery by BJP party functionaries has already begun. The state ministers are openly taking meetings of grass root level government servants and instructing them to work for their party. For example, in Narayanpur district headquarter on 20.4.2011, two state ministers, Mr Rajesh Munat and Mr Kedar Kashyap (brother of BJP candidate) took a meeting of shikshakarmis and mitanins (village level women health workers) at the local rest house and instructed them to work for the party. Similarly, in Kondagaon assembly segment the local minister Ku Lata Usendi has been taking meetings if Anganbadi workers, Mitanins and Mahila Vikas departmental officials and instructing them to work for her party. Large-scale misuse of women self-help groups (SHGs) is also being engineered by ministers to ensure women voters are adversely influenced. It is suggested that during the campaign periods all such meetings and gatherings especially of SHGs must be stopped by the Commission.

My party has full faith in the Commission that it will take all possible necessary action to remedy the situation.

Do I Have the Right to Speak in Chhattisgarh?

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:15:00 +0000

20.1.11...Narihara...to speak for farmers' rights over their own lands...Arrested!
25.1.2011...Bilaspur University...to support students...Arrested!
30-31.1.2011...Dharamjaigarh...to speak for the right of tribals to live in their own homes...Arrested!
17.3.2011...Kota...to speak for plight of citizens...Arrested!
4.4.2011...Bilaspur...to speak for farmers' rights...Lathi-charged!
8.4.2011...Baradwar...to speak against selling of fertile land to industry at throwaway prices...Arrested!

SPEAK NOW- OR BE SILENCED FOREVER.

The CHOICE is OURS.

KISAN SATYAGRAHA

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 06:01:00 +0000

सूचना- माननीय श्री अर्जुन सिंह के आकस्मिक निधन के कारण किसान सत्याग्रह ३ दिनों के लिए स्थगित कर दिया गया है. सत्याग्रह माँ महामाया मंदिर, रतनपुर से ८ मार्च, सुबह ११ बजे को प्रारंभ होगा. To view press clippings and photos of KISAN SATYAGRAHA in realtime, please click here.

कल हम अपना किसान सत्याग्रह रतनपुर से माँ महामाया का आशिर्वाद लेकर शुरू करने वाले हैं. ३ प्रमुख मांगो को लेकर ये सत्याग्रह किया जा रहा है:

(१) किसानों को २७०/- रूपये प्रति क्विंटल धान के हिसाब से बोनस मिले;
(२) कृषि के लिए मुफ्त में बिजली उपलब्ध कराई जाए; और
(३) आकस्मिक बरसात के कारण जो फसलों को क्षति पहुंची है, उसकी क्षतिपूर्ति कराई जाए.

डॉक्टर रमन सिंह ने इनमें से पहली दो मांगों को पूरा करने का वादा अपने २००८ के संकल्प पत्र में किया था. इनको पूरा न करके वे प्रदेश के किसानों के साथ वादा-खिलाफी कर रहे हैं. किसान सत्याग्रह के माध्यम से हम इसी सत्य का आग्रह करेंगे.

किसान सत्याग्रह के पहले चरण में युवा पदयात्राओं के जरिये गाँव-गाँव पहुंचकर वहां के किसानों को किसान सत्याग्रह समितियों (KSS) के माध्यम से संगठित किया जाएगा. हमारा लक्ष्य रहेगा कि अगले चार महीनों में युवा पदयात्राओं के माध्यम से प्रदेश की १९००० पंचायतों में से कम से कम १५००० पंचायतों में KSS का गठन किया जाए.

किसान सत्याग्रह का अंतिम चरण रायपुर में ९ अगस्त- क्रांति दिवस- को होगा. उस दिन प्रदेश के सभी KSS के सदस्य वहां इक्कठे होंगे, और तब तक रहेंगे जब तक रमन सरकार नहीं हट जाती.

A Tale of Four Satyagrahas, 20-31.1.2011

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 22:20:00 +0000

About 40000 persons belonging to 9000 families live in Taraimar, Baysi and Rupangar panchayats, and Baysi and Dharam colonies in Dharamjaigarh block of Raigarh district. More than half of them are tribals; they have lived here since time immemorial. The rest are Bangladeshis; Mrs. Indira Gandhi settled them here after the Indo-Pak war of 1971. To their misfortune, the land that they live on- or more precisely, what lies underneath it- has been designated as “Durgapur-II-Taraimar coal block”; all of it has been allocated to BALCO, a former PSU (public sector undertaking) sold to Mr. Anil Agrawal of Sterlite company in 2001. Over the next century, Mr. Agrawal hopes to dig out 8 million tons of coal every year from this land to fuel his 2 thermal power plants and coal washery. He believes that the people who live here will go away quietly. In this, at least, Mr. Agrawal is mistaken.

Over the past two months, Mr. Agrawal’s agents, which (alas) include the state and district administrations besides local goons and conmen, have been ‘persuading’ landowners into selling their lands to them for as little as Rs. 15,000/acre. Most continue to resist. This was evident at yesterday’s public hearing at Taraimar: a tribal youth shouted that if his land was taken, he would join the Naxalites; when the district SP (Superintendent of Police) told him that he would personally shoot him if he did so, the young man said that he didn’t care because he had nothing left to lose. But I am getting ahead of myself. The Tale must begin elsewhere, in the neighboring district of Janjgir.

1. Narihara Satyagraha, 20.1.2011
Janjgir is perhaps the most fertile land of Chhattisgarh. It is bang in the heart of the Hasdeo-Mahanadi-Bango riverine basin. In a state where farmers have to contend with just one crop (kharif) every year, those in Janjgir harvest three, thanks mostly to the Hasdeo-Bango canal (built in a record two-year time, by my father’s government in 2003). Not surprisingly, the largest agricultural fair of the state- the Jajvalya Krishi Mela- is held here every year. However, unlike adjoining Raigarh, this district doesn’t have mineral deposits. But its proximity to Raigarh’s coal deposits and ample water supply make it an ideal location for setting up thermal power plants. During the past 7 years, Dr. Raman Singh, the state’s chief minister, has signed more than 50 MoUs with various companies to set up thermal power plants in this district, which would cumulatively produce no less than 50,000 megawatts of electricity every year.

This would, no doubt, transform Janjgir into the power hub of the nation- except that even if all available water of this district- including underground water- were to be pumped into power plants, it would still produce not more than 12,000 megawatts. By blindly green-lighting power plants that far out-exceed the natural capacity of this district, Dr. Raman Singh has condemned Janjgir- and its 2 million mostly Dalit inhabitants- to what can only be described as purgatory; hell-fire.

A week before last, I tried to walk from Narihara, where KSK- a Hyderabad-based construction company- is erecting its Wardha Power Plant, to Rogda, where farmers were mercilessly lathi-charged by policemen that very morning. We were arrested. Later that evening, I snuck into Rogda: the villagers ran into their houses when they saw us at first; it was only when they were told who I was that they came out to talk to us. There is a dam in Rogda; since 1962, it has been irrigating not less than 800 hectares of land. (Curiously, in the EIA- Environmental Impact Assessment- submitted by KSK to MoEF, this dam has been declared non-functional!) The day before, KSK simply poured earth into the dam, ‘killing’ it forever (this is exactly how the villagers described it). When the villagers came to know of this, they resisted, only to be ruthlessly beaten. (In the police report, it was the villagers who attacked the hapless police; what the police were doing there in the first place, God only knows!)

I am happy to report that since our Satyagraha at Narihara, the villagers of Narihara-Rogda have succeeded in stopping all ongoing work at Wardha Power Plant; this has forced the company back to the negotiating table. I am told that KSK is now promising to build a state-of-art hospital and college for them, and also increasing its previous offer of acquiring land from Rs. 5,00,000/acre to Rs. 15,00,000/acre.

2. Sarguja Satyagraha, 21-22.1.2011
From Janjgir (Akaltara block), I traveled to Sarguja, our northernmost district bordering Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. Two hills sacred to tribals- Samripat and Mainpat- are full of bauxite (not unlike Niyamgiri in neighboring Orissa); HINDALCO and BALCO companies have been systematically digging them up for almost 2 decades. The ore is taken to their aluminum plants Renukut in UP and Lanjigad in Orissa. The people of Sarguja have a simple demand, best summed up in a slogan given by Amarjeet Bhagat, a local MLA: “plant nahi to bauxite nahi”. This means that if the companies want to continue to mine bauxite, then they must set up their aluminum plants within the district itself; this would, at the very least, help generate employment for local youth, businesses for local entrepreneurs and other necessary educational and healthcare infrastructure for everybody. In pursuance of this demand, all transportation from the two bauxite mines was stopped; 4 days later, BALCO sent a letter to the District Collector stating its willingness to set-up an aluminum plant in Sarguja (while also using it to make certain very unrealistic demands of their own!).

3. Kudurmal Satyagraha, 23.1.2011 and 30.1.2011
Before returning to Taraimar in Dharamjaigarh, I should like to stop at Kudurmal, a not-so-quiet little village on the banks of Hasdeo in Korba district. It’s almost as if one has walked into an ongoing earthquake: stones of all sizes and shapes fall from the sky accompanied by terrifying blasts of dynamite; walls of each of the 137 houses are cracked, 3 have crumbled to dust, the Shiv Linga at the village square has been split in two. Most alarmingly, the sacred shrine of Kabir, who lived and preached here more than 500 years ago, as did his descendants, is about to fall to pieces. Given its unique place in history, it has officially been declared a protected monument under the Protected Monuments Act. None of this, however, has deterred contractors of LANCO Power Company from blasting stones less than 1 meter from the village. Two days ago, the local youth of the district pitched a tent and started a Satyagraha right next to the blasting site: they will continue to pray and fast till the unlawful blastings have stopped, and the damage done to people’s homes and the shrine repaired.

4. Dharamjaigarh Satyagraha, 24.1.2011 and 31.1.2011
On my way to attend the public hearing at Taraimar, the Additional SP of Raigarh stopped me: I was told that my presence at Dharamjaigarh- and more specifically at the public hearing- would disrupt peace and order. When I denied this and insisted on proceeding, I was arrested once again, in abject violation of my Fundamental Right guaranteed by Articles 14, 19 and 21 of our Constitution, and rushed to Raigarh, where I was locked up in Room No. 4 of the Circuit House till the time the public hearing at Taraimar was over late last night.

Had I been allowed to speak, this is what I would have said:

• First, I would have challenged the holding of the public hearing itself on three grounds. One, because the EIA submitted by BALCO was not prepared by a consultant accredited by MoEF; two, because the date, place and calling of the public hearing was not done by the Pollution Control Board but by the district collector (whose daughter happens to be an employee of BALCO); three, the public hearing was not held within the stipulated time frame of 45 days from submission of EIA, but more than 2 years later.
• Secondly, the content of the EIA itself is a bundle of lies and half-truths. Most notably, it does not mention that this is a thickly forested area, or that it is part of the ‘Elephant Corridor’, without which the elephants would be left without recourse to a safe passage.
• Thirdly, there is not one word in the EIA, or any other proposal submitted by BALCO, as to how, when and where the 40,000 inhabitants of this ‘coal block’ are going to be rehabilitated: all it says is that their ‘rehabilitation packages would be better than their present conditions.’ By failing to address this most vital of concerns, BALCO- and the state and district administrations- have summarily condemned them to the status of ‘most endangered species’, soon to be made extinct.
• Fourthly, the rates of compensation being offered- Rs. 15-30,000/acre!- are not only way below the prescribed acquisition rates of Rs. 5-8-10,00,000/acre; they are only a pittance of the value of coal BALCO is going to dig out. 8 million tons of coal a year, valued at Rs. 2000/ton (for D Grade coal) is Rs. 1600 crores. If this amount were to be divided equally among the 40,000 people who live here, it would come to exactly Rs. 4 lakhs/year/person. Since BALCO intends to dig out coal for the next 100 years, the share of each person would, therefore, come to Rs. 4 crores; or, given that on an average 4 persons constitute a family, Rs. 16 crores for every household. Even if BALCO were to give just 0.1% of the share that should logically- and rightfully- belong to each family, that amount would still be Rs. 16 lakhs. This is of course not accounting for inflation, or the additional profits it would make by generating and selling electricity.
• Fifthly, by not allowing the public to attend the public hearing- as in my case and also that of at least 2000 others who were not allowed entry for absolutely no reason- the very purpose of the public hearing has been defeated. Under sections 111 and 151 of the Cr.P.C., the magistrate can detain a person only on the basis of ‘reasonable apprehension’: there was nothing in our antecedents, manner and conduct of to give rise to any such reasonable apprehension that our presence would be disruptive of public peace and order. If anyone was disturbing public peace, it was Mr. Agrawal's agents!
• Sixthly, the presence of at least 2000-armed policemen, not to mention the SP himself sitting and screaming on the dais, has vitiated the entire proceedings.

In any event, despite the company’s best efforts to trick and torment, of the 3000 people finally permitted to participate in the public hearing, only 2 spoke out in favor of BALCO’s proposal. Each and every other speaker spoke against it. (Video recordings of the hearing have been made.) Now, I am informed that BALCO’s agents have surreptitiously fabricated about 2000 printed letters under names summarily lifted from electoral rolls (voter lists), all supporting its proposal in exactly the same language, in exactly the same font (!). How on earth would a tribal of Taraimar have access to such computerized printing is beyond me. As such, these so-called letters of endorsement should be pulped; they are not worth the paper they are printed on.

I’ve been asked as to why I am raising my voice now, and not before. Surely these are not the first instances of gross injustices to have occurred in my lifetime; but these are the first that I’ve confronted ever since I have started coming into public life. A beginning has been made…to reconcile the sufferings of those who live on this earth with the wealth that lies buried beneath; to alleviate, if not end, the age-old curse of Rich Land, Poor People (Ameer dharti, Gareeb log).

Before concluding, I would like to mention one unifying- and very disturbing- feature I noticed in all the 4 aforementioned Satyagrahas: more often than not, those entrusted by the People to protect and promote their interests- the legislators and the administrators- are the ones most engaged in plundering them; it is time such people were weeded out to make way for a breed more conscious of its duties and responsibilities towards those that have empowered them in the first place. Such a change is possible only by increasing public awareness: hence, our Call to Truth.

Our Satyagraha.

Arrest at Hati on way to Taraimar

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:56:00 +0000

I am under arrest: the state administration is of the opinion that my going to attend the Public Hearing at Taraimar (Dharamjaigarh) would disrupt local peace. What will NOT, in its opinion, disrupt local peace is the forceful uprooting of 40000 persons, mostly tribals and Bangladeshi-refugees, from their lands and homes to make way for Vedanta company to mine 800 million tons of coal for two new power plants it intends to set up in adjacent Korba. Already, the agents of Vedanta have begun forcing tribals into selling their lands for as little as Rs 15000/acre; those that have resisted so far will be left with no option after tomorrow's public hearing. Precious forests and wildlife will be lost forever...There are only two lines in Vedanta's 80-page proposal about what it intends to do with the 9000 families it will displace: "they will be rehabilitated in a condition better than their present lot." There is, however, not one word about where, when and how this rehabilitation is to be done. Its environmental assessment report is based on what can at best be described as figments of some very fertile imagination...This is precisely what I- and several others like me- had intended to ask at tomorrow's public hearing. Sadly, these questions will remain unanswered. The Peace that Dr. Raman Singh- no doubt, acting as an agent for Mr. Anil Agrawal (the London-based proprietor of Vedanta)- so fiercely wants will come at the cost of erasure of an entire peoples and their way of life...

New Year: "2010 के व्यक्ति" और "2011 में छत्तीसगढ़"

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:20:00 +0000

इस ब्लॉग पर पिछले साल एक नई प्रथा शुरू हुई थी: बीते वर्ष में जिस व्यक्ति ने हमारे प्रदेश (छत्तीसगढ़) को अच्छे या बुरे के लिए सबसे ज्यादा प्रभावित किया, उसे "साल के व्यक्ति" का खिताब दिया गया और आने वाले वर्ष में क्या होगा, उसकी भविष्यवाणी की गई.

(1)
2010 के व्यक्ति

२०१० के "साल के व्यक्ति" (Person of the Year) डॉक्टर विनायक सेन हैं. उनके मुकद्दमे- और सजा- ने हमारे प्रदेश को भारत का ही नहीं बल्कि सम्पूर्ण बुद्धिजीवी-दुनिया के आकर्षण का केंद्र बना दिया है. ये हमारे लिए गौरव की बात नहीं है.

उनके परिवार और केस, दोनों से मैं बहुत करीब से जुड़ा हुआ हूँ. उनका फ्लैट हमारे रायपुर के घर के ठीक सामने है. डॉक्टर सेन मेरी माँ के मेडिकल कॉलेज (वेलूर) में सीनियर थे. पढ़ाई पूरी करने के बाद, हाल में आज़ाद हुए बंगलादेश जाकर उन्होनें भारत-पाकिस्तान युद्ध (१९७१) में सबसे क्षतिग्रस्त हुए इलाकों में निशुल्क चिकित्सा-सेवा दी. कई सालों तक डॉक्टर सेन अपनी पत्नी इलेना के साथ धमतरी और बालोद क्षेत्र के आदिवासी इलाकों में गरीबों का इलाज करते रहे. गुरुर के पास आज भी उनका छोटा सा क्लीनिक है, जो लगभग बंद पड़ा है. वे मेरे पिता जी के शासनकाल में छत्तीसगढ़ मेडिकल बोर्ड के सदस्य थे: उस दौरान वे मितानिन (midwife) योजना के सूत्रधार बने, जो आज पूरे प्रदेश में ही नहीं बल्कि पूरे देश में लागू हो चुकी है. इस योजना के अंतर्गत गांवों की मितानिन को आवश्यक चिकित्सा प्रणाली- जैसे मलेरिया और दस्त का उपचार- में प्रशिक्षण देकर दूरदराज़ ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों में डॉक्टरों की कमी को बहुत हद तक पूरा किया जा रहा है.

