March 2010 rh

Vol. 73 No 12

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THERADICALHUMANIST (Since April 1949)

MARCH 2010 Formerly : Independent India (April 1937- March 1949)

Founder Editor: M.N. Roy

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Prof. Amlan Datta is no more

Those were the Days.......... Never to come back again.........

Prof. Amlan Datta with Humanist Friends Prof. Sibnarayan Ray, Justice V.M. Tarkunde, Dr. Gauri Bajaj Malik and Mr. Levi Fregel.

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2010 Download and read the journal at www.theradicalhumanist.com

The Radical Humanist Vol. 73

—Contents—

Number 12 March 2010

Monthly journal of the Indian Renaissance Institute Devoted to the development of the Renaissance Movement; and for promotion of human rights, scientific-temper, rational thinking and a humanist view of life.

Founder Editor: M.N. Roy Contributory Editors: Professor A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed Justice R.A. Jahagirdar (Retd.)

Dr. R.M. Pal Professor Rama Kundu Editor: Dr. Rekha Saraswat Publisher: Mr. N.D. Pancholi Printer: Mr. N.D. Pancholi Send articles to: Dr. Rekha Saraswat C-8, Defence Colony Meerut, 250001, U.P., India Ph. 91-121-2620690, 09719333011 E-mail articles at: rheditor@gmail.com Send Subscription / Donation Cheques to: Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber Number 111 (Near Post Office) Supreme Court of India, New Delhi, 110001, India n.vyas@snr.net.in Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836, 09811944600 In favour of: ‘The Radical Humanist’ Sometimes some articles published in this journal may carry opinions not similar to the radical humanist philosophy; but they would be entertained here if the need is felt to debate and discuss upon them.

—Rekha Saraswat

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1. Obituaries for Prof. Amlan Datta 2-10 Letter from Ellen Roy to Amlan Datta 11 2. From the Editor’s Desk: The Movement Impasse (Part II) —Rekha Saraswat 12 3. Guests’ Section: Gods and Rockets: A Tale of Science in India (Part II) —Austin Dacey 13 Lohia: A World Thinker —B.P. Rath 17 Learning The Lohia Way —Nandana Reddy 21 4. Current Affairs: The Tragedy in Sri Lanka —Rajindar Sachar 24 Wider Lessons of Khan Calls Bluff of Shiv Sena Mumbai Experience —Balraj Puri 26 Cooperative Farming; Direct Taxes Code; Price Rise; Compulsory Voting —N.K. Acharya 28 5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section: Political History of Andhra Pradesh —N. Innaiah 32 6. Teachers’ & Research Scholars’ Section: Obesity: A Social Problem —Jugal Kishore & Puneet Mishra 35 7. Book Review Section: A Meeting of the Twain —Dipavali Sen 39

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

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Friends remember Amlan Datta: Death of dear Amalan Dutta is a great loss not only to the Radical Humanist fraternity but also to the people at large. Sad news of his death received on 18th Feb., 2010 was a bolt from the blue for me. I had been meeting him at seminars and meetings of the Radical Humanists for more last 20 yrs. His plain ways of living were unique.

Someone who only saw him from afar and did not know him well could not realize that he was an epitome of "simple living and high thinking". A versatile economist and thinker, he used to put serious social problems in clear and easy language which could be understood even by those who were not initiated in the disciplines of Economics, Sociology and Philosophy.

I had seen him last in the month of Jan. 2009 when we had a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Indian Renaissance Institute at Kolkatta. He was weak and frail in health as usual but he had the strength to attend the public meeting at 15 Bankim Chandra Chatterjee Street, a place where even we were able to ascend with some difficulty.

We cannot forget the valuable suggestions he gave us through his writings in The Radical Humanist and other papers regarding the problems of female education, eradication of poverty, and how to bring about real and strong democracy, etc. In his death we have lost a true friend, philosopher and guide.

B.D. Sharma, President, Indian Renaissance Institute ***************** Please convey our condolences to the relatives and friends of Amlan Dutta. We appreciate his great work and regret his passing.

Paul Kurtz, Professor Emeritus, State University of New York ************** Prof Amlan Datta –A True Humanist: Prof. Amlan Datta, one of the most erudite scholars and intellectuals India has produced, died on Thursday, the 18th February, 2010 at his Salt Lake residence in Kolkota. His book “For Democracy” which was published in 1953 had exercised a great influence on my mind during my formative days as student in 1960s. He presented most difficult propositions in the simplest language. He dedicated his life to the promotion of enlightenment and consciousness of human dignity. He emphasized that the strategy of development must be based on the “assumptions that we accept supremacy of the people, that we believe in a democratic, secular, and socialist society in which poverty and exploitation are eliminated by a modification of the social structure, an egalitarian wage-policy, curbs on the consumption of the well-to-do, guarantee of a minimum standard of living for all, and the widest possible opportunity to the citizens, irrespective of religion or social status, to participate in decision-making, in production, and in pursuit of knowledge and culture; and that we look upon education, along with direct political and moral action, as important instruments which can be used to support each other in bringing about this social transformation at an early date.” He was Life Trustee of the Indian Renaissance Institute and his suggestions in the meetings of the Indian Renaissance Institute were most valued. His death is a great loss to humanity at large and to the Indian Renaissance Institute in particular. Devotion and dedication to the principles he stood for will be a true tribute to his memory.

N.D. Pancholi, Secretary, Indian Renaissance Institute *****************

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Great Humanist Amlan Dutta dies: The great humanist Amlan Datta died yesterday in Kolkata. He was veteran educationist and led a simple life with high thinking. His clarity on matters and his lucid expression was inimitable. We together participated in several meetings and addressed together. We spent quite valuable time together while discussing several matters. I will always cherish those moments that I spent in his company and enjoyed his speeches and writings.

N. Innaiah President CFI, India ***************** What shocking news for the Indian Humanist Fraternity of passing away of Amaln Datta! Our fraternity has not recovered the shock of our beloved Sibda & received sad news of passing away of beloved Amaln Datta. I met him last in Dehradun 1987. More than two decades have been passed. Still I remember & recollect him in all his intellectual & sober ways of putting the things in the discussion. It is really an irreparable loss to our movement. I convey my sincere condolences to the departed comrade’s family & larger family of Calcutta humanist brothers.

Both Sibda & Amalan Datta were the constant source of inspiration & role model of our movement. Their life’s span has provided enough material to inspire us. I think that is the only way to remember them in our memory & pay our sincere tribute to them by continuing their remaining unfinished works with more dedication and sacrifice.

Bipin Shroff Editor, Vaishvik Manav Vad (Gujarati monthly) ***************** Remembering Prof Amalan Datta The sudden demise of Prof Amalan Datta in Kolkata recently was a great loss to the Radical Humanist Movement in General and to the intellectual movement in particular. He was a great social scientist and a great economist. He was very much influenced by the ideas of M N Roy and Mahatma Gandhi. As a college student I used to read his writings in the R/H weekly since 1955. It was a great pleasant surprise when we read Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein admiring the little book “For Democracy” of Amalan Datta in those days. I had met Amalan Datta for the first time two decades ago when he attended “The Radical Humanist Association National Conference” in Hyderabad along with Justice Tarkunde and Prof Sib Ray. He spoke about Rural Development and Decentralization. Later I had congratulated for his speech and asked him a question, what is your opinion about the concept of Satyagraha. His reply was “Gandhi’s greatest contribution to mankind is Satyagraha”. He also told me that he had given three lectures on Mahatma Gandhi at North Eastern Hill University, which was very much appreciated even by western scholars. My last meeting with Prof Amalan Datta was in 2002 at a seminar in Hyderabad. That was also the year of Jayaprakash Narayan’s birth Centenary. At my request he wrote an article on JP as a tribute. He also told me that he had worked with JP in Bihar. I am happy that at my request Prof M. Sivaramakrishna, a Retd. Prof. of Osmania University, reviewed two of his latest books. I must thank the editor of RH, Dr. Rekha Saraswat for publishing those reviews. At my suggestion Dr. Rekha also serialised Amalan Datta’s Kamala lectures on Third Movement in RH. I appreciate if the RH serializes Amalan Datta’s lectures on Mahatma Gandhi in Amala Datta’s memory.

Ravela Somayya Veteran Radical Humanist & Socialist *****************

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Prof. Amlan Datta: Perennial Source Of Enduring Values.

Professor Amlan Datta has always been one of those rare thinkers whose writings reflected a rare balance between uncompromising optimism about the current Indian ethos alongside unblinking awareness of its blind spots. He was certainly puzzled by some transitional oddities but never suspected or cynically ignored the innate resilience of India’s integrity to stubbornly defend and preserve the core of its democratic values animating every field. And Professor Datta had something precious and pragmatic to offer in virtually every area of concern.

It was my privilege to read and write about one or two of his books. It was always a stimulating experience to share, as a reader in the excitement and energy with which he approached the various areas on which he had, in his own words, “reasonably clear ideas”. His inclusive humanism reflected a rare openness and accessibility to areas which generally fall outside, quite often, most radical stances. For instance, Professor Datta was among those few who examine phenomena of a religious nature as still vibrant moves of perception which affect behavior. He never dismissed them with that superior disclaim which marks most academic engagements.

Professor Datta remains not as a transitional intellectual but as a perennial source of enduring values whose recovery and absorption have never been more needed than now.

Professor M. Sivaramkrishna, (former) Chair, Department of English, Osmania University, Hyderabad. *********************** Here was a man of true substance, integrity, and valour of values, and morals. He stuck to his intentions and honoured his words. He was never flinching about his views or conundrums about life. He kept a straight outlook on all that happened in and around his own sphere of thinking and attitude, and genuinely respected the growth, vision, and meaning of the radical humanist movement. He was one with its spirit and always welcomed newer ways and philosophies of how to live a radical, humanist, rational, and intellectual life, without ever being anything less of a gentleman. He was the gentlest of souls that ever lived. No one remembers him being outwardly angry or flustered over anything. He took his own time to explain his point of view always with subtle humour in it so that everyone, despite their varied types of outlooks on life, came to love him and respect him for the person he was. He was a loving man. And all his friends, family, and even chance acquaintances are going to miss him deeply and profoundly.

Mallika Saraswat, City University, London, U.K. ************************* Bidding Adieu to Prof. Amlan Datta Prof. Amlan Datta breathed his last at his residence at Salt Lake in Kolkata on 18th February 2010. For the whole world he was a distinguished economist and educationist. He was known to them as the former Vice Chancellor of Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan, and of North Bengal University. But we today miss him as one of the stalwarts of the Radical Humanist movement, one of the last survivors who had been lucky enough to be in the company of M.N. Roy and Ellen. We will feel his absence, from now on, in all the Executive body meetings of the Indian Renaissance Institute (IRI) of which he was a Life Trustee. He was usually reticent during its deliberations, intently listening to each one’s comments and suggestions; but would immediately respond and very clearly and categorically give his valuable opinion and judgment upon any issue when asked for. He was one of the Contributory Editors of The Radical Humanist journal since January 2006. Although, he was not able to write continuously for the RH due to his failing health (and would sometimes ask me to request Prof. Rama Kundu to translate his recent Bengali articles into English for the RH which she would often do) he was a great moral support for us. The Radical Humanist family is aggrieved at this irreparable loss and sends its heart felt condolences to his family members. —Editor, The Radical Humanist ************************* 4