सलवा जुडूम की आड़ में हो रहे अत्याचार- सैकड़ों गांवों से हज़ारों आदिवासियों को विस्थापित कर उन्हें अपनी इच्छा के विरुद्ध भेड़-बकरियों की तरह "कैम्पों" में रखा गया, और उनको नक्सली-समर्थक बताकर मार डाला गया (अभी कुछ ही दिन पहले बीजापुर बस्ती में एक एस.पी.ओ. ने एक आदिवासी छात्र आशीष माझी की छाती में चार गोली दागकर दिन-दहाड़े ह्त्या कर दी)- को उन्होनें पी.यू.सी.एल. के माध्यम से उजागर किया, तो उन्हें नक्सलियों का डाकिया बताकर देशद्रोह जैसे संगीन जुर्म का दोषी करार दिया.

अगर गरीबों की सेवा करना और अत्याचार के खिलाफ आवाज़ उठाना देशद्रोह है, तो ये हमारे प्रदेश- और देश- के लिए बेहद शर्म का विषय है. एक नागरिक और एक वकील होने के नाते मुझे पूरी उम्मीद है कि इस गलती को बहुत जल्दी सुधारा जाएगा.

(2)
2011 में छत्तीसगढ़

A. राजनीति:
(१) भाजपा में "आदिवासी एक्सप्रेस" चलेगी, आदिवासी मुख्यमंत्री की मांग धीरे धीरे तूल पकड़ेगी: नंदकुमार साय और बलिराम कश्यप इसके सूत्रधार होंगे; शासन के कुछ मंत्री और सांसद इसको पीछे से बल देंगे. पूरी मुहिम नाकाम सिद्ध होगी, और डॉक्टर रमन सिंह अपनी कुर्सी पर बरक़रार रहेंगे.
(२) नया प्रदेश अध्यक्ष कांग्रेस को अंततः मिलेगा. वोरा-युग अब दिग्विजय-युग में तब्दील होगा. प्रदेश सरकार के खिलाफ दबे हुए जानाक्रोश को आन्दोलन का रूप देने में कांग्रेस, विशेषकर कांग्रेस के युवाओं, की अहम् भूमिका रह सकती है.
(३) छत्तीसगढ़ स्वाभिमान मंच, छत्तीसगढ़ मुक्ति मोर्चा, कम्यूनिस्ट, गोंडवाना और बहुजन समाज पार्टी के बीच आपसी तालमेल बढ़ेगा और दोनों राष्ट्रीय दलों के विकल्प के रूप में एक सशक्त और संयुक्त तीसरा मोर्चा बनाने के प्रयास किए जाएंगे. साधन और संगठन के अभाव में इसको कम सफलता मिलेगी.
(४) मंडी के अलावा दुसरे चुनाव न होने के कारण जातिवाद और राजनीति में पैसे का दुरूपयोग कम होगा.

B. कानूनी व्यवस्था/ प्रशासन:
(१) श्री कल्लूरी के नेतृत्व में दंतेवाडा में नक्सलियों से सीधा युद्ध छेड़ा जाएगा, इसमें कई निर्दोष लोग मारे जाएंगे. राजनांदगांव, सराईपाली, बसना, सारंगढ़ और गरियाबंद के जंगलों को अपना बेस बनाकर नक्सली रायपुर की ओर अपना ध्यान केन्द्रित करेंगे. डॉ. बिनायक सेन बेगुनाह साबित होंगे.
(२) छोटे-बड़े शहरों में गुंडा-गर्दी, लूट और मार-काट बढ़ेगी. बेरोजगार युवाओं की संख्या इनमें ज्यादा रहेगी. वे गली-गली में अवैध रूप से बिक रही शराब पीकर अपने गम गलत करेंगे.
(३) भ्रष्टाचार इतना व्यापक हो जाएगा की वो सार्वजनिक जीवन का मुद्दा ही नहीं रहेगा: आरोप लगेंगे, और हमेशा की तरह "मैच-फिक्सिंग" हो जाएगी!

C. अर्थव्यवस्था:
(१) सिंचाई, उद्योग और पीने के पानी की कमी बरक़रार रहेगी. सरकार इस भीषण समस्या से निपटने में पूरी तरह विफल रहेगी.
(२) जांजगीर, रायगढ़, कोरबा और भानुप्रतापपुर के रहवासी उनके क्षेत्र में अन्धाधुन तरीके से किए जा रहे औद्योगीकरण- और उसके दुष्प्रभाव (बढ़ते तापमान, घटता पानी, प्रदूषित वायू, जबरदस्ती किया गया विस्थापन)- के खिलाफ आवाज़ उठाएंगे, लेकिन पूंजीवादियों के दबाव में आकर सरकार उसे कुचलने का प्रयास करेगी.
(३) सरकार किसानों से वादा-खिलाफी करेगी: उन्हें न बोनस मिलेगा, न मुआवजा और न ही मुफ्त बिजली. इससे- और बढ़ती महंगाई से- उनकी आर्थिक स्थिति और जर्जर होगी. तेजी से बढ़ते शहरों से सटे हुए गांवों में इसका नाजाएज फायदा भू-माफिया उठाएगी. इसमें उन्हें शासकीय मदद भी मिलेगी.

D. संस्कृति:
(१) छत्तीसगढ़ी संस्कृति की धूम अब इन्टरनेट पे मचेगी- जो बहुत जल्द ही पारंपरिक मीडिया की जगह ले लेगा. सोशल नेटवर्किंग साईट "फेसबुक" पर २५,००० छत्तीसगढ़िया दस्तक देंगे.
(२) प्रदेश में पढ़ाई का स्थर, विशेषकर उच्च शिक्षा का स्थर, गिरेगा लेकिन फीस और बढ़ेगी. छात्रों में सरकार के खिलाफ आक्रोश बढ़ेगा. सरस्वती शिशु मंदिरों और एकल विद्यालयों के माध्यम से आर.एस.एस. आदिवासी क्षेत्रों में अपनी जड़ें और गहरी करेगी.

DECONSTRUCTING RG

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 06:37:00 +0000

The Dynastic Dilemma

Writing about a dear friend and a fellow-alumni in his Memoirs, America’s celebrated diplomat, Henry Kissinger, remarked that Nelson Rockefeller was the best President America never had. The way Mr. Kissinger saw it, Vice President Rockefeller simply didn’t have the single-mindedness to run for the highest office of his country; or as Mr. Kissinger puts it, he ‘uncharacteristically hesitated’.

He had the pedigree- after all, his grandfather, John D. Rockefeller, was, and continues to remain, arguably the richest man ever in human history- and also the political clout to do so, and yet, paradoxically enough, it was precisely this pedigree and clout that kept him from becoming America’s President. Mr. Kissinger believed that at the back of his mind, Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., felt that if he got elected, people would see it simply as a natural outcome- a logical progression- of his legacy, one that put him at an unfair advantage over his less pedigreed, less influential adversaries; and in the event that he didn’t get elected- if he lost- he would be ridiculed as one who had squandered his enormous legacy, all for the selfish purpose of personal gain and glory. The way Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., saw it, either way he had nothing to gain and much to lose. As will be observed later, Mr. Kissinger, however, thought otherwise.

This, I believe, is a dilemma common to scions of powerful families- people ‘born into greatness’- everywhere, and not just America. In so many ways, Rahul Gandhi- great grandson, grandson and son of three of India’s most illustrious Prime Ministers- too suffers from this peculiar hesitation. Admittedly, Mr. Gandhi is not quite as hesitant as he first was when he stepped into politics almost five years ago, as an MP from his late father’s constituency, Amethi.

His hesitation has worn off bit by bit in what can be described as three distinct stages: first, as MP when he confined himself to matters limited to his constituency [2004-07]; secondly, as General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) when he limited himself to overseeing the working of his party’s student and youth organizations while also quietly working on the party’s revival in his home state, Uttar Pradesh (UP) [2007-09]; and thirdly, as leader of the Congress party’s campaign in the 2009 General Election, when he, along with his mother, spearheaded the party’s historic comeback to government [2009-]. And yet, the reluctance continues: every time a demand is made from Congresspersons- not only the youth but also from the Prime Minister himself- for him to become part of that government he steered back to power, he is the first to nip it in the bud.

I see no reason whatsoever for his ‘uncharacteristic hesitation’ in leading the nation: we’re in fact in total agreement with Mr. Kissinger’s observation that

“In high political office, a man will be measured by the challenges he met and the accomplishments he wrought, not by his money or the motives of those who helped him get there. History will judge not the head start but the achievement.” (The White House Years, Vol. 1)

This same observation applies, wholly and in full measure, to yet another Harvard man: Mr. Gandhi. It would merely be a re-statement of the overwhelming opinion prevalent among India’s youth that the time for Mr. Gandhi to lead us has finally come: it is here and now. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he become Prime Minister right away. But it is not in doubt that if the youth of India is to truly find a say in the decision-making process at the highest levels of government of this country, there can be no better voice than his.

Arch-Democrat

Now, it is not very common for anyone to argue with their overall in-charge- their boss, so to speak- at least not in print. The fact that we can do so, with a certain sense of impunity even, speaks a lot about both the organization and its in-charge. To our credit, we can brandish ourselves as bold, even brazenly so, but that is only half the picture: we cannot for one moment forget the reason for our bravado. That reason is, as it happens, Mr. Gandhi himself. Or to be more precise, his almost obsessive devotion to democracy, which, to paraphrase the philosophy of the great French political thinker, Voltaire, can best be espoused in the following words:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (quote attributed to Beatrice Hall, Friends of Voltaire, 1906)

In a nation where the average age of leadership remains stuck at sixty-plus, Mr. Gandhi has already given us- the youth- the courage to be ourselves: to fearlessly speak our minds. It is also thanks to him entirely that the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) today has more number of MPs than at any other time in history.

Asked about his greatest achievement in the immediate aftermath of Mandate 2009, he unexpectedly replied: “the organizational elections of the Youth Congress in the Punjab and Gujarat.” Considering that he has been universally acknowledged as the principal architect of his party’s historic comeback in that election- after all, it was for the first time in almost a quarter of a century that the number of Congress MPs had breezed past the two century mark, leaving in their wake, the Opposition in near-total disarray- this reply was at best, modest, self-effacing and altogether unexpected.

Needless to say, the Media were both puzzled and disappointed: most of them hadn’t even heard of the Youth Congress, let alone of its intra-organizational elections in the two states; on the other hand, the entire world- CNN, BBC, The Economist- was talking about the Congress’ landslide victory in the just-declared general election result. And yet, Mr. Gandhi’s comment that these two organizational elections not many knew of were his ‘greatest achievement’ offers an invaluable insight into the meaning of who he is- and more significantly, about where he is headed.

The Meaning of RG

In 1937, his great grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, quietly penned an article, “The Rashtrapati”, under a pseudonym, Chanakya. In it, he warned against what he thought was his own dictatorial streak, arguing, among other things, that

“(Nehru’s) overmastering desire to get things done, to sweep away what he dislikes and build anew will hardly brook for long the slow processes of democracy…is it not possible that Jawaharlal might fancy himself as a Caesar.” (Modern Review, 1937)

Like his famous ancestor, Mr. Gandhi- or RG, as those in the Congress now call him- too is fanatical about democracy, even to the point of visible self-criticism: he clearly believes that the success of the two youth organizations he looks after, the IYC and the National Students Union of India (NSUI), depends, above all else, on ensuring that members have their say in choosing their leaders; and not in his deciding beforehand who should lead them. This has meant doing away with the age-old practice of appointing office-bearers based on recommendations of geriatric leaders, many of who have, to put it kindly, long since lost touch with the pulse of the youth.

Although elections have been on the pages of the constitutions of these two bodies since they were first constituted, no one has really bothered with the cumbersome task of holding them. RG has changed that. Well, not yet entirely. As of date, intra-organizational elections have been held in only three states: IYC elections in Punjab and Gujarat, and NSUI elections in the hilly state of Uttarakhand. (The process of IYC-electioneering has also commenced in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.) Even though an independent Election Commission is now well in place, there has been no official announcement about whether- and when- they would be conducted in other states. It is not that he isn’t satisfied with elections as such, especially in light of his abovementioned pronouncement. The question, therefore, is this: why not have nationwide organizational elections, all at once?

The answer to this, I suppose, lies in RG’s working style. He is, by most accounts, meticulously methodical: it’s not enough for a thing to be done; it’s equally important that it is done properly. Punjab and Gujarat weren’t exactly ‘smooth operations’: there were problems, but they were overcome. And in the process, valuable lessons have been learnt. Lessons that would, no doubt, be applied elsewhere in due course. It has been the same with Uttar Pradesh. Following the Congress’ poor showing in the last assembly election, political pundits were quick to put the blame on Mr. Gandhi. The media, despite intense coverage of his campaign, pronounced him a novice, who had much to learn.

And learn he did: by the time General elections were held two years later, he had quietly built, almost from scratch, a formidable organizational machinery at the grassroots level capable of single-handedly taking-on the collective might of all the three other major political parties- BSP, SP and BJP- put together. (Now: this is something chronic RG-baiters, whose diatribes have reached a crescendo after the Congress' drubbing in the recent Bihar assembly election, would do well to remember.) But that wasn’t all. For more than two decades, UP, India’s largest and most politically charged state, had been plagued by a divisive kind of politics, which was centered around building various combinations of communal and caste-based ‘vote banks’: BSP was the party of Dalits; SP represented the OBCs and Muslims; and the BJP pandered to Hindu chauvinism.

Idea of India

To adapt a phrase from the Princeton scholar, Sunil Khilnani, the very ‘idea of India’- that a nation of a billion people, all coming from vastly different backgrounds could stay united- was under threat.

It is clear from Mr. Gandhi’s oft-quoted statement that “the Indian Flag is my religion”, made during his first major political speech to AICC delegates at Hyderabad, that he had realized early on that a national party like the Congress, which by its very nature couldn’t possibly represent any one caste, community or region, simply didn’t stand a chance- not if the existing rules weren’t changed totally. True, he displayed a remarkable understanding of realpolitik when he decided, against all advice, to abandon altogether the requisites of coalitional politics and go it alone in UP sans the SP. (Most at the time thought this ‘overconfidence’ was nothing short of committing political hara-kiri.) But that wasn’t all.

In many ways, he did what Mr. Nehru had done- and what the forces of casteism, communalism and regionalism had been seeking to undo ever since: Mr. Gandhi created, almost all by himself, a new Indian National Identity that once again welded people from various backgrounds and regions into one common composite whole of Indian-ness. He did so by putting the long-forgotten Common Man at the center-stage of Indian politics.

This common man, by his very definition, does not belong to any one gender, community, caste or region. In this sense, he is truly ‘common’: his problems could be anyone’s problems; his aspirations and hopes are shared by all. Thus it was that in UP- and indeed, the rest of the nation- people didn’t vote on the lines of their identities (caste, religion or region); their vote was based on one criterion, the only one that actually matters: who, or which political party, could best address the problems, the hopes and aspirations, of this Common Man? Seen from this perspective, it is not difficult to understand why the People of India voted the way they did.

A Very Uncommon Common Man

Putting the Common Man center-stage is all very well, but the question that begs to be asked is this: how common exactly is RG? There is no doubt that Mr. Gandhi’s life has been anything but ordinary.

Given that his grandmother and father were both assassinated in the line of duty, security has always been a concern. Consequently, as a schoolboy, he- along with his sister, Priyanka- was tutored mostly at home. (She also became his ‘best friend’.) Even when they went out as a family- to an impromptu quiet little dinner, even- the people they would meet were carefully screened beforehand as yet another necessary security measure. The only time, it could be argued, that he found life ordinary was when he went to live abroad, first as a student in America registered under a pseudonym and then as a consultant working with a corporation in London. It was here, some say, that he finally found love.

Strictly speaking, the only ‘common people’ he came in contact with in India were those who worked in a domestic capacity at the prime ministerial residence, or at his mother’s home at 10 Janpath: cooks, gardeners, chauffeurs, attendants and the like. In many ways, they served as his link to the world that lay beyond its high-security fences, its constantly ready-to-shoot machine guns. Almost instinctively, Mr. Gandhi developed a peculiar fascination- one verging on outright admiration even- for these simple people. When asked by a magazine about the person he was inspired by most, he replied:

“Shyam Lal, who started as a junior guy and later managed my grandmother’s kitchen all by himself. Be it handling elaborate dinners for delegations and ambassadors, he could do everything single-handedly.” (Hi! Blitz, 2004)

To most, this reply would seem a bit strange, even other-worldly. This, after all, is not the kind of answer that would get one top-marks in say, the UPSE interview. Putting oneself in RG’s place, one might’ve probably found one of those lofty ambassadors, what with their interesting insights and funny anecdotes, far more inspiring than a lowly chef who nobody would’ve noticed, let alone admired. Still, this does tell us a lot about the kind of person RG is; in particular, the relationship he has with common people like you and me.

The Humanist

This relationship, as it turns out, is at the centre of his political thinking (it’s still too early to call this thinking ‘ideology’): replying last year to the Motion on the Civil Nuclear Energy Agreement with the U.S., Mr. Gandhi, MP, defended the government’s stance by telling the story of Kalavati, a widowed-mother he had met in famine-stricken Vidharba. To him, the single most valid justification for the Agreement wasn’t India’s rapidly increasing energy deficit (which, given his penchant for facts, he seemed to have on the tip of his fingers) but much more significantly, the promise it holds for improving Ms. Kalavati’s life.