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Amlanda: the Voice of Sanity amidst Darkness and Chaos —Rama Kundu, He has left countless articles, speeches, and quite a Contributory Editor, The Radical Humanist number of books. Posterity will know and be enriched if these are catalogued, collected and made available in carefully arranged volumes. One thing must be mlan Datta, our Amlanda, has left us. On mentioned about both his writing and speech; the Thursday, 18 February, while talking to remarkable way in which Amlanda used to build up an some young people he had a cardiac arrest; did not even argument, so neatly structured by logic, and at the same give a chance to the doctor to have a try; by the time the time cemented by the honest perception of a penetrating doctor came he was already gone, for ever. mind, which is furthermore flavoured by the mellowness It is just like him— as if he had been talking with you, of a genuine heart. He spoke just as he wrote—never while walking quietly side by side, then suddenly at a impassioned, never excited, but always calm, perfectly turn of the road, bidding good bye with his unique smile, poised, even to the extent of tenderness enlivened by and quickly disappearing at the end of the road without humour, and always after sincere honest search for truth once looking back. and freedom . Another quality, a rare one for a good The slender frame clad in the simplest clothes, going speaker, was his willingness to listen to others, to the along his way, often alone, absorbed in thoughts, or other viewpoint/s, and his patience with other opinions sometimes quietly listening to somebody else, — a most and ideas. He would never offer to do the thinking for unassuming man. No siren-hooting convoy to scare the others; but would only invite people to think calmly on pedestrians, no camera-flashing media persons their own, without malice or passion or violence, and act shadowing or busybodies following; who would have accordingly. imagined here was a man who had worked as the Amlanda’s field of activity also extended beyond the Vice-Chancellor for two full terms in two universities, academy. He was an activist in his own way. He would Visva-Bharati and North Bengal, in addition to be actively present, speaking, deliberating, setting the functioning as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (education) of direction in various seminars, workshops, conferences Calcutta University, the Director of Gandhi Education of the Radical Humanists; he would be always present in Trust, representing India in the Social Development a meeting of the Jignasa Educational Society, started by Commission of the United Nations, making Shibda, following his return from Melbourne; during the lecture-tours from Australia to China, Denmark to terrible riot of Bhagalpur in the early ’90s, he would be Japan, and West Indies to disseminate the ideas of lending his most able support to Gaurda in small group Gandhi and Rabindranath, across the world, and also to discussions and big gatherings to promote the cause of tell the world about the problems and prospects of peace and humanity. Already he was 82 when the education and economic development in India? And all peasants’ movement in Singur started. He had along he had been writing too; it began with the book personally gone there, visited the ruined families, met For Democracy (1953) and went on uninterrupted till the desperate women and men fighting for sheer the end; though he had started his professional career as survival. He has written article after article in the few a bright scholar and teacher of economics, he continued newspapers which would publish the daring writing to write, both in English and Bengali, for a broader during these days when rural Bengal has been bleeding audience, and ‘for’ the good of this society, the people, from end to end, from Singur to Nandigram; he the youth, and also perhaps for some ‘ideal reader’; personally visited places, staged hunger strike, spoke to because who else would have been ready to listen to and various kinds of gathering, ignoring age and frail health. understand his persistent voice of sanity and courage I remember a day; it was the poila (1st) Baishakh of through periods of darkness, chaos, turbulence, violence 2008; I came to learn in the afternoon that during the which have threatened India and the world, and scarred morning a long procession had marched the roads of Salt West Bengal in particular decade after decade.

Lake, Kolkata, and the procession was led by the

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THE RADICAL HUMANIST eminent duo—Amlanda and Shibda, both already in their eighties; at the end of the march the gathering was addressed by both. On learning this I gave him a ring, anxious about his health as I was. But what a reply I got to my query! Amlanda said, with his habitual witty touch, ‘Look here, some people would make something of a speech in reply to the query, “Sir, how are you?” But I prefer to say, ‘chole jabar age paryanta chole jete parlei holo’( It’s enough if I can go on till I am gone.).

A man of extraordinary courage, he would not submit to coercion, or budge from what he thinks to be the right stand; yet he would never raise his voice above the gentlest pitch, never pitch up a quarrel. All this speaks of an enormous inner strength. Perhaps it was this strength that worked behind his extreme self-control. I recall two occasions: one was the evening of a Jignasa Society Meeting in Kolkata. The very same day Amlanda’s father had passed away. Naturally nobody expected him to turn up in the meeting; yet he came , right on time, delivered his inaugural address in calm tone, and without a single mention of the bereavement. The other was also a meeting; it was after Gourda’s death. After saying a few words Shibda too broke down, his voice choked in tears, and could not speak any more. But Amlanda completed his speech in a calm tone, though sadness was dripping through his voice, and through every endearing mention of the name ‘Gaur’.

Many people may not know that there was a child in him who was fond of children, who loved to play with them.

Can I ever forget 1987 Dehradun Conference on the occasion of M.N. Roy birth Centenary? One morning, at breakfast Amlanda was missing. Seniors were looking

MARCH 2010 for him, in the room, in the hall, at the breakfast venue; at last he was discovered sitting on the floor in a remote corner of the hotel, with my son (then 7) and Shibda’s granddaughter (then 5), all three deeply absorbed at some play.

Amlanda, a thorough rationalist, had donated his mortal body for the benefit of medical students. In a beautiful and befitting last journey his admirers, former pupils, friends, artists, intellectuals, members of civil society and others followed him singing Tagore’s songs and patriotic songs. Perhaps this would have pleased him.

No big fuss of VIP visitors shedding profuse tears, or pulling long faces to display anxiety or worry on the patient’s account; he would not have cared for such big show at all; and given the chance, he would have just dismissed all such things with his wonderful, slightly amused, benign smile.

So many fond memories are crowding in. Amlanda reached the age of 60 when he was still the Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati; there was many a request to him from all corners for continuing; but he was firm and said, ‘One should know when to stop’.

Amlanda, had the time come to stop? Yet even two days ago you had addressed a meeting; a few days ago finished an essay; even at the moment you were still talking to young men. Then suddenly the young man of 86 stopped. Shibda had wanted to go like the yellow leaf spinning down. You had said, ‘It’s enough if I can go on till I am gone’. Both of you went away as you would have. For us who remain some losses are too benumbing for tears.

From the writings of Amlan Datta: There is in the modern society a law which, for want of a better name, we may call the law of centralisation of power. Marx observed its operation in the specific context of capitalist society based on private property and called it the law of concentration and centralisation of capital. He thought that as ownership of the means of production got concentrated in a few hands, society would be polarised between two hostile classes. However, a new middle class has developed in modern society, a class composed chiefly of bureaucrats and professional people, who would thrive just as well in the public or ‘socialised’ sector as in the private sector of the economy. It would appear that Marx’s law is a particular expression of a more general tendency. The way bureaucracy has developed under different social systems in our times provides instructive illustrations of the working of the law of centralisation of power. It is interesting to note how the scientific outlook, in one of its dominant forms in the age of high technology, has lent intellectual and moral support to this centralising process. ...........

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Amlan Dutta (1924-2010) – Going Beyond Materialism —Bhaskar Sur reasoned and eloquent defence of freedom reminiscent Secretary, Indian Radical Humanist Association of Mill’s similar defence of free thought in ‘Of Liberty’.

No less a person than Albert Einstein wrote a adulatory letter to its author after receiving a copy of the book. In An age came to an end as Prof. Amlan Dutta breathed his his next book on Soviet economic development, he th last on 18 February, 2010. In his lifetime he came to exploded quite a number of myths and sought to prove epitomise an ‘engage intellectual’ speaking for our that it could have been achieved without any dictatorship common human concern, human dignity, intellectual and with much less sacrifice. Maurice Dobb, the eminent freedom and, above all, a social transition which would British Marxist economist joined issues with him but be peaceful and sustainable. conceded some of his points. Despite the high quality of Amlan Dutta was born in 1924 in the district of Comilla, his works on Economics, he did not concentrate his now in Bangladesh. A bright student, he studied energies on it, as did many of his contemporaries but Economics at the prestigious Calcutta University to preferred instead to explore wider social and become one of the toppers, in its golden days. He started philosophical issues related to Economics. His main his distinguished career as an educationist in 1947 and concern was not so much economic growth to be serving as a Vice Chancellor, first at North Bengal measured by G.D.P. and other indicators, but quality of University and later at Visva Bharati. As a Vice life which is not easy to measure.

Chancellor, he set up an example for independence, There are at least three distinct phases in his intellectual integrity, competence and vision. He also lectured life. The first phase - the longest, lasted for about three widely in Europe, USA and China. He edited ‘Quest’ decades, the dominant note of which was the along with Abu Syed Ayub but resigned in the wake of Enlightenment values like the autonomy of the controversy regarding its funding. He also held other individual, the spirit of enquiry and freedom from important positions. He was the Director of Gandhi poverty and oppression. The thinkers who mattered Education Trust between 1978-79 and represented India during this period were M. N. Roy, Bertrand Russell and at U.N. Social Development Commission in 1979. Visva the Weber. His ‘Cooperative Socialism’ written during Bharati honoured him with Desikottam as recognition of this period evinces that he was thinking of an economic his rich contribution to the letters. system free from the crushing weight of a command More than an educationist, he is better known as a economy as well as anarchy and alienation which are the towering intellectual, stylist and wit. In the early 40s inevitable outcome of an unbridled market economy. when he grew up, Calcutta had still a vibrant intellectual His thinking took a new turn around the beginning of 70s life which he was nourished by. In his early youth, of the last century. The two thinkers who became almost Amlan Dutta emerged as a fierce polemicist taking part the ‘masters of his soul’ were M.K. Ghandi and in ideological debates and flooring his opponents. The Rabindranath Tagore who were not materialists and turning point of his life came in 1946 when he met M. N. whose approach to life was fundamentally different from Roy at Dehra Dun. Roy exercised a tremendous either Roy or Russell. However, he seems to have been influence on this budding intellectual, directing him influenced, almost as powerfully by a host of thinkers towards the quest of truth through critical reasoning. By who proposed to go beyond the Cartesian framework this time the Bengali intellectual life came to be eclipsed and develop a world-view which sees human beings not

by Communism. Royists took their principled position in conflict with Native but as her integral part. The firmly on the side of freedom and opposed Communism ecological concerns, the danger of conspicuous not from a liberal political plank but from a radical one. consumption and the invasion of mass culture all set men They saw Communism as a collectivist and authoritarian like Shoemaker, Ivan Illych or Eric Fromm visualise a ideology and a denial of the critical tradition which non-consumerist, communitarian society as an forms the core of Marxism. His first book ‘For alternative. Dutta as a bi-lingual author set himself to Democracy’ must be read against this perspective. It is a 7

THE RADICAL HUMANIST develop and disseminate this view in a style which is limpid, precise, and cogent and yet makes demand on hermeneutic understanding. The work which best represents his views of this period are Kamala Lectures delivered at Calcutta University, A New Radicalism (1989) and his books in Bengali like Dwanda and Uttaran ( Conflict and Transcendence) and Gandhi O Rabindranath (Gandhi and Rabindranath). What is evident from such works is his journey towards a new horizon away from the materialist-mechanistic epistemology. Much as he respected Amlan Dutta, Sibnarayan Ray nevertheless felt the growing gulf between them.

The third phase roughly encloses the last twenty years of his life when he would further develop the idea of a synthesis between reason and religion. He came to realise for a variety of reasons which are not always ‘irrational’, most people would remain believers but if mankind is to be saved from the competing fundamentalisms, religion must be tempered with reason. Actually, he was going back to Immanuel Kant’s Enlightenment text ‘Religion within the bounds of Reason’. In this respect he found Rammohan Ray to be a profound thinker, first ever to have tried the comparative study of religion. A total rejection of religion as M.N. Roy passionately pleaded for, is neither practicable nor desirable. Humanists, therefore, ought to overcome their prejudice against religion and religionists on their part, must accept reason and the emancipatory project of the Enlightenment. It is how we can put up an effective fight against obscurantist fundamentalism of different hues.

He also came to appreciate the importance of traditional knowledge systems and the communitarian initiative as

MARCH 2010 a bulwark against corporate globalisation and the wanton destruction of Nature for short term gains.

Amlan Dutta with his varied interests, passionate appreciation of literature and other arts, his unfailing commitment to society and human warmth was a product of the 19th century Bengal renaissance. Unlike most of the economists of our time, he was not a ?specialist’. He was temperamentally averse to separating economics from ethical norms and sustainability. He was as much a social scientist as a litterateur. He loved the company of fellow human beings shared their joys and sorrows. He did not suffer fools but his wit sparkled on all occasions. His was a genial humour without any trace of malice. He was also remarkably free from intellectual pretensions which so often create distance between an intellectual and his fellow human beings. Once he went to Ghana as a personal guest of K. Nkruma, the intellectual president of the newly independent country. When he reached the Presidential Palace, the guards refused him entry as Dutta failed to impress them with his sartorial simplicity.

So he went back to his hotel without any rancour or resentment. When Nkruma impatiently rang him, he told him about his experience in an amused voice. The President profusely apologized and rushed to the hotel to bring him back. He was an eclectic and combined in himself some of the sterling virtues of the East and West.

He was a strict disciplinarian, hard working and extremely finicky about his style which alone, I think, ensures him passport to immortality Time can be very treacherous and we do not know how he will be judged by the posterity as a prodigal genius or a genuine humanist without any dogma even one of rationalism.