If asked to describe RG’s politics in just one word, I would choose: Humanistic.

Clearly, he admires certain qualities about the common man, which he finds absent in others not-so-common. And what is more, this relationship is reciprocal: the common man, as it were, finds much to admire about RG.

And it’s not because of what he says- his declamations, admittedly, don’t quite have the eloquence of a Barrack Obama- but simply because of who he is- or more precisely, how he comes across. The common man has long since given up on believing the uttered word- after all, he has sat through countless speeches, each one more verbose than the other, and seen no good come out of them- but he hasn’t given up on seeing, on sensing; on feeling. And this is what he feels, senses, sees: that here’s someone who, at the very least, has his heart in the right place; someone who, like them, doesn’t quite trust words, but instead believes in the moral force of right actions.

And for him, that is enough.

Under Threat: Our Right to Dissent

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:30:00 +0000

इतना दम बाजु-ए-रमन में नहीं है कि नेहरु-गाँधी के
खून के बलिदान को भुलवा सके-

जो ये इतिहास मिटाएगा
वो खुद इतिहास बन जायेगा.

The Right to Dissent, to voice disagreement, is central not only to the notion of modern Democracy but, as pointed out by the Nobel laureate, Dr. Amartya Sen, to India’s glorious if somewhat overlooked tradition of Heterodoxy. It is a fact those in government often tend to ignore: when all else fails, dissent is met with deterrence in the form of punishments; in many cases, these punishments do not have the sanction of Law.

Dr. Raman Singh’s government in Chhattisgarh is increasingly enforcing such unlawful punishments as a deterrent against lawful dissent: the object is to frighten would-be dissenters from taking up causes against it.

Very recently, the Chhattisgarh State Textbook Corporation was instructed by the state government to stop issuing framed pictures of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shashtri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi- all former Prime Ministers- and Sardar Vallabhai Patel to state-run schools and colleges, and instead to replace them with those of Pandits Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyay. The reason for this decision is of course political; it has nothing to do with the merits of their contribution to the nation-building process. Nehru ji, Sardar Patel, Shashtri ji, Indira ji and Rajiv ji were all Congresspersons; Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Upadhyay belonged to the erstwhile Jan Sangh (the precursor of BJP). What Dr. Raman Singh is trying to do, therefore, is nothing short of what VS Naipaul, another Nobel laureate, has termed as “the erasure of history” (albeit in an entirely different context).

This issue has been jointly taken up by the two youth frontal organizations of the party, NSUI and the Youth Congress. This afternoon, they staged a peaceful protest outside the Textbook Corporation’s head office at Raipur. They did not- nor did they have the intention to- hurt anyone. Even so, the district administration mercilessly lathi-charged the protestors, including the state presidents of both these organizations, Uttam Vasudeo and Sanjeev Shukla, and shut them behind bars. They were booked under section 151 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is a bailable offense. But the SDM was specifically instructed by the DM (Collector) and SP to make himself scarce so that the protestors would not have an opportunity to furnish their bail bonds. The purpose of this is clear: to send them to jail, where they would be kept in barracks like common criminals. “If I had my way,” the SP told someone, “I would keep them locked up till after Deepawali.”

They did the same thing two days ago, when NSUI President Sanjeev Shukla and his associates staged a fast-unto-death outside Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla University at Raipur to urge the Vice Chancellor to issue degrees to more than 53000 students: they have been waiting for more than 3 years to get them. It is, to say the least, a most reasonable demand: without their degrees, they cannot even apply for jobs. The modus operandi of their protest was also not unreasonable: if anybody was being hurt, it was the students themselves. And yet, the police once again beat them up, and put them behind bars. Once again, the SDM made himself scarce, and once again, the students were forced to spend more than 2 days and 2 nights locked up in barracks like common criminals. For most if not all of them, this was their first time in jail. Naturally, they were terrified to be living alongside convicted criminals and the like, but it also gave them an insight into the inhuman conditions inmates are kept in inside our extremely corrupt jails. When they came out finally, they told the Press exactly what they saw and lived through.

For some reason- I can’t tell what- the state leadership of the Congress party organization has decided not to react to all this, let alone express support for the two youth organizations. It is most disappointing. After all, the removal of our Leaders’ pictures from schools and colleges is not simply a student- or even a youth- issue; it strikes at the very soul of our democratic culture. If we do not speak up now, there is no telling what they will do: at stake, is our Right to Think and Speak Freely. It is clear to me, now more than ever before, that when Dr. Raman Singh fails to buy our Silence (something I’m told he has become rather good at), he will stop at nothing to punish- and terrify- us into Silence.

The Gentleman Doctor’s Mask is slipping away; behold, a Tyrant emerges!

A Star is Born: Anuj Sharma

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 04:53:00 +0000

(This article is the property of The Sunday Indian and part of their publication "Ratn-36".)

In 2000, my mother took me to watch “Mor Chhaiyyan Bhuiyyan”; most of the film’s cast and crew were present. Afterwards, we invited them home for tea. But the person I most wanted to meet was absent. I didn’t know his name back then. So, when I met the producers, I asked them “where is the guy, the naughty younger brother Kartik, who lit up the screen every time he was on it; the one who had the audience going gaga…” Before I could finish describing him, they proclaimed his name: Anuj.

A lot has happened during the last decade. Chhollywood, Chhattisgarh’s still-nascent film industry, has gone through a definitive cycle of Rise, Fall and Rebirth. There has however remained one constant: the ever-increasing endearment of Anuj Sharma to the people that speak and sing in his dialect, share his on-screen life, and hope someday to emulate his off-screen Rags to Riches story. I have personally borne witness to this phenomenon on countless occasions, not just when he is performing on-stage but also when we are doing simple everyday things like going for a drive, or having an ice cream or watching a movie. People, especially those one doesn’t generally take note of- the doorman, the auto-rickshaw driver, the maid, the quintessential ‘have-not’- seem to materialize out of nowhere just to shake hands with him, to touch him. And boy, does he touch them- not just physically (something his numerous heroines, no doubt, would vouch for!) but also, much more significantly, at a deeper emotional, ethereal level. This fact didn’t escape The Sunday Times of India when it recently did a one-page cover story on Anuj.

I am not a film critic. But Anuj comes across as something of a Chhattisgarhi Brando: even at his quietest moments, he simmers and sizzles; he is both Chocolaty Romantic Hero and Angry Young Man, all rolled into one. Trade-wise, he remains Chhattisgarh’s most bankable star: 9 out of the state’s 10 biggest-grossing films have Anuj as their lead and not one film has celebrated its Silver Jubilee which didn’t have him in it. To say the least, his producers are never disappointed. His foray into television led to the most-watched show ever in Chhattisgarh’s history, Folk Jhama-jham, on ETV-Chhattisgarh. I’ve seen posters of Anuj’s films not just plastered all over Chhattisgarh- more than any neta, in fact- but also in far-off corners of Bhagalpur (Bihar), where he is a household name. Professionally, he helped re-launch his bosom-friend, Prakash’s fledgling film career, when they made “Maya” (2010), the highest-grossing film in Chhattisgarh’s history. And once every year, he gives a free performance at his native town, Bhatapara, personally bearing all costs.

But the reason I’ve been asked to write this is not to narrate what everybody already knows about Anuj; it’s to tell what you don’t. For instance, he’s completely and totally devoted to his Amma, who raised him singlehandedly after his father passed away. (Amma is, by the way, the best Chhattisgarhi cook I know, and her jimikanda cooked in curd are to die for!) He loves his wife (whom he married out of love) and his newly arrived daughter, Anumita, who has brought him not only joy but also an unending string of hits! He is remarkably down-to-earth, and can keep smiling- not just with his lips, but with his eyes- for a longer time than anyone I know: at his wedding reception, his all-winning smile didn’t leave his face for 7 hours as he personally attended to several thousand guests!

I also know for a fact that he can sing better than he can act: every time Anuj sings, I can almost feel the divine. Also- and this is his big secret- he has ghostwritten tantalizing lyrics for some very titillating albeit hugely popular songs! (Bhoran debe ka, being one such number.) He also has his likes and dislikes, and in particular, one dislike: the shameless exploitation of Chhattisgarh’s immense cinematic talent by a clique of mindless cultural illiterates. (You can also listen to my podcast of Anuj's interview to know more about his views on the subject.) That is perhaps why he was unanimously elected as President of our state’s Film Artistes’ Association: to protect, and if necessary, fight for their often-trampled Rights. Not surprisingly, UNICEF has chosen him as their Goodwill Ambassador for Chhattisgarh.

From there, it’s just a hop-skip-and-jump to Politics. Realizing his immense potential in public life, I’ve often tried to shamelessly lure him into this world, but Anuj hasn’t yielded. No yet, anyway!

विश्वास की लड़ाई: छत्तीसगढ़ में युवा कांग्रेस चुनाव

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 06:26:00 +0000

Read this post in English here.

छत्तीसगढ़ में युवा कांग्रेस चुनाव की आठ-महीने लम्बी प्रक्रिया समाप्त हो गई है: प्रदेश भर से लगभग 400,000 नौजवानों ने अपने मताधिकार का प्रयोग करके 7500 पंचायत, 1000 वार्ड, 90 नगर पंचायत, 89 विधान सभा, 11 लोक सभा और प्रदेश समितियों का चयन कर लिया है. निःसंदेह ये हमारे प्रदेश के इतिहास में किसी भी राजनैतिक दल द्वारा चलाया गया सबसे वृहद् लोकतांत्रिक अभियान है. यही नहीं, छत्तीसगढ़ देश का पहला ऐसा राज्य है जहाँ दोनों एन.एस.यू.आई. और युवा कांग्रेस के पदाधिकारी पूर्णतः निर्वाचित हैं. इस मायने में, राहुल जी की देशव्यापी क्रांति सबसे पहले हमारे प्रदेश में सफलतापूर्वक पूर्ण हुई है. यह हमारे लिए गौरव की बात है.

मैंने भी इस अभियान में अपनी छोटी सी भूमिका निभाई है: मुझे प्रदेश का दौरा करने के साथ साथ उसकी युवा पीढ़ी से मिलने का अवसर भी मिला.

इस चुनाव के 5 प्रमुख बिंदु निम्नानुसार हैं:

पहला, प्रदेश युवा कांग्रेस का नवनिर्वाचित अध्यक्ष उत्तम वासुदेव एक गरीबी रेखा कार्ड रखने वाला किसान का लड़का है. उसका गाँव, झाबर, मरवाही विधान सभा क्षेत्र में है. उसके चुनाव ने विरोधियों के आरोप कि इन चुनावों में धन-बल और बाहु-बल का खुला दुरूपयोग हुआ है, की धज्जियां उड़ा दी है.
दूसरा, प्रदेश के चारों संभागों को प्रदेश समिति में प्रतिनिधित्व का मौका मिला है: सरगुजा से दानिश रफीक, बस्तर से साकेत शुक्ला, बिलासपुर से उत्तम वासुदेव, सुश्री सुखबाई खूटे (अ.जा.) और पप्पू बघेल (अ.जा), और रायपुर से दीपक मिश्रा, आसिफ मेमन, संदीप साहू और अभिषेक मोदी.
तीसरा, चुनाव में केवल एक लोक सभा अध्यक्ष का पद आरक्षित रखा गया. इसके बावजूद 3 लोक सभा अध्यक्ष आदिवासी बने (बस्तर- कवासी हरीश, सरगुजा- बबला तिर्की, कोरबा- सुश्री बून्दकुन्वर मास्को); 2 अनुसूचित जाति के है (बिलासपुर- गोविन्द सेठी, जांजगीर- अशोक सोनवानी); और 3 मुसलमान (कांकेर- अमीन मेमन, दुर्ग- अयूब खान, राजनंदगांव- नवाज़ खान). इस प्रकार 11 में से 8 लोक सभा अध्यक्ष आरक्षित वर्ग के हैं.
चौथा, ८९ में से ८४ विधान सभा अध्यक्ष स्थापित स्थानीय पार्टी नेतृत्व की सक्रिय खिलाफत के बावजूद चुनाव जीते हैं; न की उनके समर्थन से. कई जगह वे स्थापित नेताओं की संतानों को हराकर जीते हैं. बस्तर लोक सभा में हरीश कवासी, जो की सुकमा का जनपद अध्यक्ष है, महेंद्र कर्मा के बेटे बंटी कर्मा को पराजित करके अध्यक्ष बना है. सन्देश स्पष्ट है: युवा पीढ़ी की पलटन चल पड़ी है; वह अब रुकने वाली नहीं है.
पांचवा, पिछले १ साल में राहुल गाँधी के नेतृत्व में छत्तीसगढ़ में 100,000 छात्र एन.एस.यु.आई से, और लगभग 400,000 नौजवान युवा कांग्रेस से जुड़े हैं. इस प्रकार कांग्रेस पार्टी के दोनों युवा संगठनों की सदस्यता प्रदेश कांग्रेस से कम से कम 3 गुना अधिक हो गई है. समय आ गया है कि युवा कांग्रेस के साथ साथ अब हम कांग्रेस को युवा करने की ओर काम करें.

प्रदेश युवा कांग्रेस की पहली बैठक उत्तम के गाँव, झाबर, में २ अक्टूबर गाँधी जयंती को रखी गई है. भविष्य में युवा कांग्रेस शहरों से नहीं, गाँवों से चलेगी. ये मुनासिब भी है क्योंकि प्रदेश में युवा कांग्रेस के 75% सदस्य पंचायतों में रहते हैं.

युवा कांग्रेस के अपने साथियों को मैं दो सुझाव दूंगा: पहला, किसी प्रदेश-स्तरीय कार्यक्रम के बजाय वे ऐसे स्थानीय मुद्दों की पहचान करें, जिससे उनके क्षेत्र की जनता, विशेषकर युवाओं, का सीधा वास्ता है, और फिर इन मुद्दों को हल करने के लिए अपने नौजवान साथियों की टीम के साथ अभियान चलाये. दूसरा, ऐसा करने का 'पदयात्रा' से बेहतर तरीका नहीं है. लोगों को समझने के लिए, उनका विश्वास जीतने के लिए, उनके बीच में जाकर उनके साथ रहने से अच्छा रास्ता कोई नहीं है. साथ में, जिन पंचायतों में सदस्यता नहीं हुई है, वहां सदस्य बनाने का काम पूरा करें.

इस चुनाव ने हमें एक सीख दी है. हमारे साथ सदस्य, संसाधन और रणनीति भले ही हो, जब तक लोगों का विश्वास नहीं रहेगा, उस विश्वास को हासिल करने के लिए टीम नहीं रहेगी, किसी का भी नेता बनना संभव नहीं है. जब कोई भी सदस्य मतदान करने जाता है, वो बूथ के अन्दर अकेले रहता है, उसे कोई देखता नहीं रहता है. ऐसे में उसके मन में केवल एक प्रश्न उठता है: "मैं किस पर भरोसा करता हूँ?" मुझे बेहद संतोष है कि जो 90 साथी मेरे साथ नक्सली इलाकों में बस्तर सत्याग्रह के दौरान चले थे, उनमें से 52 विधान सभा अध्यक्ष, 11 लोक सभा अध्यक्ष, और 7 प्रदेश समिति के सदस्य निर्वाचित हुए हैं.

इसलिए मैं अपने युवा कांग्रेस के साथियों से निवेदन करता हूँ कि वे लोगों का विश्वास जीतने का हरसंभव प्रयास करें. यही राहुल जी की क्रांति का सार है: नेता बनने के लिए बड़े नेताओं के आगे-पीछे घूमना बंद करो; जनता के बीच में रहकर, कार्यकर्ताओं का विश्वास जीतो. पदयात्रा करो, अपनी टीम बनाओ.

On the Youth Congress Election in Chhattisgarh: Fight for Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 02:55:00 +0000

इस लेख को हिंदी में यहाँ पढ़ें.

The eight-month long election process to constitute the Pradesh Youth Congress (PYC) committee has come to an end in Chhattisgarh: almost 400,000 members from across the state exercised their franchise to elect Youth Congress (YC) committees in more than 7500 panchayats, 1000 urban wards, 89 assembly segments and 11 Lok Sabha constituencies of the state. This was, beyond doubt, the largest democratic enterprise undertaken by any political organization in our state’s history. Not only this, Chhattisgarh has now become the first state where both NSUI and YC office-bearers are all elected. In this respect, we are the first state of the nation where Rahul ji's Revolution is complete. I was fortunate to have played a small part in this mammoth effort: more than anything else, it gave me an opportunity to tour the state, and interact with its youth.

Five aspects need to be noted about the PYC elections:

• First, the election of Uttam Vasudeo as state President puts paid to allegations of rampant misuse of money and muscle power in YC elections: he is, after all, a BPL-card (Below Poverty Line) carrying OBC farmer’s son from a village called Jhabar in Marwahi, my father’s home constituency.

• Secondly, each of the 4 divisions of Chhattisgarh has found representation in the state committee vis-à-vis Bastar (Saket Shukla), Sarguja (Danish Rafique), Bilaspur (Uttam Vasudeo, Sandeep Sahu, Sukhbai Khute and Pappu Baghel) and Raipur (Deepak Mishra, Asif Memon and Abhishek Modi).

• Thirdly, even though only 1 Lok Sabha (LS) President’s post was reserved, 8 of the 11 LS Presidents come from the "reserved categories":
o STs were elected Presidents in no less than 3 Lok Sabhas vis-à-vis Bastar (Harish Kawasi), Sarguja (Babla Tirki) and Korba (Ms. Boondhkunwar Masko). Also, in Korba LS, the president-elect also happens to be a woman;
o SCs became Presidents in 2 Lok Sabhas vis-à-vis Bilaspur (Govind Sethi) and Janjgir (Ashok Sonwani);
o 3 other LS Presidents are Muslims vis-à-vis Kanker (Ameen Meman), Rajnandgaon (Nawaz Khan) and Durg (Ayub Khan).

• Fourthly, 84 of 89 Vidhan Sabha Presidents contested- and won- against rather than with the support of established local political leaderships. In this respect at least, the mandate ushers in a new wave of anti-establishmentarianism. The youth of the party, it appears, are not on the same frequencies as their leaders, and vice-versa. In many cases, progenies of political stalwarts were ousted by relative newcomers. Most notably, in Bastar LS, Harish Kawasi, the young Janpad President of Sukma (Dantewada), dealt a crushing blow to Bunty Karma, the so-called Bastar Tiger, Mahendra Karma’s son. The way I see it: the Youth cannot, and will not, be stopped.

• Last but not the least, 100,000 students have joined the NSUI and almost 400,000 youth have enrolled in the YC in Chhattisgarh during the past year under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. This means that the membership of the party’s 2 youth organizations is at least 4 times bigger than that of the parent body’s. It is time, therefore, to stop thinking merely in terms of ‘Youth Congress’ but instead start to work towards making the entire Congress young.

The first Meeting of the new PYC, I’m informed, is to take place on Gandhi Jayanti (October 2, 2010) in Uttam’s Jhabar. It marks a radical new beginning: henceforth, the Youth Congress in Chhattisgarh will be run from villages, not cities. This is only fitting as 75% of its members live in panchayats.

To my friends in the Youth Congress, I offer two suggestions:

First, rather than have a statewide program, I believe it is much more important for elected office bearers (EOBs) of the YC to identify local issues that directly concern the people, particularly the youth, and formulate strategies to solve them.

Secondly, the best way to go about doing this is for each of them to undertake Padyatras (foot march) of their respective areas: there’s no better way to understand the people, and win their trust, than by actually living with them. During membership drive, some villages were left out. Padyatras would be a good way to encourage youth of those villages to join YC.

What this election has taught us all is this: one may have members, resources and strategy, but unless and until one has the Trust of the youth, and a Team to capitalize on that Trust, it's simply not possible to become a leader. This is something most commentators seem to miss out on. When a member casts his vote, he’s alone and there’s no one watching him, he’s free to do as he pleases, and at this point, the only question that arises in his mind is: whom do I trust? In this context, it gives me a certain degree of satisfaction to note that of the 90 persons who marched with me through the heart of Naxalite territory during the Bastar Satyagraha, 52 are now Assembly Presidents, 11 are LS Presidents, and 7 are in the state committee.

I, therefore, urge my friends in the YC and the NSUI to do everything possible to win the trust of the people. That is the essence of Rahul ji’s Revolution: to become a leader, you no longer need the blessings of the top leadership; all you need to do is win the trust of the people. And the best way to go about doing it is by hitting the road, and building your team.

BASTAR SATYAGRAHA- PHASE ONE: A REPORT

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:06:00 +0000

Note: Please click here to see the press coverage of the Satyagraha, compiled by Girish Verma. Also, many thanks to Anwar Qureshi and Raju for the video footage and photographs (and to Sachin Awasthi for uploading them). You can view more photos on Facebook by clicking on the day-wise titles.

Day One: Dantewada to Nakulnar, 19th June 2010

1.1 Rain
It is drizzling. We wait for it to stop. It doesn’t. Thanks to Vinod Tiwari, who had the foresight to arrange raincoats from Raipur, the rain does little to dampen our bodies- and more importantly, our spirits.

To me, the rain is symbolic: it marks both an end and a beginning.

1.2 Maha Bhumkal
In an age when it has become fashionable to celebrate Centenaries of all sorts, it is indeed sad that nobody seems to have noticed that it is now exactly 100 years since the Maha Bhumkal. Those of us who know something about ‘the Great Rebellion of 1910’ view it primarily as a tribal uprising against the Raj. It is a view enforced by Maoists.

In my opinion, such a viewpoint isn’t entirely accurate.

The leadership of Maha Bhumkal wasn’t restricted to tribals. At its core, lay an alliance between Lal Kalindra Singh, an uncle of Bastar’s King Rudrapratap Deo, and Gunda Dhur, a Dhruwa chieftain from Netanar whose name, even now, is the stuff of legend among Bastarias. Other leaders included Bachchuprasad Pandit (one journalist at Jagdalpur objected to the inclusion of this name, saying that there was no such person, until I showed him Standen’s Report on the Revolt), Mukundadeo Machmara and Murat Singh Bakshi- again, all non-tribals.

Kalars, Rauts, Maharas- communities living in forests alongside tribals, but for some idiotic reason have been classified as ‘OBCs’- also took part.

The rebels occupied Jagdalpur for 7 days. The British sent in forces from Raipur, Nagpur and Madras (Chennai) to brutally crush the Uprising. Thousands were killed, shot at point-blank range by maxim guns; tens of thousands were whipped; entire villages were burnt; the more notable leaders were all summarily tried and sent off to perish at the Central Jail at Raipur. It is a plight still lamented in the Bhumkal Geet, sung in Gondi.

When I said that 100 years later, there is a need for another Maha Bhumkal, I didn’t mean that the people of Bastar should all take up arms and rise against the state. What I was saying was simply this. The Maha Bhumkal of 1910 is unique in that it showed a remarkable unity of purpose at two distinct levels: one, between tribal and non-tribal residents of Bastar; and two, between the various tribes- Dhruwa, Maria, Halba, Abujhmaria and Muria, to name the more prominent ones- occupying different regions of Bastar. It is this Unity that needs to be revived.

In the debate on how the problems of Bastar should be tackled (Left Wing Extremism (LWE), included) we don’t seem to be listening to those who really matter: the Bastarias. What do they want?

As far as weapons are concerned, well, I believe we do need them- but not of the kind that are currently being deployed. Books and medicines, and footballs, are far more effective as arsenals than bullets and bombs- if our battle is for the Heart & Soul of Bastar, and not simply for its territory and resources. This, I believe, we have amply proven through our seven day padyatra through the violence-prone regions of South Bastar.

1.3 Bastar Satyagraha
I’ve said from the start that Bastar Satyagraha is non-political. That is essential for our survival. There are people belonging to different political parties- Congress, BJP, CPI and the militant CP (Maoist). All of them are equally concerned about what’s happening to Bastar. All of them want to do what’s best for Bastar. None should be excluded. That is precisely why our Movement must remain non-political.

Anyone can join us- as long as they believe in two things. First, that all People, irrespective of background or persuasion, are good. Secondly, that nobody will oppose any effort, howsoever small, to do good.

The first phase of Bastar Satyagraha- in which we walked on foot through the violence-prone areas for a week, carrying not guns but books, medicines and footballs- was an attempt to test this hypothesis. If we were wrong, then the possibility of our returning unhurt would be remote. That, however, was a risk we had to take.

People have asked me about the timing of Bastar Satyagraha: why now? To that I’ve only one answer: why not sooner?

The fact is we were wrong, terribly wrong. It’s no use pointing fingers at anyone. That would make things worse. Our Satyagraha, therefore, begins by accepting that we, all of us, were wrong. There is no doubt in my mind: if the situation in Bastar is to be salvaged, we must begin anew.

We must search for those issues where there is overall agreement; we must, at this stage anyway, avoid all such issues where there is dispute. That is absolutely essential if the Unity of Maha Bhumkal is to be revived.

1.4 Ma Danteswari Temple
The goddess Danteswari- in all probability, a tribal deity absorbed as early as 11th century A.D. into Hindu cosmogony as a divinity sprouting from the place where the teeth of the slain goddess Kali fell (the cult of shaktipeeth)- is the supreme deity of all Bastarias. Traditionally, the King’s legitimacy- and power- was derived from the fact that he was the chief pujari (priest) of the goddess, interceding on behalf of the people before her.

As late as the 1970s, hundreds of people would fling themselves before her annual procession from Dantewada to Jagdalpur (Bastar) during the Dusshera festival, to be crushed under her chariot’s wheels. (I’m told that it still takes great efforts on the part of the administration to prevent some of them from doing this.)

Modern clothes- pants & shirts- are not permitted before her. You have to be clad in nothing but a simple loincloth (dhoti) in order to come into her presence. Only a precious few are granted the privilege of seeing her feet- and they must, in any event, be prostrating at the time so as not to offend her.

We paid our respects to the goddess, and began our padyatra with a secular hymn: Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, Ishwar Allah Tero Naam, Sabko Sanmati Do Bhagwan. (Raghupati Raghav, Raja Ram, Ishwar and Allah are all Your Names, Give Good Sense to All)

It was, I thought, most apt.

1.5 A Bit of Civil Disobedience
A day before we began our padyatra, I wrote a letter to the District Collector, Dantewada, informing her about our route. She wrote back saying that we were free to go provided we followed certain conditions: one, we could walk only on the Dantewada-Sukma highway and nowhere else; two, there was to be no loud music of any kind; three, we could walk only between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. everyday.

Naturally, we didn’t intend to subscribe to any of them. It was, after all, not our intention to examine the condition of the highway, to count the number of potholes in it. We wanted to go to places most plagued by violence- and listen to what the people there had to say.

In any case, 25 policemen- all of them young men like us- were deployed to accompany us. An ambulance followed. I don’t think there was anyone in it (besides the driver, of course).

1.6 Kumhar Ras: A Study in Development

This is a small village, hardly 5 kms from Dantewada town. It is a few hundred meters away from the highway. The local janpad (BDC) member had arranged for me to have lunch at Shivcharan’s house: it consisted of fried fish and parboiled rice; it was most delicious.

At his house, I was told about the Indira Awas Yojana intended to provide housing to below poverty line (BPL) families. More than 175 such families were selected; 35 were paid the first installment, of Rs 15000. They began construction. Then, the money stopped. They were told that the Yojana had been cancelled; its funds had been diverted to “Salwa Judum”.

Kumhar Ras is a strange sight to behold: a village full of roofless houses.

Later, the villagers took us to see their lone source of drinking water. It is a 55 mm cemented hole, about 5 feet deep, dug into a field. It’s less than half full. They have to ration this water: every family is permitted only 1 matka (pot) a day. To bathe, they have to go to the other side of the highway, to the river Shankani.

They also took me to see the village pond, built at a cost of Rs 10,00,000. It is little more than a mud pit, with no water in it.

The road back to the highway- on paper, it is made of cement by the NMDC- is muddy.

1.7 Masenar: So close, and yet so far
At Masenar, we work out our modus operandi. We divide ourselves into three teams: one, to do the Survey (form enclosed); another, to distribute school kits (each comprising a notebook, pencil, sharpener, eraser and a ballpoint pen); and last but not the least, a team of doctors and medical students. Each team has a satyagrahi, who can speak one of the 9 different local languages spoken here (the lingua franca being Gondi and Halbi). This way, everyone knows what he is supposed to do the moment we reach a village.

The main village is barely a few hundred meters off the highway. Yet, villagers have to walk more than 10 kms to get to it. That is because a river, Shankani, runs in between. Long ago, in 2002-03, a bridge had been sanctioned. Nothing has been built. In the morning, we’re informed, it was possible for villagers to wade through the river, as the water was only neck-deep. Now, it’s way too deep, and the only way to get across is to swim. We were, I’m afraid, too tired for that.

Consequently, we find ourselves screaming across the river, to have a conversation with the hundreds who could not come.

1.8 Mangoes of Ganjenar
On the way, an incident takes place. We spot a tree loaded with ripe, juicy mangoes. It is on the front-yard of somebody’s house. We’re tired and famished. I suggest we ask the occupant of the house- an old lady- if it’s alright to pluck a few mangoes. We offer to pay. She begins to shout at the interpreter. I ask him why. He tells me that a contingent of policemen, who were walking ahead of us, had already taken the mangoes without asking her permission. She thought we were one of them.

It is dark by the time we get to Ganjenar. We stop by to have tea and biscuits at the lady sarpanch’s house. She offers me a mango- the biggest, juiciest one from her tree.

1.9 Nakulnar

We reach Nakulnar by 11. In all, we’ve walked 27 kms. Our feet are tired; some of us have blisters; all our shoes are soaking wet from the rain. Villagers are waiting for us inside the school building, where we’re to spend the night. They sing “Jai Jogi, Jai Sitaram” to welcome me. I am asked to distribute school-kits to the children, which I do under considerable pain. Immediately afterwards, I pass out on the mattress.

Day Two: Nakulnar to Mokpal, 20th June 2010

2.1 Change of Plan
In the morning, we have a meeting of satyagrahis at Awadhesh Gautam’s house. Despite his young age (he’s 40), he is the backbone of the Congress in this region. Everybody agrees that the itinerary needs to be revised. There are two reasons for it: one, it’s easier to plan an itinerary when one is sitting in one’s office- and not walking. Two, we didn’t come here to run a marathon (which is mostly what we were doing on Day One) but to listen to people, to experience their lives. Accordingly, we decide to reduce our daily walking distance to less than 20 kms a day. Tonight, we decide to halt midway at Mokpal.

The policemen aren’t too happy with our decision. Mokpal, they tell us, is ‘very affected’. People have been- are being- killed. ‘They’ (the Maoists) control the region. I convey this to my fellow satyagrahis: it’s either staying the night in Maoist-Mokpal, or walking an extra 15 kms to get to Bhusaras (where they’ve a police camp).

Call us lazy, but all of us unanimously chose the former- more courageous, less tiring- option!

2.2 A Classroom at Mailawara
At Hitawar, we came across Lakmaram, a 40-year old man caught in an epileptic fit, lying on the roadside. Our medical team was quick to act.

At Mailawara, each of the 3 teams gets busy with their work. I decide to hang out with the students. We go to a classroom, where we distribute the school-kits.

I ask them if they know who the Father of the Nation is. A 12th class girl, who goes to school at Nakulnar, gives the correct answer (Mahatma Gandhi). I turn around, and ask them to identify Nandalal Bose’s sketch of the Mahatma printed on the back of our t-shirts. They all know the answer.

I ask them how many can speak Halbi: 60 hands shoot up; for Hindi, it’s 38 hands (only 22 say they can write it), and none for English.

Next, I give them a test. They are asked to take out their notebooks, sharpen their pencils, and write their names and class on the front page. I write 6 questions on the black board:

(a) Who is the Prime Minister of India?
(b) What is the capital of Chhattisgarh?
(c) What is India’s national language?
(d) Who is the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh?
(e) Who is the chief goddess of Dantewada/Bastar?
f) What do you want to be when you grow up?

Only one boy answers all the questions correctly. He gets a prize of Rs 200. I ask him what he would do with the money. He says that he will buy books with it.

As far as the 6th question is concerned, 3 (2 girls and a boy) wanted to become doctors; 1 wanted to become an engineer; 48 wanted to be teachers; and when I asked them if anyone wanted to be a policeman, not one hand went up.

Before we leave Mailawara, the medical team informs me that they are out of medicines. Apparently, they had grossly underestimated the amount of medicines they would be requiring during the course of our 7-day padyatra.

They also tell us about malarial deaths in the village, something that the administration has been denying strongly. Piluram is the panchayat secretary, an employee of the government. His brother, Shriram, died just two days ago because of malaria. His nephew (Shriram’s son) also showed symptoms of advanced malaria as did his own two sons. They were all administered ‘radical treatment’ by our doctor satyagrahis.

2.3 Football at Mokpal
The moment we enter Mokpal, I decide to go with the Survey team to a hut. Three women are talking among themselves. Even before we can ask them anything, the eldest begins to say something. She looks very nervous. I ask the translator to tell me what she is saying. He tells me that she denies ever going to ‘a meeting’; that she doesn’t know anyone.

Our very sight- or at least the sight of policemen accompanying us- has automatically triggered off her defense mechanism. We’re, I realize, now really in the ‘affected zone’.

There is still sometime left before sunset. We decide to use the remaining sunlight to play football. Since we haven’t walked that much today, we’re not too tired. In any case, it’s World Cup time- and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t soak up some of the excitement.

Prize money of Rs 2000 is fixed for the winning team. Sameer Ahmad Babla (Bilaspur) captains the satyagrahis’ team; Ajay is captain of the Mokpal-11. The play is aggressive. At least one referee, Pankaj Singh, is shooed off the field. Most of the play is restricted to the left side of the field, where the ground is muddy. It’s on this side that the local team has a distinct advantage over the mostly city-bred satyagrahis- and it’s from this side that most goals are scored.

Everyone has turned up to watch- but mostly, to cheer the home team. They win 2-1. Joga got the Man of the Match prize from Jogi! To compensate Pankaj, Ajay invites him to a local engagement ceremony.

Day Three: Mokpal to Chingawaram, 21st June 2010

3.1 The Doctors’ Diagnosis
The medical team, led by Vivek Sharma, has arrived at a diagnosis. They say that most of the patients they’ve treated exhibit symptoms of water poisoning. Whatever it is they are drinking is making them prone to diseases like diarrhea and anemia. Also, many of them develop serious skin problems when they bathe. They have observed the same symptoms- diseases- everywhere we’ve gone. Would it be possible, they ask, to collect water samples and have them tested?

It is not possible for us to send the water samples for a detailed chemical analysis- to Raipur, Nagpur or Hyderabad, the three cities nearest to where we are where such tests are done. That would have to wait. Instead, we send them to the medical college at Jagdalpur, in the hope that the medical students there would be able to do a quick, preliminary analysis. The Report arrives the next afternoon.