From the writings of Amlan Datta: Reason, as we said earlier, is a genus with multiple species or a spirit with many incarnations. The leading reason of an age is the reason which manifests itself through its leading institutions and styles of life and work. The hallmark of the Middle-Ages was a kind of classificatory reason, which found expression as much in its caste system as in its grammar and jurisprudence. The characteristic reason of the modern age is the kind that works through the commercial and bureaucratic organisations which dominate our lives and society. This is what essentially a pragmatic and mechanical reason is. It tends to treat what it tries to understand as a machine, whether it is the physical world or society, the human body or even the mind. It has many practical triumphs to its credit. But it has also its grave problems.

These relate equally to the forms that it has historically created and the spirit which it temporarily represents in conjunction with those forms. ...........

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Amlan Dutta: A Different Perspective —Dipavali Sen quarters were rather palatial – although in a very ethnic Book Reviewer, The Radical Humanist style. And the Vice-chancellor was the Amlan Dutta I had heard so much about. I was awe-struck. He put me – then the junior most members in the entire academic mlan Dutta — I first heard the name, when staff of Visvabharati – at ease. “I had known your as a student of Class 9, I took up Economics grandfather when I was a young student – and on getting as a subject for the Higher Secondary Examination ( to know that his grand-daughter was here – I just wanted taken in 1971).I had it from my mother who had had got to see you”, he explained.

Economics as a Pass or subsidiary subject in her BA Hons. course. Reminiscing, she told me that in her When I left, he asked to drop in occasionally. student days, she had heard of Amlan Dutta as a most I never did. In one’s youth feelings are rather promising economist. Five or six years her senior, inexplicable. I had made up my mind that whatever fault Amlan Dutta was still sufficiently young to be regarded he found with me in course of his vice-chancellorship, it by her peer group as a “ brilliant student” and “a good would not be sycophancy. debater”, In fact , there were a couple of girls among her But I did get to know him and him to know me – through friends who were rather keen on him. In spite of his work. diminutive stature and limp, he was an attractive figure For soon it was formally conveyed to me that he mad to them. made me the Co-editor of the news bulletin of I next heard of Amlan Dutta (Amlan-kusum Dutta, to be Visvabharati. Thrilled, I was, and also apprehensive exact) in 1979 when I was at the Visvabharati about how good I would be at this additional chore.

University, as a lecturer in the Department of I may have been reasonable because there were no Economics. Amlan Dutta was coming there as our complaints from any quarters, but there was one aspect Vice-chancellor! What I heard next was that on his my co-editor and I just could not take care of – bringing joining, several officials of Visvabharati had gone to the bulletin out in time. That depended upon the visit him with the purpose of making a good first publications machinery of the university and was impression on him. beyond our control. The Visvabharati News came out “Apnar shonge parichoy korte elam” (We came so that with long time-lags. you may get acquainted with us).

On 7th of Pouch (usually 23 December) Visvabharati What they got was a terse reply: “Kajer madhya diye-i holds a prayer meet at Chhatimtala, the foot of the parichoy habey” (We shall get acquainted through work Chhatim (Saptaparni) tree in the shade of which Rabindranath’s father Maharshi Devendranath Tagore itself.)

The idea floating around was that he was a most upright had got his flash of revelation. It is the tradition that the person who tolerated no sycophancy and lived strictly Vice-chancellor conducts that prayer meet and his according to Gandhian principles. He was not taken in Chhatimtala speech is published in the Visvabharati by fawning or flattery and came down hard on those who News.

In the morning of 23 December, 1981, as the prayer meet were trying to curry favour with him.

I was surprised and a little worried therefore when I got a was over and the crowd at Chhatimtala started to message that he wanted me to visit him at his residence, disintegrate, I wound my way through the people and the Vice-Chancellor’s quarters at Purva Palli, next to the reached the Vice-chancellor who was coming down from the platform at the foot of the Chhatim tree, his railway lines.

I went, of course, and met him – and found him a rolled-up ‘speech’ in hand. soft-spoken man with a friendly smile – opening the I requested him for the speech, for publication in the door and letting me in himself! The Vice-chancellor’s bulletin, and suddenly, he replied rather abruptly, in a vexed manner: “Diye ki habey? Berobey to chha-mash

A

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parey! (What’s the point giving it? It’ll take six months for it to be out!”) And he walked away.

The crowd was still moving all around – dispersing – heading towards the mela grounds where a three-day fair was to be customarily held on this occasion.

But I stood fixed to the spot. The entire festive mood had gone out of me.

Then – within a couple of minutes – I found the Vice-chancellor walking back to where I stood crestfallen.

He held out the rolled-up papers, and said “Here it is”, with a smile of what I can only call exquisite sweetness.

He had the sensitivity to realize that he must have spoilt the morning and perhaps the whole three-day festivity for me!

In course of his Vice-chancellorship, Amlan Dutta had gone on a tour of China. In those days, China had not opened up and it was a great thing to be able to visit it. I remember how eagerly we sat and heard him recount his experiences there.

Another time – at Simhasadana - the hall at the bell-tower of Santiniketan – there was an evening discussion presided over by him. Amlan Dutta stood up to speak – and somehow – I do not remember how exactly – he came to mention the Mahabharata “Juddhota kintu jami niye noy” (…the fight however was not about land …). I remember this one sentence.

The epic battle had not been fought over land or property, but about what was fair and just.

He would have spoken more – but there was some disturbance and disruption as people were chattering among themselves and some students possibly were being a little too noisy...

Suddenly we saw Amlan Dutta get angry – and coolly,

very coolly, say that he could not possibly speak under such disrespectful conditions.

He walked away.

As 1983 began I put in an application for being relieved of my responsibilities as the co-editor of the bulletin. I was expecting.

The Vice-chancellor paid no attention to my application and in end-February I put in another, saying I was stopping work even if I did not get a letter relieving me!

This time the Vice-chancellor called me to his office and asked me what the matter was. I explained about the baby that was on the way, but he did not see why I could not do a light job such as editing, even under those momentous circumstances!

Nor can I, now, but then in those days both my circumstances and I were different.

I did get relieved, and then after a lot of EOLs (Extra-Ordinary Leaves) taken under extra-ordinary circumstances, even resigned from the main job that I held at Santiniketan – that of a lecturer in the Economics department.

By then, Amlan Dutta too had gone from Visvabharati – if I remember correctly – rather early.

There has been no contact after that.

But then – ages later when in 2007 my first book review at Radical Humanist was published, I found that the same issue carried an article of Amlan Dutta. I mentioned the fact to my mother (frail, ailing and dying the very next year at the age of 79) as I showed her my book review.