The doctors are right. The iron levels in the water samples are 50 to 100 times higher than the level acceptable for human consumption. What could be causing this? The answer is shocking.

Bailadila has one of the richest reserves of iron ore in the country. It is less than 25 kms from where we are walking. The ore is mined and then it is washed. The water used to wash the ore is released into the two rivers, Shankani and Dankani that run almost parallel to each other, north and south of the Dantewada-Sukma highway. Their water is not blue, or even muddy; it is a very deep, dirty red; it recharges the (underground) water table through aquifers. People drink this water, from rivulets and holes dug in fields like the one we saw at Kumhar Ras.

There are no deep wells in the villages, where the water would have- at least in theory- less iron content. There are no check dams and no water treatment plants at Bailadila. I’m told that there is an outdated purification plant; it works, like everything else here, on paper. During the rains, water is released directly into the rivers.

It’s one thing to turn a blind eye to the health problems of Bastarias; it’s another thing altogether to poison them intentionally. That is definitely criminal.

3.2 Lal Salam at Bhusaras
We’re entering Communist territory. Although I’ve kept saying that the Satyagraha is non-political, the fact is that so far most persons involved in its organization were Congressmen: it is they who kept the people of Koakunda Block informed of our arrival, and of our intentions. But now, we’re deep in Katekalyan, a Communist stronghold. The walls are painted red with “JOIN AISF”. There is no sign of any other party. I am apprehensive about whether we would get to meet any people at all.

It turns out that my apprehensions are unjustified: Chaman Kunjam has come to welcome me at Bhusaras along with hundreds of villagers. He is the local Communist party chief; he has also been recently elected Katekalyan BDC (Block Development Council) president. Like most educated tribals here, he schooled at the Mission School at Gangaloor, some 100 kms away. Every Monday, he would get up at 4 am, walk to Dantewada, get there by 9 and catch the 10 ’o clock bus to Gangaloor.

It is no longer possible for people- even tribals- to do so now. There is a ghat on the way, a steep climb down if you’re coming from Dantewada (thankfully). This is where the Maoist-guerillas have occupied all the strategic, hilltop positions; ready to take potshots at anyone they wish. When we were climbing down this ghat, policemen were lined up on either side. We were, however, more interested in the trees, which act like little dhabas along our journey: when we are tired, we stop at a tree, throw a branch at it, and- voila!- down come pouring the juiciest jamuns, kosums, chhinds (a variety of date) and mangoes we’ve ever tasted.

The three teams get busy with their work. Scabies are prevalent. But the children appear far more educated here. (Maybe, it’s the Communist influence!) Chaman asks me to address the crowd. I agree on the condition that he translates. I ask them what would they rather do with Rs 200,000: buy an AK-47 or dig 10 wells? They choose wells. How about Rs 75,00,000: would they rather get themselves a fancy anti-landmine vehicle or build 5 decent health care centers? They choose health care. From here on, all the way up to Sukma, I ask the same questions again and again- and I keep getting the same answers.

3.3 Schools for CRPF
At Chintagufa, we are told by Mahadev Markam, a tribal leader, that the girl’s school has been occupied by CRPF. It is the same story in Gendpalli, near Gadiras, where the school was closed to make way to house the CRPF. The Maoists, when they learnt of the plan, blew up the school building. When I ventured to ask what the students of these schools were doing, nobody seemed to know. It was as if they had quite simply disappeared.

Gendpalli- and several other villages like it- have neither students nor soldiers.

3.4 Chingawaram: Gathering the bits and pieces
Chaman is worried: he doesn’t think it is safe for us to spend the night at Chingawaram. Less than a month ago, Maoists had blown a bus here: 24 policemen sitting on the bus’ roof and 7 civilian passengers, most of them belonging to neighboring villages, were killed. Many others, including women and children, were injured. To add to our woes, Chingawaram had remained without electricity for the past 29 days: our arrival would mark the monthly anniversary of the blackout. But once again, the quest for comfort paves the way for courage!

The rain has stopped. It had been quite humid all day today, and our shirts are drenched in sweat. But now a cool wind is blowing. We can see the silvery moon. All of us decide to sleep outside in the school courtyard, and wake up at the break of dawn, thoroughly refreshed.

Day Four: Chingawaram to Korra, 22nd June 2010

4.1 Sabko Sanmati De Bhagwan
Early morning, we visit the site of the Blast. It is less than 400 meters away from Chingawaram, just beyond the place where a bridge ends. The Maoists dug up the highway and concealed a mine underneath. (They do so everywhere, to mark the ‘Jan-Pituri’ week.) Then, they waited patiently by the village pond, less than 30 meters away, and when the bus came at 5 am someone pressed the trigger. The bus flew 10 meters up in the air, and came tumbling down.

All its contents- shredded clothes, blanket, utensils, mobile phone cover, audiocassette, broken bangles, crashed headlights- were thrown out on either side of the highway. One month later, they still lay there, unattended, gathering rust. It was almost as if the Blast had taken place yesterday.

We gathered these items, wrapped them inside a blanket, sang “Raghupati Raghav”, observed a two-minute silence and immersed the bundle in the adjoining stream. There was some debate about how best to dispose these remains, and the local villagers- Sarpanch Hungaram included- felt that the proper way was immersion.

4.2 Edpal: Meeting with Rahul

To put it mildly, the police aren’t happy about our choice of Gurli. In any event, they cannot let us go to Gurli on the route the villagers propose to take us by. It is, no doubt, a shortcut: a dirt track through the forests. But it is also extremely risky. Just last night, the ASP tells me, Ganesh Uike, the top Maoist leader in Chhattisgarh, and Vinod, their local head, have been spotted in the vicinity. They are moving around with a 2000-strong armed contingent of the military dalam. He says that there simply isn’t enough ‘force’ to provide us security in that area.

I tell him that if that were the case, then it would be best if we went with the villagers, and without any ‘force’. It was, I felt, time to put our hypothesis to the test: can books and medicines- and good intentions- really be a better defense against brute violence than bombs and bullets? Accordingly, we decide not to put the jawans’- and our- lives at risk: of 25, only 4 would accompany us. The two senior officers, on from the district force and the other from the CRPF, would also come along, but in civilian clothes. The rest would travel in the ambulance and meet us directly at Dodpal. Sameer & Monty would march in the front; Vinod & Vibhash would take the back, to ensure that no one got left behind.

And so, with this novel arrangement in place- policemen acting the part of satyagrahis and satyagrahis doing a little policing- we left for Gurli, happily interspersing Raghupati Raghav…with slogans in Halbi and Gondi: “Bhiru var atra, var atra/ school taga pade vaaynaad var atra” (come one, come all, come to school to study) and “Er Gufa Bhoom, Id Gule Miyad” (water, forest and land, all belong to you).

Just before reaching Edpal, we decided to rest under the cool shade of a gigantic tamarind tree. Two boys came bicycling along. We stop them for a little chat. One of them answers me in English. When we discover his name, we applaud: suddenly our spirits are lifted. He is called Rahul. Like Chaman, he too goes to the Mission school at Gangaloor.

We also meet an old man. He is carrying something wrapped in a leaf. He shows it to us: they are gonghi (snails), his lunch. I ask him, through the translator, whether he would be willing to barter two of his gonghi for two of our toffees. After some thought, he agrees. While the exchange is going on, the cameras flash. I can see that it scares him.

On the way, Anand Pawar points out to the novel drainage system in use in the fields. Logs of teak have been hollowed from inside, to be used as drain pipes. Teak is also used as fencing in many of the homes. Anand says he would very happily exchange the pipes and the fences with proper cemented ones! Apparently, snails are not the only things that can be bartered!

As we approach Edpal, we see a school building. The ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’ logo is painted on its wall in bright yellow: two girls riding a pencil. For a moment, we feel Hope. Then, when we get closer, we smell dung and urine. The school’s verandah is being used as a cattle shed. Its two unlocked classrooms are full of cobwebs.

Outside on a pavement, a few children, all under 3 years, are sitting having their mid-day meal. It consists only of parboiled, broken rice- no dal (lentils), no sabji (vegetable). We finally begin to understand why Kwashiorkor, a form of what doctors call PEM or Protein Energy Malnutrition, is so prevalent among the children here. They simply don’t get any protein in their diet. When we approach the children, they begin to cry- one after the other. I think it best to leave them at peace.

We also see smoke rising from a hut. Inside, they are making landha (a popular local beverage).

4.3 Gurli
The entire village has turned up to greet us. There is no dance troupe; they are all dancing and singing. We too join in. We are taken in procession to the Devgudi, to seek the blessings of the village deity. Outside, they’ve tied a goat. A wood fire is burning nearby. Preparations are on to prepare our lunch. Although we’re getting late, it would be considered very rude if we left without eating anything.

So, we decide to pass time and play football with the Gurli-11. Hitendra, a young man who attends second-year college at Sukma, some 21 kms away, is the captain. He is possibly the best footballer I’ve seen in Chhattisgarh. Sandeep Sahu says its Raipur’s turn to captain the team. He has the ball, but Hitendra dribbles it away from him, and comes out from between his legs to score the first goal. Not to be undone, Sandeep jumps, and hurts his leg. We suspect a fracture. He is sent off injured to Sukma.

At the hospital in Sukma, it takes two hours to find the technician, and after four rather prolonged exposures, an X-ray is finally obtained. (Sandeep is more worried about the radiation than his legs.) When they show it to the Block Medical Officer (BMO), he looks quizzically at Sandeep: he is an Ayurvedic doctor, like the Hon’ble Chief Minister, and doesn’t have a clue what the X-ray shows.

Meanwhile, at Gurli, the satyagrahis have lost. It has been a crushing defeat: 3-0. They are in agreement that this is the last match they’re going to be playing.

By the time we return, the medical team looks horrified. Malnutrition is rampant, especially among women and children. All the infants are under the 2 kg weight. Most of them die anyway during birth. From what they’ve been told, infant mortality rates are extremely high. But that’s not it. While they were seeing patients, one of them said: “I am from the Movement” in English. They didn’t have to ask which Movement. Like so many others, he too had some kind of skin disease.

The villagers had all gathered. The elders told me that they wanted to listen to me. Harish Lakma, the young BDC president of Sukma, translated for me. I asked the same questions- and got the same replies.

After a sumptuous- if somewhat unconventional- lunch comprising of burnt rather than skinned goat cooked in its own fat, we decided to move on to Dodpal, our next stop. Once again, the entire village joined hands in a farewell dance to see us off.

4.4 Wedding at Tongras
Girish, our local guide for this part of the padyatra, hails from Dodpal. He told us that it is “just 3 kms away from Gurli”. What he didn’t tell us was that 3 kms, in his language, translates into 10 kms in ours! Midway, we came to Tongras. Everybody, especially the ladies, were all decked up in their finest clothes and ornaments. The entire village had been invited to a ‘Kharcha’.

It’s quite a novel concept- and would greatly please feminists (if not the men). When a boy marries a girl, it’s not the girl’s family who pays the dowry. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. The boy has to pay the girl’s family, and the entire money is spent partying. We too were invited to attend. A pot of landha was placed before us, and some of the more adventurous satyagrahis had a sip or two; a fattened pig was also slaughtered. But this time around, we didn’t stay for dinner.

4.5 Dodpal
The only road to Dodpal to Gurli exists on paper. The first and the last 2½ kms have been built under PMGSY, while the in-between 3 kms was built under NREGA. It has been, for lack of a better explanation, stolen. We simply had no option but to follow Girish across the fields and through the forest. Then, after some 6 kms, the land ended. There was a river, and we had to swim across it. And so, we emerged on the other side.

It was late. Most of the villagers in Dodpal belong to the Mahara community. For some reason, they have not been incorporated in the list of Scheduled Tribes (ST) even though they live in the forests, and depend on it for their livelihood. The same grievance prevails among the Kalars and Rauts. Their children cannot go and study in tribal hostels; they get no benefit of reservation, and have to compete with children from cities on equal footing. Consequently, they aren’t selected for government jobs, which go to outsiders, who never come & join. Everywhere, they told us that they want to be included in the ST list.

We also met Malti Bai. She and her 2 small boys were on the bus when it blew up at Chingawaram. Her face is slightly battered, and she has plaster on her hand. She says that she was taken to the hospital at Jagdalpur, and left there for days. The villagers had to pool in money to go and bring her home. She- and many others like her- are yet to receive any compensation. They’ve been, for all practical purposes, forgotten.

4.6 Korra
We arrive at Korra. Again, the villagers have put an entire goat on a pit, where it is being grilled. They ask me to pose for a photograph with them; some of my fellow satyagrahis object to this. Satyagraha after all, they say, is against violence of any kind, including against animals. They are also worried about offending the popular sensibilities.

I disagree with them. Eating what the villagers have to offer us, out of love and affection, cannot be wrong. They do not force us to eat anything: whether one eats it or not, I believe, should be a matter of personal choice. I chose to eat with them; there were several others, like Monty, who didn’t. To me, it doesn’t matter one way or the other. What is wrong, however, is trying to impose our choices- and value judgments- on others.

Here, the attitude of the policemen underwent a noticeable change. Up until now, they didn’t sleep a wink: they would stand alert atop rooftops and on the boundary walls, with weapons ready to fire at anything that stirred. But after our safe return from Gurli, they were the first to hit the mattresses- and the last ones to get up!

At some unconscious level, both- satyagrahis and policemen- realized that our roles had been reversed: the satyagrahis were now protecting the policemen.

Day Five: Korra to Sona Kukanar, 23rd June 2010

5.1 An Amputation
In the morning, Vivek brings a boy. His right arm is a strange shade of yellow. He had a minor cut some months ago, working in his field; in the absence of timely medical care, it has become malignant. The only solution, the doctors tell me, is amputation of his entire arm. Otherwise, they say, the malignancy will spread across his entire body. We give his brother some money, to take him to Jagdalpur, along with a referral letter.

5.2 The Thakurs of Gadiras (& Nakulnar)
Gadiras and Nakulnar are the two main villages on the Dantewada-Sukma highway. Both have government-run high schools, teaching up to 12th class. They also have RSS-run Saraswati Shishu Mandirs, where better-placed people send their children to study. Neither village has a college. Depending of where your village is, you would send your children either to Gadiras or Nakulnar for their higher secondary schooling, and then onto either Sukma or Dantewada for college.

In any case, your child will have to travel tens of kilometers everyday to gain access to higher education. If he is a tribal, he has a chance of getting accommodation at the government-run hostel. If you have a daughter, then she would probably have to journey to and fro everyday to go to college at Sukma- where there is no hostel for girls. If you are a tribal, the government would give your daughter a bicycle once she passes her 9th standard exam- but as we discovered in our interaction with the Anganwari workers of Gadiras, this gift would be made only on paper.

Another point that needs to be noted about these two villages is the role played by Thakurs. The Thakurs of Nakulnar are mostly from Uttar Pradesh whereas the Gadiras Thakurs hail from Madhya Pradesh. They are influential, both politically and economically. It is precisely because of their influence that these two villages have developed as the twin-islands of relative prosperity. It would be difficult for officials and contractors to get away with their peculiar kind of ‘Paper Governance’ here. They give voice to those who cannot speak. And for this reason, everyone respects them.

But even the influence of the Thakurs doesn’t ensure them a proper, MBBS doctor. For that, people have to travel to Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh. And only very few here can afford to do that.

5.3 A Bullock Trader from Nagaras
Nagaras is the home of the local MLA, Kawasi Lakma. He used to be a bullock-trader, who would walk 250 kms from Bijapur to Rajamundhry selling bulls. This way, he came to know everybody and everybody came to know him. He speaks no less than 9 different languages, including Telugu, Telgi, Dhruwa, Halbi, Gondi and Hindi- but he cannot read or write.

During my last visit to this constituency- in 2002- he handed me some applications to give to my father. When I showed one such application to him, and asked what was written in it, he knew exactly what it was. To humor him a little, I told him that that application isn’t what he said it was. He took it from me, gave it one hard look, and reiterated emphatically that the application said exactly what he said it to say. Of course, he was right. I asked him how he could be so sure. He simply smiled. Even now, he has his PA read to him all the newspapers, and he can then recite what is printed backwards, all from memory. In many ways, he reminds me of Akbar the Great, another brilliant administrator who couldn’t read or write.

Not surprisingly then, he is now the longest-serving MLA of the entire Bastar Division; and the only one to have won from Congress.

5.4 Raut Dancers of Kalarpara
The road has once again disappeared as we approach Kalarpara. It is a small basti, comprising about 30 houses. Here, we’re welcomed with a refreshing selection of wild fruits- kosum, dried tendu (which tastes like fig, only less sweet), mangoes and jamuns. Afterwards, we (satyagrahis) are invited to join hands to form an outer circle enclosing a circle of Raut women-dancers: we follow their steps as their circle contracts and expands to the rhythms of the music. It is, to say the least, exhilarating.

5.5 Gotul at Sona Kukanar
The name Sona Kukanar is not without significance: Sona is the name of the local deity; Kumars (Ku) and Kalars (Ka) are the two main communities living in this village (Nar). The nearby hills, I’m told, are rich in corundum and also, gold. It is late by the time we reach here, but the villagers are waiting for us. I make a small speech, ask the same questions- and get the same answers.

Afterwards, when I am shaking hands with the youngsters, who have been listening to me standing at the back, a young man, about 18 years old, slips a piece of paper into my hands. I want to read it, but he tells me to do so later. It is a moving letter: it urges me to do something for his village- boring a well, it says, would help immensely in getting them water; telling the teachers not to take money from poor students for admitting them into the hostel at Gadiras would be another step in making life easier for them. It ends with an apology- because he suspects that these demands might be too extravagant.