She looked at me in kind of wonder and said, “Something of yours has got printed at a place where something of Amlan Dutta’s is printed!”

My taking up Economics in Class 9 had at last found its fulfillment in her eyes.

From the writings of Amlan Datta: There is in man a creative energy which evolves and unfolds itself through history. The modes of its operation are simultaneously determined by its own nature and by the nature of the environment or the external constraints within which it is obliged to function in any given period. As reason gets embodied in certain institutional forms and rules of practical operation including habits, it tends to become a temporary prisoner of those forms. But it is restless and not permanently at home there, for it is at bottom more than a form, a spirit, a manifestation of that creative energy which is man-in-evolution. ........

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Ellen Roy’s Letter to Amlan Datta dated April 28th 1953 My dear Amlan, So sorry I was remiss answering your birthday letter for Com. Roy, addressed as it was to me! I have lost my resilience this last year and don’t cope so well, just somehow manage to manage, without that supernumerary energy which makes one do things well.

The contradictory rumours about our America trip are explained by the delay in getting the U.S. visas for which we had to change our original plan of leaving early in May, and since we don’t like to travel in the monsoon and air travel is vetoed by the doctors, the plan is now to leave early in October, subject to the visas being obtained soon enough to book our passage in advance, because later in winter it will again be too cold on sea. We hear that visas will surely come, but none knows just when. If our plans work, we shall spend some weeks in November in New York with my brother and our friends there and then go to West, to spend the winter in California where Stanford University has invited R. to do some research on the early history of the USSR and Commintern with the documentary material of the Hoover Institute & Library. Later on there may be a similar assignment at Harvard University’s “Russian Research Centre”. If all goes well it will be a long and interesting trip, ending with a couple of months in Europe, provided the American Universities pay well enough. Titoslavia is said to plan extending a State invitation. Both in New York and California exist special institutions for rehabilitation therapy, where R. may regain completely normal use of his limbs. He still has not the full range of movement of the right shoulder joint nor can he yet close the fist; not that he wants to, very much, but one does not like not not to be able to. He walks also still a abit stiffly, but that is mostly due to a remaining general and muscle weakness, all slowly improving. If you see him you won’t find much change.

Do write again—both to us and for the R.H. Yours sincerely Ellen Roy Dun is also hotter than norma and we are thinking of going up to Mussoorie. .......................................................................................

[Quoted form The World Her Village Selected Writings and Letters of Ellen Roy Edited by Sibnarayan Ray, Anand Publishers Private Ltd. Calcutta-700009, 1979, pp. 183-1884] An Appeal to the State Government of Andhra Pradesh We on behalf of the Indian Renaissance Institute (IRI), the Indian Radical Humanist Association (IRHA), Peoples’ Union For Civil Liberties (PUCL), the Champa–The Amiya & B.G. Rao Foundation, and the Centre For Inquiry (CFI (Delhi Branch) strongly condemn the unwarranted and unjustified arrest of N. Innaiah, Chairman of Center For Inquiry and executive member of the Federation of Atheist and Rationalist Associations of India and his other colleagues namely Subba Rao and Krantikar in connection with the publication of a book entitled as “Crescent Over The World-is a boon or silent holocaust” for allegedly expressing anti-Muslim and anti-Islam sentiments. The said Book was already in circulation for about one year and was not a banned book. In an open and democratic society such issues are required to be debated openly. It appears that instead of proceeding in a lawful manner, the police have succumbed to the pressure of a few fundamentalist organizations. The action of the police is not only selective and mala-fide but a blatant curtailment of the democratic right of the freedom of expression.

We urge upon the State Government of Andhra Pradesh to immediately release the detained persons and withdraw charges leveled against them.— B.D. Sharma, N.D. Pancholi, Rekha Saraswat-Indian Renaissance Institute, Vinod Jain-Indian Radical Humanist Association, Mahipal Singh-Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties, Champa–The Amiya & B.G. Rao Foundation, Jugal Kishore-Centre For Inquiry (Delhi Branch)

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From The Editor’s Desk: The Movement Impasse! (Part II) I wrote in the first part of this editorial, last month that—“There are many new kinds of perplexities that have arisen out of our expectations to judge our movement from so many viewpoints other than the Rekha Saraswat renaissance perspective.” I continue that logic here by saying that in our urgency to identify ourselves with at least one of the established kinds of organizations and movements around us we continue to put ourselves into this predicament of an identity-crisis. We stop being ourselves and try to associate with other popular, flourishing and successful (depending upon their own parameters) institutions forgetting the uniqueness of our movement.

We begin to depend upon the value-judgments—about our efforts and integrity—given by those others who have formed their groups on contemporary micro-level objectives and for whom an ultimate socio-cultural Indian renaissance as envisaged by Roy is neither the end nor the means to attain their limited goals, may they be political, social or cultural.

Or, is it, by any chance, that we ourselves are not clear about the significance and methodology of ushering in a socio-cultural renaissance in our country?

Also, on what lines did Roy envisage the Radical Humanist Movement to grow and develop—should this be our concern (if we still claim ourselves to be Radical Humanists on his lines)? Or should we continue to simply stick his label on our assemblage (to maintain whatever minuscule identity we enjoy in his name) but adopt a totally different approach of action on the plea that his views have no contemporary relevance?

And, most importantly, do we really have a comprehensive understanding of the Radical Humanist Movement without the least ambiguity? To put things straight—are our educators educated yet, after sixty-four long years? Let each one of us reply to these questions to his or her own conscience!!

As far as I have understood ours’ is a movement which

has no boundaries, no set time limit and no such fixed objectives which can be categorized into short-term, long-term or immediate goals. Any thing and every thing which concerns the emancipation of human mind and human life is our motive. Our horizon is as vast as the blue skies and as deep as the green sea.

Our activities begin in the morning from the porch of our house and end in the evening when we come back home, continuing our efforts the whole day long in what ever we do, where ever we go and with who-so-ever we meet.

There can be no intervals in our efforts. We can not stop being Radical Humanists for a single moment in what ever decision we take in life and in what ever we say, feel or express.

A Radical Humanist can never live his life in parts. He can not wear his mission on his shoulders in public and take it off in private. He may be from any field of study or involved in any profession he will make his judgments and analyze situations on the barometer of Radical Humanism. But wait, how to form that barometer? And here comes the million dollar question —what is Radical Humanism?

Once Ellen had written that renaissance is a name which posterity gave to that specific periods of history in which there was a resurgence of humanist philosophy. In her own words, “The Men of Renaissance did not call their movement a Renaissance; but they did feel themselves as a movement, in the sense that several of them, who differentiated themselves from the prevailing atmosphere and pursuits,...conscious of a distinct common purpose....they put man in the centre of everything. This found expression in their scientific and artistic concern with the human body, as well as in their individual and social human relations; one has only to read about Leonardo da Vinci or Erasmus of Rotterdam” Radical Humanism, thus, can neither be merely a slogan to be pasted on banners in meetings and rallies nor just a cliché or catchphrase to be written on placards and carried along in processions and parades to count the numbers of silent spectators and apathetic listeners for propagating it or for proving one’s integrity towards the movement. It is an inseparable yearning that needs to glow in our complexions, to shine in our expressions and to reflect in our behaviour each moment that we live both in our personal and public lives. Radical Humanism is not a façade in pictures; I bet it is a living philosophy!

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Guests’ Section:

Austin Dacey [Dr. Austin Dacey, Ph.D., is former director of Science and the Public, a program of the Center for Inquiry and State University of New York at Buffalo, and author of several articles and books, including The Secular Conscience. He holds a doctorate in applied ethics and social philosophy and has taught most recently at Polytechnic Institute of New York University. This article was published in the “Skeptical Inquirer” in two parts. We published the first part in the February 2010 issue. Following is the second part.Friends are requested to send their comments liberally upon it to me for the RH or they may directly post their comments on the RH Website.—Editor]

Gods and Rockets: A Tale of Science in India (Part II) is a recurring daydream of mine to launch a Itmail-order enlightenment business. It would promise enlightenment not of the Kantian variety, in which Aufklärung comes from uncovering things through reason (clearly no market there). Rather, the product would be wisdom of a vaguely “Eastern” variety, common to the Indian-born religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. All of these link enlightenment to a special practice of “non-attachment” to unreal material things wherein one can transcend the ego and achieve union with the Absolute. All is gained by renouncing it all. Sure, you could try to get to the other side of the pearly gates by getting the keys (how

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much is that going to cost?); or you can get there by realizing that there are no gates. In the late-night infomercials for my product, the quality assurance would go, “Our guarantee: You get Absolutely Nothing or your money back.”

I don’t get to use this joke very often, nor should I. But I have come upon the occasion recently by re-reading the Upanishads, and that in the course of exploring further the subject of my previous column; namely, whether there is a convergence of modern science and classical Indian or neo-Hindu thought.

Reading The Vedas The Upanishads are recognized as the wellspring of Indian philosophy. They date from the so-called Vedic period, between approximately 2500 and 600 B.C.E. The texts of this period, the four Vedas, are in turn divided into four sections, the Upanishads being the most reflective and speculative of them.

By the time I got to Chandogya Upanishad, one of the oldest and most revered, I was reminded that while my enlightenment-by-mail joke is not much of a joke, it is not that much of a caricature either. A sampling: “Bring hither a fig from there.”

“Here it is, sir.”

“Divide it.”

“It is divided, Sir.” “What do you see there?”

“These rather fine seeds, Sir.” “Of these, please, divide one.”

“It is divided, Sir.” “What do you see there?”

“Nothing at all, Sir.” Then he said to him: “Verily, my dear, that finest essence which you do not perceive—verily, my dear from that finest essence this great [fig tree] thus arises.

“Believe me, my dear,” said he, “that which is the finest essence—this whole world has that as its self. That is Reality. That is ?tman. That art thou [Tat tvam asi].”1 “Now, when one is sound asleep; composed, serene, and knows no dream—that is the Self (?tman),” he said.

“That is the immortal, the fearless. That is Brahman. . . .2 The past, the future, and what the Vedas declare— This whole world the illusion-maker projects out of this.

And in it by illusion the other is confined.

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Now, one should know that Nature is illusion [maya], and that the Mighty Lord is the illusion-maker.3 Just as I felt I was not going to get it, Kena Upanishad assured me I might be on to something: It is not understood by those who [say they] understand It. It is understood by those who [say they] understand It not.4 It was hard not to be reminded of Feynman’s remark that if you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don’t understand quantum mechanics. The Upanishads set forth a majestic metaphysics of ?tman and Brahman. The latter is the ultimate or Absolute, the universal principle as encountered objectively; the former is that same Absolute as encountered subjectively. ?tman, or Self, manifests in individual selves. Brahman manifests in the universe and in individual divinities.

Carl Sagan once credited Hinduism with being “the only religion in which time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the earth or the sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.” The Vedas: “Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahman, the limitless One. . . . Truly, for him east and the other directions exist not, nor across, nor below, nor above.”

In a series of celebrated addresses to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Swami Vivekananda sought to portray Hinduism as a universal faith on which the world’s religions and sciences are converging: “From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in Hindu religion” (emphasis added).5 Today the same strategy is still seen, stripped down to a crude ideology, in the discourse of the Hindu Right or Hindutva movement. A textbook published by the Hindutva organization Vishwa Hindu Parishad describes the Vedas as “not just old religious books, but as books which contain many true scientific facts,” saying that “these ancient scriptures of the Hindus can be treated as scientific texts.”6

A Saffron Science?

Is this a historical thesis about the causal role of Indian ideas in the actual development of science? If so, then it is flatly false. Indian philosophy had very little readership in Europe until the early 1800s, more than a century after the methodological revolution launched by Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Huygens, Hooke, Boyle, and Newton was more or less complete. Indian thought was most influential on post-Enlightenment and Romantic figures like Arthur Schopenhauer, who believed that science fails to grasp the “inner nature” of things. Far from being an inspiration for modern science, the Upanishads were most useful to those European thinkers who felt that empiricism was missing something.

If “Vedic science” is not a statement about the intellectual genealogy of modern science, what is it?