The medical team works late into the night. Then, when they’re done, the villagers come to take us to ‘Gotul’, organized especially to celebrate our coming. I dance a little and then retire; some of my fellow-satyagrahis, blessed with more stamina than me, continue to dance with them well into the early hours of the morning. I later learn that it rained that night. But that didn’t stop the singing & dancing.

Day Six: Sona Kukanar to Murtonda, 24th June 2010

6.1 Farming at Kamtiguda
Monsoons have broken, and Bastarias all over are busy leveling their fields, preparing them for sowing. Once ready, they will sow rice seeds (as opposed to transplanting saplings, which requires a constant source of standing water). Their tools are primitive, much as our ancestors would have used in Neolithic times. Everybody in the village helps each other out with this task; there is no concept of hiring agricultural labor to do the work. We decide to help.

Today, the villagers of Kamtiguda are going to prepare Maniram’s field. It is a fairly small patch. Besides leveling and tilling, its boundaries (med) also require mending. It is essential if the water is to remain standing, to allow the seeds to sprout. We divide ourselves- and Maniram’s field- into 4 parts, with each team in-charge of leveling, tilling and mending one such part. Maniram instructs us about what is to be done, and how. Afterwards, he will decide which team has done the best work.

For two hours, the satyagrahis toil. We take out earth from the raised portions of the field. It is carried in cane-baskets to mend the boundaries. Then, the Nagars (wooden plough) are brought. The bullocks, for the present, are indisposed. Till they come, it is left to some of our more able-bodied satyagrahis to play the role of bullocks. Tilling doesn’t take long once we get the knack of it. The ‘bulls’ at the head of the Nagar run the length of the field while the ‘tiller’ presses the plow at the back tightly into the ground, opening the moist earth. All the villagers have come to watch us work. Most of them seem very amused.

As far as the Prize for Best Work is concerned, well, Maniram has turned out to be quite the diplomat. He says all the 4 teams have done equally good work!

6.2 A School & a Hospital
After washing our hands & feet off the mud, the villagers of Kamtiguda take us to see their school. It is a hut, made of chhind leaves and bamboo. A rusty Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan board mocks at us. Behind it, they say, is the school building. I can’t see it straight away: a thicket of bushes conceals it. It comprises of un-plastered brick walls- that’s it. It has no roof, no doors and no windows. The building, they tell me, was ‘completed’ in 2007.

I am not surprised. At our last stop, at Atkariras, we had gone to see the hospital. Like the school at Kamtiguda, the hospital at Atkariras is a structure of un-plastered brick walls, with no roof, no doors, no windows, no medicines and no health care workers or doctors. On Paper, it too was ‘completed’ in 2007; and on Paper, ‘medicines’ are being given out from this ‘hospital’ by a team of ‘healthcare workers’ everyday. They’ve documentary records to show for it- and documents, as we all know, don’t lie.

6.3 Meeting at Murtonda
From Kamtiguda, we’re supposed to go to Nilavaram. Bhima, the local chief, had come all the way to Sona Kukanar last night to invite us. Certain constructions- an ashram and a bridge- had been done here during my father’s tenure as chief minister; and he was quite keen that I come and inaugurate them on Papa’s behalf. I had agreed. But I get word now that the villagers wouldn’t like it if I came with the policemen, more so if they spend the night with us. I politely tell them that I can’t possibly tell the policemen what to do- and what not to. It would mean getting into controversy- the one thing I am very keen our Satyagraha should avoid at this very early stage. Finally, it is decided that we would all go to Nilavaram by car the following evening, after concluding our Padyatra at Sukma. (It is a promise we keep.)

And so, we’ve come to the end of the first phase of our padyatra. From Murtonda, it is less than 4 kms to Sukma, our last stop. Although all of us have walked, eaten, slept and lived together like a family for the past 6 days & nights, Babla points out that we haven’t been formally introduced to each other. I, therefore, request everyone to tell their name, address and phone number one by one, and then answer any other question others might have from them. Vivek, from the medical team, is grilled the most followed by Sandeep Sahu.

Day Seven: Murtonda to Sukma, 25th June 2010

7.1 The Circle is Complete
Ayub was the first to bring this to my notice: he said that there simply weren’t any youth left in the villages. Wherever we went, we were struck by this near-total absence of youth. I asked Manish Kunjam, the tallest Communist leader of Bastar who came to meet me early in the morning at Murtonda in his jogging-shorts, why this was so. He told me that he had just returned from Hyderabad. At the zoo there, where he had taken his children, he was shocked to see that all the laborers were from Bastar.

In the absence of opportunities- for a decent education, a job- the youth have simply left Bastar. If they stay back, the police think they’re ‘Naxalite-sympathizers’ and beat and torture them, whereas the Naxalites kill them for being ‘police-informers’. And so, they have crossed the border into Andhra Pradesh to work as manual laborers (kulibuta); thousands of others have joined the Maoists. The Maoists, they say, at least give them an education and two square meals a day, which is more than what the government does. Even more importantly, they- the Maoists- give them a Purpose, something to fight for.

Before we leave Murtonda, I thank every satyagrahi. We’ve walked together for the past 7 days- and it is my earnest hope that we will continue to do so for the rest of our lives. I also request them that when they return to their homes, they must tell the people there exactly what they’ve seen, heard, done and felt. That is the message of our padyatra.

Afterwards I thank the policemen also. They tell me what a good job we’re doing; they ask me to continue doing it. They also tell me that they joined the police force, they didn’t sign up for the military.

7.2 Sukma

Thousands of Bastarias have come to greet us at the conclusion of our padyatra. There are dancers from all tribes, even one from Andhra Pradesh!

Before we enter Sukma, we stop by a widow’s house just outside the township. She lives with her three children, two boys and a girl. Last year, the police took her husband in for questioning; in the evening, while she was preparing dinner, somebody dumped his body at the door. The police, she says, told her to keep quiet. They promised her compensation- due to a victim of Naxalite violence. But she didn’t. To date, she hasn’t got one paisa.

In my speech, translated into Gondi by Bichem Podhi, a brilliant young advocate, I narrate to them what I’ve seen- and felt.

I tell them that the people of Bastar are afraid- and if this fear is to be conquered, then we must win their faith. And bombs and bullets are not the best way to win people’s faith. Neither is uprooting them forcefully from their villages and herding them like cattle into makeshift roadside camps, where we have time and again failed to protect their lives. Once again, I ask the same questions- and get the same answers.

I tell them that we must begin- by doing small, concrete things that everybody agrees should be done- and which no one opposes. I identify three such things:

(a) Putting a roof on every school building and healthcare center
(b) Posting teachers and healthcare workers in every such building (and getting the armed forces out of them)
(c) Stop poisoning their water supply at Bailadila

The way things are, I believe that we have no moral basis whatsoever for continuing our government in the aforementioned regions of Bastar: not only do we poison them, we fail to provide them with even the most basic opportunities for decent education and health. Their young have nowhere to go- but to die here quietly. That is a fate they are not willing to accept. Militancy is merely a symptom of their rising disquiet. To contain violence- of every kind- we must attack not its symptoms, but cure its causes. Give the Bastarias what they want- which, in any case, is not much- and all the other problems will go away.

Brute force- bombs & bullets- can be an option only if our fight is for the territories and resources of Bastar- not the hearts and souls of Bastarias. Then, we would be no different from the imperialists our founding fathers gave their lives to overthrow- not by the force of arms, but through the Force of Truth that showed them the error of their unjust ways.

We’ve to pause for a while to decide what it is we’re fighting for. And we’ve to stop deciding what is good- or bad- for Bastar. That task must be left to the People of Bastar. And that, is the whole point of our Bastar Satyagraha.

What the Bastarias want is the preservation of their Right to Life, guaranteed to every citizen of India under Article 21 of our Constitution. The Supreme Court has understood that Right to incorporate the Right to Education, Clean Air and Water, Equal Opportunity and Dignity of Life, among other things. For now, Bastarias will settle if their Right to Life simply meant their Right Not To Get Killed- not only by bombs and bullets, but by a near-total absence of health services and poisonous water, which is the far greater, if somewhat silent, Killer.

•

ANNEXURE A: THE SATYAGRAHIS

It gives me great pleasure to announce the DISTRICT-WISE NAMES OF SATYAGRAHIS who participated in the first phase of our BASTAR SATYAGRAHA. The names in Bold indicates those who took part throughout the 7-day, 106 kms Padyatra from Dantewada to Sukma. Others (not in Bold) were absent for less than 2 days. Remaining names have been omitted.

RAIPUR

1. Vinod Tiwari (9406300000)

2. Abhishek Modi (9827446117)

3. Sandeep Sahu (94242100000)

4. Ashok Sonwani (9826647780)

5. Deepak Jayswal (9993006143)

6. Sachin Awasthi (9300030903)

7. Amar Mishra (9754260011)

8. Yomesh Sahu (9229568315)

9. Nemichandra Patel (9669463118, 9926838778)

10. Sanjeev Shukla (9753554500)

11. Pradeep Sahu (9301285445)

12. Mahesh Yadav (08871291234)

13. Shahbaz Hussain (07869236742)

14. Gulzeb Ahmad (9300266663)

15. Subodh Haritwal (9827937900)

16. Dr. Vivek Sharma (9977122883)

17. Ishwar Dongare (9406402468)

18. Lalu Manikpuri (9302430339)

19. Dr. Suraj Rathore (9907998446)

20. Dr. Devprakash Dewangan (9926127049)

DHAMTARI

21. Anand Pawar (9425214965)

22. Anurag Lal (9907990444)

MAHASAMUND

23. Tamradhwaj Baghel (9753119299)

DURG

24. Ayub Khan (9406137786)

25. Durgesh Tamrkar (9827187008)

26. Vishal Tripathi (9301283000)

27. Teksingh Chandel (9589235777)

28. Gurdeep Bhatia (9907412397)

29. Santosh Singh (9329870048)

RAJNANDGAON

30. Mehul Maru (9993337777)

31. Nawaz Khan (9406092886)

KAWARDHA

32. Ramu Chandravamshi (9179995163)

33. Pankaj Chandravamshi (9977982829)

34. Pappu Dhruve (9165243546)

35. Baldev Yadav (9977425827)

BILASPUR

36. Amit Aishwarya Jogi (9424202648)

37. Avinash Sethi (9827494610)

38. Sameer Ahmad Babla (9981232786)

39. Satish Gupta (9300543765)

40. Ashok Rajbhar (9406305000)

JANJGIR

41. Pappu Baghel (9303181256)

42. Abhishek Swarnkar (9770114419)

43. Dr. Dhananjay Kanwar (9009955454)

RAIGARH

44. Vibhash Singh Thakur (9425251800)

45. Aseem Pandey (9755123555)

46. Santosh Gond (9329597373)

47. Ashish Jaiswal (9300003245)

KORBA

48. Nitin Yadav (9669688888)

49. Ashish Gupta (9098888861)

JASHPUR

50. Anoj Gupta (9425252942)

AMBIKAPUR

51. Surendra Choudhary (9425257039)

52. Imam Hussain (9926168300, 08109868300)

53. Karamchand Singh (9753319580)

BAIKUNTHPUR

54. Shivram Maharana (9406133668)

55. Er. Neeraj Pandey (9098132401)

KANKER

56. Poornachand Padhi (9425593201)

57. Deepak Gajendra (9584370709)

58. Vishnu Netam (9479024750)

JAGDALPUR

59. Hemu Upadhyay (9425258302)

60. Anwar Khan (9425202516)

61. Saket Shukla (9425261625)

62. Vikram Singh Sardar (9425261197)

DANTEWADA

63. Harish Lakma (9406281777)

64. Durgesh (c/o Harish Lakma)

65. Girish Kashyap (9407717097)

66. Suresh Kumar (9406105525)

BIJAPUR

67. Naveen Korsa (9424279479)

NARAYANPUR

68. Pankaj Yadav (9424286770)

69. Manish Rathore (9424287369)

FOOD & ACCOMODATION COMMITTEE:

70. Sanjeev Agrawal (9425204900)

71. Rajesh Agrawal (9425513875)

72. Yogeshwar Rao Gawte (9827189296)

73. Mohammed Ahmad (9691693594)

74. Abid (9300272561)

ANNEXURE B: THE MEDICAL REPORT

ANNEXURE C: PRESS COVERAGE

ANNEXURE D: VIDEO CLIPS

BASTAR SATYAGRAHA: Padyatra through the Heart of Naxalite Territory

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:11:00 +0000

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिए यहाँ क्लिक करें.
Last month, on 23rd May, we lit candles and walked through the streets of Raipur to pay homage to victims of Naxalite-related violence: clearly, that was not enough. Those who came to participate in the Peace March felt that something more should be done; something that would make an actual difference. What that something should be, they- we- couldn’t say.

It’s all very nice to hold seminars & candlelight procession on the ‘Naxalite Problem’ in Raipur and Delhi. More than anything else, I believe they help to sensitize public opinion, especially among the Speaking Classes, who in turn give utterance to long-suppressed voices. But unless and until one really experiences for oneself what it means to live like the tribals caught up in the Madness of Bastar- to undergo the same anxieties that they go through every minute of their precarious existence, not knowing which bullet or bomb, whether CRPF, SPO or Maoist, would claim them, and their loved ones- any attempt at finding a Solution would ultimately be meaningless.

I intend, therefore, to do exactly that: alongside 40 of my fellow unmarried youth colleagues (ed.- the number has increased exponentially since this post was published), volunteers representing every district of Chhattisgarh, I shall walk again, this time through places most ravaged by violence. We will do it quietly, without fanfare and without publicity. Our sole object is simply to listen to what people living in these places, especially the youth among them, have to say. That, however, is easier said than done.

The people, in particular the tribals, aren’t quite ready to speak-out what’s really in their minds and hearts. They’re afraid. Very afraid. It should be our endeavor, therefore, to make them as comfortable as possible: in other words, to win their faith. Like I said elsewhere, the only way to overcome Fear is by Faith. And going in a cavalcade of armored cars and making long public speeches in a language they cannot possibly understand isn’t exactly the best way to go about doing it. We must show them- and much more importantly, they must believe- that we Care.

On 19th June 2010, we will walk into their villages- and into their homes and into their hearts- as one among them; we will share the food they offer us and live in their houses. We shall go with no ulterior motive; we shall not pre-judge the situation and we shall certainly not point fingers; we will offer no solutions to their- our- problems. Instead we will listen very carefully to the solutions they have in mind, and do our very best to see that their voices are heard by those in power.

That, in my view, is the limited purpose of our Bastar Satyagraha: to begin a long overdue Dialogue.
*
I am uploading press clippings and posters about the Satyagraha here:

[Courtesy: Ameen Meman]

[Courtesy: Sandeep Sahu]
*

[Many thanks to Vinod Tiwari for the above designs]
*
The first phase of the Bastar Satyagraha will start at Dantewada on the morning of 19th June and end on the evening of 25th June with a Youth Meet at Sukama. We would be passing through Nakulnar, Nailawada, Mokpal, Bhusaras, Chingawaram, Korra, Munga, Marematka and Gadiraas with several unscheduled detours:

*
26.6.2010
It gives me great pleasure to announce the DISTRICT-WISE NAMES OF SATYAGRAHIS who participated in the first phase of our BASTAR SATYAGRAHA. The names in Bold indicates those who took part throughout the 7-day, 106 kms Padyatra from Dantewada to Sukma. Others (not in Bold) were absent for less than 2 days. Remaining names have been omitted.

RAIPUR
1. Vinod Tiwari (9406300000)
2. Abhishek Modi (9827446117)
3. Sandeep Sahu (94242100000)
4. Ashok Sonwani (9826647780)
5. Deepak Jaiswal (9993006143)
6. Sachin Awasthi (9300030903)
7. Amar Mishra (9754260011)
8. Yomesh Sahu (9229568315)
9. Nemichandra Patel (9669463118, 9926838778)
10. Sanjeev Shukla (9753554500)
11. Pradeep Sahu (9301285445)
12. Mahesh Yadav (c/o Sanjeev Shukla)
13. Shahbaz Hussain (07869236742)
14. Gulzeb Ahmad (9300266663)
15. Subodh Haritwal (9827937900)
16. Dr. Vivek Sharma (9977122883)
17. Ishwar Dongare (9406402468)
18. Lalu Manikpuri (9302430339)
19. Suraj Rathore (9907998446)
20. Devprakash Dewangan (9926127049)
DHAMTARI
21. Anand Pawar (9425214965)
22. Anurag Lal (9907990444)
MAHASAMUND
23. Tamradhwaj Baghel (9753119299)
DURG
24. Ayub Khan (9406137786)
25. Durgesh Tamrkar (9827187008)
26. Vishal Tripathi (9301283000)
27. Teksingh Chandel (9589235777)
28. Gurdeep Bhatia (9907412397)
29. Santosh Singh (9329870048)
RAJNANDGAON
30. Mehul Maroo (9993337777)
31. Nawaz Khan (9406092886)
KAWARDHA
32. Ramu Chandravamshi (9179995163)
33. Pankaj Chandravamshi (9977982829)
34. Pappu Dhruve (9165243546)
35. Baldev Yadav (9977425827)
BILASPUR
36. Amit Aishwarya Jogi (9424202648)
37. Avinash Sethi (9827494610)
38. Sameer Ahmad Babla (9981232786)
39. Satish Gupta (9300543765)
40. Ashok Rajbhar (9406305000)
JANJGIR
41. Pappu Baghel (9303181256)
42. Abhishek Swarnkar (9770114419)
43. Dhananjay Kanwar (9009955454)
RAIGARH
44. Vibhash Singh Thakur (9425251800)
45. Aseem Pandey (9755123555)
46. Santosh Gond (9329597373)
47. Ashish Jaiswal (9300003245)
KORBA
48. Nitin Yadav (9669688888)
49. Ashish Gupta (9098888861)
JASHPUR
50. Anoj Gupta (9425252942)
AMBIKAPUR
51. Surendra Choudhary (9425257039)
52. Imam Hussain (9926168300, 08109868300)
53. Karamchand Singh (9753319580)
BAIKUNTHPUR
54. Shivram Maharana (9406133668)
55. Neeraj Pandey (9098132401)
KANKER
56. Poornachand Padhi (9425593201)
57. Deepak Gajendra (9584370709)
58. Vishnu Netam (9479024750)
JAGDALPUR
59. Hemu Upadhyay (9425258302)
60. Anwar Khan (9425202516)
61. Saket Shukla (9425261625)
62. Vikram Singh Sardar (9425261197)
DANTEWADA
63. Harish Lakma (9406281777)
64. Durgesh (c/o Harish Lakma)
65. Girish Kashyap (9407717097)
66. Suresh Kumar (9406105525)
BIJAPUR
67. Naveen Korsa (9424279479)
NARAYANPUR
68. Pankaj Yadav (9424286770)
69. Manish Rathore (9424287369)

FOOD & ACCOMODATION COMMITTEE:
70. Sanjeev Agrawal (9425204900)
71. Rajesh Agrawal (9425513875)
72. Yogeshwar Rao Gawte (9827189296)
73. Mohammed Ahmad (9691693594)
74. Abid (9300272561)

I thank each and every one of the Satyagrahis- and pray that we are all successful in our endeavor.
*
17.6.2010
Many thanks also to Mr Manoj Trivedi for sharing these slides with me. In many ways, they capture the essence of what we're trying to do.

Sanjeev Goes Sufi!

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:25:00 +0000

Sanjeev Shukla is the first elected state NSUI president of Chhattisgarh. Besides being a lawyer, he is also a singer and entertainer par excellence.

He was recently invited to preside over a Qawwali function at Kawardha in which quite a few notable sufi singers were to perform. Quite naturally the audience were more interested in listening to the music than in hearing politicians (Sanjeev included) make long, dull speeches.

Sanjeev therefore very wisely decided to desist from speechifying and instead donned his Sufi-singer's cap, going on to give a superb impromptu rendition of the popular sufi anthem, Piya Haji Ali. Needless to say, the mostly rural audience were thrilled- and the politicians saved from the inevitable jeering!

To me, Sanjeev- and several others like him- represent the emerging politicians of today's India.

Youth Peace March, Raipur

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:14:00 +0000

भय-रहित जीवन की आशा

अमन का पैगाम और इज्ज़त से जीने की लालसा

शांति का यही सन्देश लेकर हमारा एक छोटा सा प्रयास है-

युवा शांति मार्च

२३ मई २०१०. रविवार. शाम ६ बजे. आज़ाद चौक से शहीद स्मारक, रायपुर.

शहीदों की शहादत को नमन करने में आइये

हम साथ साथ चलें.

POST SCRIPT, 24th May 2010:

I am uploading the press coverage and other photographs of the Peace March for your perusal and comments.

NAXALISM: (N) Lessons from Chintalnar

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:07:00 +0000

An entire company of the Central Reserved Police Force (CRPF) was ambushed by Maoists at Chintalnar, a remote outpost situated deep in the forests of south Bastar (Dantewada): in all more than 76 (of 81) soldiers were martyred, making yesterday’s violence the greatest defeat and massacre ever that the Naxalites (as Maoists in India are more commonly known) have inflicted on India’s armed forces. The local MLA, who was barely twenty kilometers away in his hometown Sukama at the time, called to say that all modes of transportation (including his own)- bullock carts, jeeps, tractors, taxis, trolleys, trucks- are being requisitioned to transport bodies to the police camp situated at a distance of barely three kilometers (about a mile and a half).

A Tale of Two Camps
At times like this, it’s easy to pontificate, more so when one is at a fairly comfortable distance: most editorialists agree that the massacre was primarily due to “intelligence failure”. It would seem that this failure is chronic. The two biggest Maoist attacks on armed forces in the state of Chhattisgarh have taken place in the immediate proximity of police camps:

(1) At Errabore (2006), more than hundred Naxalites entered the camp premises at night and conducted a 3-hour long bloodbath on the tribal ‘refugees’ (as the then state home minister termed inmates) while the armed forces entrusted with their security had very safely locked themselves up inside the thana (police station);

(2) At Chintalnar (2010), about 1000 Naxalites, all reportedly trained members of a Maoist military unit (dalam), not only ambushed the armed forces as the latter were returning from patrol duty to the police camp and made off with their ammunitions but before doing so, they had also found ample time to systematically lay down an intricate network of landmines all around the camp perimeter. The mines, as it turned out, claimed more lives than the actual shooting as soldiers fleeing to the sanctuary of the camp stepped on- and thus triggered- them. Even the anti-mine vehicle was blown to smithereens.

It is perplexing, to say the least, that our armed forces more often than not don’t have a clue about what’s happening in their own backyards. No wonder, they are sitting ducks for the Maoists, who seem to have become, well, almost invisible (if not invincible). This cloak of invisibility, no doubt, is partly due to Fear: for the battle-ravaged tribals of Bastar, to tell on the Maoists is to invite death. And yet, if this Fear of the Maoists is to be countered & overcome, then putting the tribals under a greater Fear of the Armed Forces, as Operation Green Hunt seems to have done, cannot be the solution.

The only way to overcome Fear, I believe, is by Faith.

To put it differently, you can’t have good intelligence unless the locals tell you things they otherwise would not. Caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea- the Maoists on the one hand, and the paramilitary forces on the other- the tribals of south Bastar prefer to remain silent. To remedy that, it is essential for the armed forces- and for the state that sends them- to win their faith. And, frankly, there is very little proof of that happening.

What's in a name?
Late last month, some villagers from Narayanpur met me. They were afraid. According to them, several soldiers of the Border Security Force (BSF) had entered their area & were carrying out ‘combing’ operations. During one such operation, one of the soldiers stopped a passing woman. He asked her name. When she answered ‘Dukhbai’, he took out his already loaded AK-47 rifle, and shot her at pointblank range. It turns out that the soldier had been given a list of names of Naxalite-supporters to comb-out, and ‘Dukhbai’ was one of them. What the soldier didn’t- couldn’t- know is that ‘Dukhbai’ is an extremely common name among tribals. (‘Dukh’ means sad, and tribals believe that a person so named would ward-off sadness all her life.)

Intelligence failure, therefore, is not only claiming the lives of our soldiers, but also of several hundreds- if not thousands- of innocent tribals.

License to Kill
Mr. Mahendra Karma, the leader of Salwa Judum, believes that recruiting more Special Police Officers (SPOs) from among the locals would enable better intelligence gathering since the SPOs understand the people, and know the terrain. His reasoning has been adopted by the state government. In fact, one of the reasons cited for the debacle at Chintalnar is that the CRPF soldiers were not accompanied by SPOs (although at least two personnel from the state police were with them) at the time of the ambush.

With due respect, it doesn’t quite work out like that. The SPOs have, more often than not, used their ‘license to kill’ to settle personal scores, and engage in extortion. Personal motives- a grudge, an age-old family rivalry, greed- underlie most ‘fake encounters’, in which innocent persons are routinely killed, then clothed in Naxalite uniform along with other ‘incriminating’ material to justify the killings. Institutions like the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram founded by the eminent Gandhian Ms. Nirmala Deshpande, which has been working for & with tribals in remote far-off areas of Dantewada, are bulldozed when they endeavor to seek justice for them: they are branded as ‘enemies of the state’.

I am acutely aware that any criticism of the armed forces at a time like this would be construed as anti-national and pro-Naxal. That is not my intention. I sincerely believe that the only reason why the Congress failed to form its government in the state in 2003 and 2008 is because of the Naxalites, or more precisely, their active prevention of a free and fair election in Bastar, possibly at the behest of the BJP leadership. So, my dislike of the Maoists- many of who are, I believe, using violence inherent to Maoist doctrine primarily as a means to stuff their pockets with money- is both personal as well as political. They are enemies, alright, who deserve to be taken out by whatever means necessary, including an all-out war. But it must be a Just War, and more importantly, it must be Won. I intend to address both these issues.

A Just War
Even though the Naxalites entertain no such notion- in this sense, Deng’s slogan “it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white/ as long as it catches mice”, which heralded capitalism into communist China, is, at least in its pragmatism, ironically Maoist- the fact is that as a democratic state bound by a Constitution, we must not only subscribe to, but also rigorously enforce the ideas of jus ad bellum (when it is right to go to war) and jus in bellum (what is right in war).

There is no doubt in my mind that this is the right time to go to war with the Maoists; if we do not retaliate, and retaliate effectively, it might just be too late. But the war that we fight must be just. It must, at all costs, not involve the unnecessary, unjustifiable displacement and killings of civilians, more so when the civilians in question are innocent tribals. Those of the armed forces who are found to be guilty of this most basic human rights violation- in this case, the right of a tribal to live (as opposed to being shot dead because of her name)- should not be wrongly protected; they must be brought to book. For if they are not, then there is no way the war can be won. The tribals not only need to know which side they are on (right now, they can at best be described as ‘neutral’); they also need to believe that their side is right.

The two issues, therefore, are directly linked. For us to win the war, we must necessarily fight the just war. That is the only way we can win the Faith of the tribals.

For without this Faith, intelligence failures like Errabore and Chintalnar will continue.

Indian Youth Congress: Tales from Chhattisgarh

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:34:00 +0000

Where there's a Will
I spent almost two weeks last month traveling across 70 of Chhattisgarh’s 90 assembly constituencies, mostly meeting the state’s youth. In all, I ended up addressing 109 public meetings, both big and small. My agenda- if one can call it that- was to motivate those in the age group of 18 to 35 to join the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), the Congress party’s youth outfit. (The photograph here is of a press report of my visit to Pathalgaon in remote Jashpur district, courtesy Vibhash Thakur) To do so, I had to, at the very least, answer a most obvious question:

Why should any young person (1) pay Rs. 15 (and in case of women and SC/STs with a caste certificate duly attested by an executive magistrate, Rs. 5); (2) fill out a rather detailed computer-readable form; (3) provide legible photocopies of a variety of documents as proof of age and address; and (4) affix a color photograph, all to become member of an organization of youngsters whose parent party has remained out of power in the state for the past six years, and will, in all probability, continue to do so for the next four years at least?

Even if the Will is present, the Way to Membership isn’t exactly easy: most of the state’s youth, living as they do in rural habitats, have no compelling need for such documentation nor do they have access to photocopiers and photo-studios. For instance, a tribal in Orchha, the entry-point to Abujhmar, which as its name suggests is possibly the only territory in India yet to be surveyed, doesn’t really need a caste certificate signed & sealed by a magistrate in Jagdalpur, a township at a distance of almost 200 kms by road, of which at least 70 kms is heavily-mined by insurgent-Maoists, when his village is 100% tribal. Yet, for some peculiar reason, which escapes all Common Sense, no less than 49 youngsters from Orchha did in fact complete all the aforementioned formalities to become members.

A Silent Revolution
The Congress party, as I see it, is in the throes of a carefully-executed Revolution: 125 year old Top-Down hierarchies are being systematically dismantled to pave the path for a new sort of democracy, where members get to choose for themselves- as opposed to have someone else select for them- who their next generation of leaders are going to be.

As revealed by Prof. Tan Chung in his study of the composition of the Politburo in post-Revolutionary China (1949)- many erstwhile Imperial (Chin’g) Mandarins suddenly found themselves sitting in the highest echelons of the People’s Republic as comrades of the peasant-proletariat!- it’s quite possible, indeed even probable, that we might well end up with the same faces- or genetically younger versions of old, familiar faces- but make no bones, the Rules of the Game have changed, both irrevocably and irreversibly. Leadership can no longer be based on personal proximity to power-centers- the Patron-client network elucidated by Prof. Judith Brown in her seminal study of the Mahatma’s rebuilding of the Congress during the latter phases of the National Movement (1919-47)- but solely and exclusively on the criteria of public support. To paraphrase the neo-realist Kenneth Waltz, this is ‘a systemic change’.

The modus operandi of this Revolution- proclaimed as “Youth Transforming” on the website and membership forms- is remarkably simple. I can only say: why didn’t anyone think of it before? Its stages are threefold: first, members are recruited; secondly, they elect their leaders, at the panchayat, ward, assembly, Lok Sabha and state levels; thirdly, the elected leaders (now called EOBs, or elected office bearers) are trained in the science of political leadership before the process can start all over again. To be honest, this three-phased Model didn’t just emerge by itself: it is a result of very patient Trial & Error. Mistakes were made, lessons were- & are still being- learnt.

Trial & Error
Punjab was the pilot project. Then came Gujarat. Both states were a great success in terms of mammoth numbers of members enrolled. Yet, two problems surfaced: one, membership was mostly confined to urban centers & a majority of the villages, especially those in remote areas, were left out entirely; and two, voter turnout remained dismally low (16% in Gujarat). Clearly, the Model, as it existed then, wasn’t reaching out to the rural youth. The cause, it was discovered, lay in the way elections were structured: most members were required to travel vast distances to cast their votes in no more than two polling centers per assembly constituency, in order to directly elect their assembly committees. Now, the process has been changed and the problems overcome.

Not only would there be more polling centers in every assembly constituency (at least, 10, I hope) but members would no longer be voting directly for assembly (Vidhan Sabha) committees; they would instead vote to elect their respective ward/ panchayat committees, who would in turn vote for assembly committees. This new arrangement makes it incumbent upon assembly candidates to get their electors- i.e., the panchayat and ward committees- elected, which means that they not only have to persuade a maximum number of people to become members, but that they have to do so in a majority of wards and panchayats of the constituency.

As far as the documentation & the photographs are concerned, that, I imagine, is something we’ve learnt from Tamil Nadu, where more than 14,00,000 members were enrolled: a stricter criteria was necessary to ensure that genuine persons become members. It is, for all facts and purposes, a necessary evil: the cumbersome process ensures that only those really committed to the Youth Congress- its leadership & the ideas (as opposed to any definitive ideology) it represents- join.

Eureka!
Now, coming back to the central Question- why should anyone join the IYC- I believe the best answer can be provided by posing the counter-question: why shouldn’t one? Even so, let me give just three reasons:

(1) First, to be a member of the IYC is to become an intrinsic part of the world’s largest youth network with members- and elected office-bearers (EOBs)- in each and every part, from ‘Kashmir to Kanyakumari & Gujarat to Guwahati’, of what is indeed the world’s largest, most vibrant democracy. This in turn means that members are not alone; they are part of the most powerful, influential youth organization of the nation encompassing members from every region, religion and race; their voice, once united, becomes the voice of India;

(2) Now, for the first time in its history since the early 1970s (when Mr. Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi was elected President), the IYC has become truly & fully democratic: this means that members get to decide who should lead them, unlike in say the BJP’s youth wing, Yuva Morcha (YM), where leadership is more often than not imposed from above. This means that from day one, they are incorporated into its decision-making process;

(3) Last but not the least, members get to establish a direct rapport with the IYC leadership, headed by Rahul Gandhi; in essence, they become part of his team. There’s no denying the fact that Mr. Gandhi represents a link between the nation’s past and its future: while being firmly grounded in tradition, he, more than anyone else, would determine the shape of things to come. It means a lot, then, that members would, through the IYC network, get to share their feelings, their hopes and aspirations & also their concerns and problems, with ‘RG’, the one person who is really, sincerely trying to understand us, the Youth, and in so doing, uniting us in one common bond like never before.

A Chhattisgarhi Marvel
Small wonder then that more than 3,90,000 youth, from almost every panchayat and ward of a predominantly rural-tribal state like Chhattisgarh, have chosen to become members of the IYC. As a proportion of the population, this is the highest membership done so far anywhere; and in real terms, we’ve the largest number of members from any non-Congress ruled state of the nation. (The same is true of the NSUI membership, where more than 79,000 students from Chhattisgarh enrolled last year compared to 50,000 in Delhi and 90,000 in neighboring Madhya Pradesh, both of which have three times the student-population.) Four further aspects make this figure even more commendable:

(1) The PYC membership drive took place at the exact same time when PRI (Panchayati Raj Institutions) elections were being conducted: this meant that most if not all of the party’s grassroots workers were busy either contesting or campaigning for their district, block and village panchayat elections, and could spare little, or no, time in enrolling YC members. That work, I am happy to report, was done entirely by the youth, most of whom have joined the organization for the first time;

(2) With the lone exceptions of Mr. P Chidambram, Union Home Minister (who had come on official business), and Mr. Arun Yadav, MoS in the Union Government, not one senior party leader visited the state during the entire course of the month-long membership drive. Needless to say, we had all hoped that RG would come, but for some reason or the other, he couldn’t make it. (In Mumbai, for instance, where no less than 26 party leaders campaigned, the membership was about 1,50,000.);

(3) Not only that, unlike Jharkhand and Rajasthan, the membership drive in Chhattisgarh was not extended by even a day; &

(4) Chhattisgarh, I believe, has had among the highest rejection rates of membership forms: I personally know of at least 100,000 forms that could not be accepted because they were, for instance, not accompanied by photographs or photocopies of required documentary proofs, given the backwardness and remoteness of several of its areas.

It is interesting to note that the State Congress Committee (PCC), which is the Congress party’s main body in the state, enrolled less than 1,50,000 members statewide even though (a) the PCC membership campaign went on for almost a year & was extended for a further two months; and (b) the PCC membership fee was just Rs. 3 per member, which is 1/5th of PYC’s Rs. 15. In other words, the PCC was able to enroll barely 40% of the total number of members enrolled by the PYC despite its membership fee being only 20% of PYC’s and the duration of its membership drive being 14 times longer! I do not of course mean to denigrate the parent body in any way, but merely site these figures as proof of the tremendous enthusiasm that the youth of Chhattisgarh have towards Rahul ji, who has, over the course of his visits to various parts of the state, developed a very special place in the people’s hearts & minds. Also- and I can’t help pointing out this obvious fact- this is indicative of the faith, or lack thereof, that people have in the election process of the aforementioned two organizations.

Mahatma meets Machiavelli
I would also like to clarify one point of criticism that has been raised against the election process. It has been argued by many that only those with money, resources and clout can come up through this system. That is not entirely correct. The amount of resources etc. required to win at the panchayat or ward levels is much lesser than that needed to win a post on the assembly, Lok Sabha or state committees. The possibility of 'genuine' (as opposed to 'moneyed') persons occupying these grassroots level positions therefore cannot be ruled out entirely: to further ensure that everyone, including those who are not economically or socially privileged, get into the system, 3 out of 5 positions have been reserved at the panchayat levels for women (both general and reserved), SCs, STs, OBCs and Minorities. Likewise, the number of reserved posts at the assembly level is 10 out of 20; and 5 out of 10 in the Lok Sabha and State committees. Cumulatively, these carefully reserved posts would account for more than 60% of all positions, making it inevitable that persons from these depressed communities have a potent voice in the new structure.

Money, resources and clout- if at all- would be a factor (of many, including most crucially, Network & Image) for top posts in the assembly, Lok Sabha and state committees. In this context, I would like to point out that the IYC is only organization of the Congress party to have done away with district and block units; they have been replaced with panchayat, ward, assembly, Lok Sabha and state committees. These new units correspond exactly to the units of the Indian electoral system: these are the exact same places for which general elections are held. And it would be naive, not to mention mighty foolish, for anyone to imagine that money, resources and clout do not play any role in these elections. (In the recently concluded PRI elections, candidates spent lakhs on sarpanch elections!) Given this reality, let me not mince words: the Congress party, like every other party, is in the business of contesting- and more importantly, winning- elections whenever and wherever they are held. (To put it in a less Machiavellian fashion, we are in the business of winning people's trust.)

The IYC election process, which is not very different from the general election process, therefore helps to identify the most winnable persons- and for whatever it's worth, I do not for one moment believe that there is any need to be apologetic about this fact of political life. If anything, it is the ruling BJP government of Chhattisgarh that is alarmed: the phrase they now use to refer to the Youth Congress is "laikaa pakraiyya", which translates from the local dialect as "youth catcher"!

In the end, as a Congressperson, I can only hope- and pray- that the Revolution that is transforming the party’s two youth organizations vis-à-vis the NSUI and IYC doesn’t stop here: it is my earnest wish that it would encompass the whole of the Congress.

Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Gold Medal

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:58:00 +0000

At the XVI Convocation of the Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla University, Raipur, held on January 17, 2010, I was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Gold Medal by the Governor of Chhattisgarh, HE Mr Ekkadu Srinivasan Lakshmi Narasimhan for securing the highest marks in LLB. Those present at the function included chief minister Dr Raman Singh, eminent astrophysicist Prof Dr Govind Swaroop, veteran politician and soon-to-be-published memoirist Mr VC Shukla, state ministers Mr Brijmohan Agrawal, Mr Rajesh Munat and Mr Hemchand Yadav, leader of opposition Mr Ravindra Choubey and Mayor of Raipur Mrs Kiranmayee Nayak. (As my parents were away in Kerala, the erudite Shailesh Nitin Trivedi (SNT) stood in as surrogate, along with Sanjeev Shukla, Brajesh Satpathy and Dr Bipin Kusulia!)

To read more comments on these photos, please visit here, here, here, here, here and here. Thank you for your very kind words!

l-r: Dr Indu Anant, Mrs Kiranmayee Nayak, Mr VC Shukla, Mr Brijmohan Agrawal, Dr Raman Singh, HE ESL Narasimhan, Prof Govind Swaroop, Mr Ravindra Choubey, Mr Rajesh Munat, Mr Hemchand Yadav, Prof SK Pandey. Photo courtesy: Shailesh Trivedi

NOTICE: मेरी वकालत भली...

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:25:00 +0000

प्रदेश में युवा कांग्रेस के चुनाव होने जा रहे हैं. अपने चुनाव लड़ने की बातें मैंने अखबारों में पढ़ी. इन खबरों से मैंने तत्काल विनम्रतापूर्वक यह कहकर इनकार कर दिया था कि मैं अपने वकालत के व्यवसाय में आगे बढ़ना चाहता हूँ और मेरी अभी राजनीति में आने की कोई इच्छा नहीं है.

इस ब्लॉग के माध्यम से मैं इस बात को फिर से स्पष्ट कर देना चाहता हूँ.

राहुल जी की सोच है कि युवा वर्ग स्वयं अपने नेतृत्व का चयन लोकतांत्रिक प्रक्रिया से करे. मेरा भी यह मानना है कि चुनाव कौन लड़ेगा, इसका निर्णय बीजापुर से बलरामपुर तक के हमारे परिवार के युवा साथियों को लोकतांत्रिक तरीके से करना है; मैं खुद को ऊपर से थोपने में विश्वास नहीं रखता क्योंकि ऐसा करना हमारी पार्टी और राहुल जी के सिद्धांतों के विपरीत होगा. अभी हम सबका एकमात्र उद्देश्य यह होना चाहिए कि अधिक से अधिक युवा, खासकर दूरस्थ ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों के युवा कांग्रेस पार्टी- और राहुल जी- की सोच से सीधे जुड़ें.

वैसे भी इन चर्चाओं को सुनकर मेरे हाल ही में बने मुवक्किलों में काफी असमंजस की स्थिति होने लगी है, जिसका सीधा नुकसान मेरी व्यवसायिक संभावनाओं को उठाना पड़ रहा है!

इसी सन्दर्भ में मुझे यह भी बताते हुए बड़ी प्रसन्नता हो रही है कि परसों पंडित रविशंकर शुक्ल विश्वविद्यालय के वार्षिक दीक्षांत समारोह में विधि की परीक्षा में सर्वाधिक अंक प्राप्त करने के लिए मुझे स्वर्गीय राजीव गाँधी स्मृति स्वर्ण पदक दिया जाएगा. इस पदक से मेरे माता-पिता और मुझे मिलने वाली ख़ुशी किसी भी चुनावी जीत की ख़ुशी से कई गुना बढ़कर होगी.

New Year: "२००९ के व्यक्ति" और "२०१० में छत्तीसगढ़"

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Aishwarya Jogi.अमित ऐश्वर्य जोगी) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:30:00 +0000

दो नई परम्पराएं
वैसे तो ३१ दिसम्बर और १ जनवरी ग्रेगोरियन कैलेंडर के अन्य ३६३ दिनों की तरह सिर्फ दो तारीखें है. प्राकृतिक रूप से ये दूसरे दिनों से अलग नहीं हैं: दोनों दिन सुबह सूरज उगता है, और आकाश का अपना सफ़र पूरा कर शाम को ढल जाता है; चाँद-सितारे उसकी जगह ले लेते हैं.

देखा जाए तो इन दोनों तारीखों का महत्व मात्र मानव प्रजाति तक ही सीमित है और इस प्रजाति-विशेष पर भी इनका प्रभाव केवल मानसिक होता है. फिर भी इस मानसिक प्रभाव का अपना महत्त्व है: दोनों दिनों में अतीत और भविष्य का अनोखा सम्मिश्रण है: हर साल ३१ दिसम्बर की रात को जब ठीक १२ बजता है, तब उस एक क्षण में बीते हुए साल के गुजरने और नए साल के आने से जुड़ी सैकड़ों-अनगिनत भावनाओं का एकाएक समावेश हो जाता है.

इस तथ्य को ध्यान में रखते हुए, मैं इस वर्ष से ब्लॉग पर दो नई परम्पराओं की शुरुआत कर रहा हूँ. पहली: अतीत को सलाम करते हुए, हर वर्ष उस व्यक्ति को "साल के व्यक्ति" के खिताब से नवाज़ा जाएगा जिसने हमारे प्रदेश, छत्तीसगढ़, को सर्वाधिक प्रभावित किया है. दूसरी: आने वाले साल में क्या-क्या होगा, उसकी भविष्यवाणी (और साल के अंत में, उस भविष्यवाणी का बेबाक विश्लेषण!).

भविष्य में इन दोनों पहलूओं पर आपके सुझाव आमंत्रित रहेंगे; और उन्हें ब्लॉग पर प्रमुखता से प्रकाशित भी किया जाएगा.

(१)
२००९ के व्यक्ति
२००९ के "साल के व्यक्ति" का खिताब संयुक्त रूप से श्री नरेश डाकलिया, श्रीमती किरणमयी नायक और श्रीमती वाणी राव को दिया जाता है. इन तीनों ने अपनी-अपनी व्यक्तिगत छवि और संबंधों के कारण न केवल राजनैतिक अनुमानों को बल्कि दशकों के इतिहास को भी सर के बल पलट कर रख दिया, और राजनैतिक रूप से छत्तीसगढ़ के सबसे महत्वपूर्ण शहर, राजनांदगांव, जो की स्वयं राज्य के मुख्यमंत्री का विधान सभा क्षेत्र है, और प्रदेश के दो सबसे बड़े शहर, रायपुर और बिलासपुर, के वासियों का विशवास हासिल कर वहां के प्रथम नागरिक चुने गए.

प्रदेश के एक नेता ने हाल ही में इस ओर मेरा ध्यान आकर्षित किया कि इन तीनों में ख़ास बात यह है कि वे प्रदेश के किसी भी बड़े नेता के "पिछलग्गू" नहीं कहे जा सकते; उनका स्वयं का अस्तित्व है, अपनी खुद की पहचान है. यही वजह है कि उन्हें बरसों से सार्वजनिक जीवन में सक्रिय होने के बावजूद कभी भी किसी चुनाव में पार्टी का उम्मीदवार नहीं बनाया गया.

और जब टिकट दी गयी तो शायद यह सोचकर कि वैसे भी इन सीटों में कांग्रेस का जीतना न केवल मुश्किल है बल्कि नामुनकिन. आखिरकार, पिछले बीस सालों से कांग्रेस के उम्मीदवार रायपुर और बिलासपुर शहरों में क्रमशः ३०००० और १५००० मतों से ज्यादा के अंतर से हारते आ रहे थे; और जहाँ तक राजनांदगांव की बात है, तो यहाँ हाल ही में मुख्य मंत्री जी लगभग ४०००० वोटों से जीते हैं. मुझे लगता है कि इस बात का फायदा भी इन तीनों को मिला: एक तरफ तो सत्ता के नशे में धुत भाजपाई अति-आत्मविश्वास से ग्रसित रहे; वहीं दूसरी तरफ कांग्रेस में उनके विरोधीयों ने यह सोचकर कि वैसे भी वे हार रहे हैं, भीतरघात में ज्यादा सक्रिय रहना जरूरी महसूस नहीं किया.

इस बात से हमें तीन महत्वपूर्ण सीख मिलती है. पहली: बड़े नेताओं के आगे-पीछे घूमना इतना जरूरी नहीं है. दूसरी: जनता के बीच सक्रिय बने रहना, उनके सुख-दुःख में भागीदारी रखना, राजनीति में अधिक महत्व रखता है. तीसरी: धीरज रखना, और कभी भी अपना धैर्य न खोना, पद मिले या न मिले. राजनीति के इस दौड़ में श्री नरेश डाकलिया, श्रीमती किरणमयी नायक और श्रीमती वाणी राव ने यह साबित कर दिया कि जीत कछुए की ही होती है.

(२)
२०१० में छत्तीसगढ़
A. राजनीति:
(१) भाजपा आलाकमान में २००९ के अंत में हुए परिवर्तन का प्रभाव प्रदेश की राजनीति पर पड़ेगा तो जरूर पर प्रदेश के नेतृत्व में परिवर्तन होने की संभावना २०१० में क्षीण ही रहेंगी. श्री राजनाथ सिंह का जो डॉ. रमन सिंह को अभयदान प्राप्त था, अब वो नहीं रहेगा. इस से उन्हें विफल करने में और उनकी विफलताओं का फायदा लेने में उनके विरोधी ११ अशोक रोड में सक्रिय तो होंगे, लेकिन केंद्रीय स्थर पर कमज़ोर भाजपा अनुशासन को ज्यादा महत्त्व देते हुए, मुख्य मंत्री और उनके विरोधियों (जिनकी संख्या में इजाफा होगा), दोनों पर नकेल कसने और उनके बीच संतुलन बनाने के प्रयास में लगी रहेगी.

(२) कांग्रेस में पीढ़ी-परिवर्तन का दौर और तेज होगा. नए-नौजवान चहरों को महत्त्व दिया जाएगा; उनका चयन ऊपर से नहीं होगा, बल्कि पार्टी के युवा सदस्य सीधे चुनाव के माध्यम से करेंगे.

(३) पंचायत चुनाव में अधिकतर पदाधिकारी दुबारा निर्वाचित नहीं होंगे. ज्यादा तर पढ़े-लिखे नौजवान लोग ही चुने जायेंगे. भविष्य में पार्टी और पैसे का कम, व्यक्ति की निजी छवि और संबंधों का ज्यादा प्रभाव होगा.

(४) छत्तीसगढ़ स्वाभिमान मंच दुर्ग की राजनीति में अंततः अपना खाता खोलेगी.

B. कानूनी व्यवस्था/ प्रशासन:
(१) नक्सलवाद पर सीधा फौजी आक्रमण केंद्रीय बलों के नेतृत्व में बोला जाएगा, इसमें सफलता भी मिलेगी. केंद्र सलवा जुडूम से समर्थन वापस लेगा, वो एक विफल प्रयोग के रूप में इतिहास के पन्नो में दफ़न हो जाएगा. मानव-अधिकार के उल्लंघनों की वारदातें बढ़ेंगी, मीडिया उन्हें उजागर करने में कमज़ोर साबित होगी, लेकिन वहां सक्रिय सामाजिक संस्थायों की बातों को केंद्र गंभीरता से लेगा. निर्दोष आदिवासी मारे जायेंगे. शहरी क्षेत्र में प्रदेश की पहली बड़ी नक्सली घटना होगी. डॉ. बिनायक सेन बेगुनाह साबित होंगे.

(२) बड़े शहरों में गुंडा-गर्दी और बढ़ेगी. बेरोजगार युवाओं की संख्या इनमें ज्यादा रहेगी.

(३) प्रशासन और हावी होगा: सूचना के अधिकार अधिनियम के तहत सूचना लेने की प्रक्रिया को और कठिन बनाया जाएगा; केंद्र द्वारा प्रशासन को और अधिक जवाबदेह बनाने के कानूनी प्रयासों का भी प्रदेश में यही अंजाम होगा; प्रशासनिक खर्चों और भ्रष्टाचार में इजाफा होगा. लेकिन इन सब के विरोध में दायर जनहित याचिकाओं की सुनवाई का कोई असर नहीं होगा.

C. अर्थव्यवस्था:
(१) पानी, सिचाई और पीने दोनों, की बेहद कमी होगी. इस से कृषि पर तो सीधा प्रभाव पड़ेगा ही, साथ-साथ बड़े शहरों में भी त्राहि मचेगी. सरकार इस भीषण समस्या से निपटने में पूरी तरह विफल रहेगी.

(२) जितने भी अब तक की खदानें (कोयला, लोहा) बड़े-बड़े उद्योगों को आबंटित करी गयी हैं, उनमे से शायद ही एक-दो ही स्टील और बिजली का उत्पात शुरू कर पाएंगी. बाकी सब प्रशासन से साथ-गाँठ करके कोयले इत्यादि की काला-बाजारी ही करते रहेंगे. इसका सीधा-सीधा नुकसान प्रदेश के युवाओं को होगा: न नए उद्योग खुलेंगे, न उन्हें रोज़गार मिलेगा.

(३) भू-माफिया के आपस के खेल में जमीनों और घरों के भाव जम के बढ़ेंगे लेकिन इनमे घर बनाने वालों और रहने वालों की कमी रहेगी. अधिकतर जमीन और घर खाली ही रहेंगे.

D. संस्कृति:
(१) छत्तीसगढ़ी फिल्मों की संख्या तो बढ़ेगी, लेकिन २००९ की सुपरहिट, मया, का कोई मुकाबला नहीं कर पायेगा. छत्तीसगढ़ी गानों की टी.वी. चैनलों और वीसीडी के माध्यम से ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों में धूम बनी रहेगी.

(२) क्षेत्रीय टी.वी. चैनलों में कर के अभाव से प्रोग्राम्मिंग का स्थर गिरेगा. केबल माफिया के केन्द्रीयकरण के प्रयासों से केबल-वार होगी, जिसका भार सीधे उपभोक्ताओं पर पड़ेगा.

(३) मीडिया पर सरकारी तंत्र हावी रहेगा. इसके दो प्रमुख कारण रहेंगे: पहला, विपक्ष की सरकार की आलोचना करने में कमजोरी; दूसरा, गैर-सरकारी स्रोतों से आय के अभाव में सरकारी मदद पर छत्तीसगढ़ी मीडिया की बरकरार निर्भरता.