Perhaps it is the idea that ancient Indian thinkers independently discovered key insights of the sciences or at least something that resembles them. Maybe Vedic science is not so much a historical thesis as an analogical thesis. Consider the nature-is-illusion doctrine, or maya, here in a comment from the chapter on “Hinduism and Science” in the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science: Maya has often been castigated as a pessimistic concept describing the spatio-temporal world as worthless and illusory. The growing interest in the ideas of quantum entanglement and multiple possible worlds by quantum physicists might provide a welcome note for the dynamic and positive interpretations of maya, which hold that the world is “real while experiencing, but not independently.”7 In contemplating the doctrine of maya, the author is reminded of the weird world of quantum physics. But what is the probative value of this resemblance? How much of it depends upon an individual’s level of tolerance for resemblance? I’ve had students with very low tolerance. The more they read, the more everything started to sound more or less the same. A poet once pointed out that any word sounds more like any other word than either of them sounds like silence.8 Suppose there were some acceptable objective criteria for resemblance, and some nonbiased way to sort through the countless Vedic ideas and scientific ideas, so to find relevant analogues. Could we then vindicate Vivekananda’s conclusion that science is echoing the

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Vedas? Why not rather say that the Vedas are echoing science? Remember, we’ve set aside the interpretation according to which Indian thought had a causal role in the history of science. So, we have no more reason to say that science approximates Hindu wisdom than to say that Hindu wisdom approximates science. Given a mere resemblance between an Indian and a European idea, the self-appointed representatives of “the East” have no more warrant to claim the European idea as Indian than the representatives of “the West” would have to claim the Indian idea as European.

Besides, if resemblance is the order of the day, then countless other ancient traditions have equal claim to be “pre-echoes” of modern science. The writings of the pre-Socratic materialist philosopher Empedocles contain tantalizing suggestions (composed in verse) of the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection.

Should we say that modern biology rediscovered Greek wisdom? Greek and Indian wisdom? The whole thing begins to look like a joke. Empedocles was from the city of Acragas in southern Sicily. Do his remarks redound to the glory of Sicilians, Greeks, Mediterraneans, pagans?

There is at work here a deeper and potentially dangerous conceit: in identifying those entities that deserve praise for their science-reminiscent insights, this way of thinking arbitrarily subdivides a complex social reality in the interest of mobilizing solidarity around some community. Who precisely should get credit for the Vedas? Surely not, as the Hindu Right would have it, the Indian nation as a whole, the same nation that is a secular democracy and home to the third-largest Muslim population in the world.

The irony is that the echoes or analogues of contemporary science in world history could be seen as evidence of the universality of science. Instead they are brandished by neo-Hindus and their post-modernist allies as proof of the cultural specificity of science or the superiority of a particular tradition. Despite the undeniable fact that the sciences have their cultural and historical roots in particular societies—Europe in the middle of the last millennium—they are universal in at least three senses. The sciences are universal in scope.

Their validity is not bounded by epoch, place, or people.

They are universal in practice: open in principle to all individual practitioners, fruitfully adoptable by any

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willing peoples. Finally, they are as nonproprietary as any human striving. They belong to no one people.

One With Nothing Vivekananda’s message is now found alongside a quite different one, to the effect that the materialistic worldview of Western science is impoverished and incomplete and must be supplemented by the more holistic, pluralistic, and spiritual outlook of the Indian tradition. And so one reads from the same chapter in the Oxford Handbook: “What distinguishes the Indian way of thinking from what we today call the Western way of thinking is the wholesome connection present in the Hindu world between theoretical, experiential, and transcendental issues.” This is contrasted with “the linearity and immediate convenience that is provided by rigid, reductionistic structures of knowledge.”

For those readers looking for a thorough draining of the cognitive swamp where pop physics and New Age mysticism are brewed together by neo-Hindu gurus, I recommend Victor Stenger’s Unconscious Quantum.

For present purposes, it is enough to note that the neo-Hindu critique of science is in tension with, if not strictly incompatible with, the previous argument for the scientific validity of Vedanta. For if the greatness of science has brought it around to ancient Indian wisdom, as Vivekananda postulated, then to that extent science does not stand in need of ancient Indian wisdom to correct its shortcomings.

In the end, it must be said that in light of modern cosmology, Indian philosophy was dead wrong about the biggest thing of all. We cannot be one with everything. Our world—everything living and inorganic—is a fig seed in a desert. Physics tells us that the ordinary matter that makes up all the planets, stars, and gases—and everything we’ve ever known—accounts for only 5 percent of the mass of the universe. If there is a One, we are not in on it. Its “finest essence” is not ours. We can identify with the fig seed, with life, even with life’s lifeless chemistry. But everything else, the rest of the universe, is near completely, fundamentally Other. The unbiased observer would see we clearly do not belong here. Here then is our self-portrait from the sciences so far, and verily anti-Vedic at that: a fig tree clinging, with the not-fig infinite on all sides. When you do get your

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mail-order-enlightenment kit, it will come stamped, dominant philosophical school of interpretation of Vedic “Void where not prohibited.” teachings.

Meera Nanda, “Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and Notes: ‘Vedic science’” Frontline vol. 20, no. 26 Ch?ndogya 12. 1-3, translation from Robert Ernest December 20, 2003-January 2, 2004); Hume, ed., The Thirteen Principal Upanishads (Oxford: http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2026/stories/2004010 Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 247-248.

2000607800.htm; accessed August 12, 2009.

Ch?ndogya 11. 1, ibid., p. 271.

Sangeetha Menon, “Hinduism and Science,” in Philip Svet?svatara 4. 9-10, ibid., p. 404.

Clayton and Zachary R. Simpson eds., The Oxford handbook of religion and science (Oxford: Oxford Kena 2. 3, ibid, p. 337.

In Edwin S. Gaustad and Mark A. Noll, eds., A University Press, 2006), p. 19. documentary history of religion in America: Since 1887 I attribute this thought to the American poet William (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, Stafford: “I assume that all syllables rhyme, sort of. That 2003), p. 72. The term Ved?nta, literally, ‘Veda’s end,’ is, any syllable sounds more like any other syllable than since the medieval period has come to refer to a either of them sounds like silence.” Thanks to Philip Dacey for this.

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B.P. Rath [Mr.Bagwat Prashad Rath, who calls himself a heretic, is a Gandhian socialist. He built educational institutions, got elected as a chairman of a Panchayet Samiti, resigned and worked as a lecturer in English. A believer in Lokayata philosophy, he is an editor of journals—Vigil-English, Sarvodaya-Oriya. He is also a writer of several novels, poems (in Oriya) and essays (in Oriya and English). He has often been subjected to police harassment, false cases and threats from anti-socials due to his association with people’s movements and connection with human rights organizations. Presently, he is researching upon the works and literature on ancient Indian culture.

Bagwat_prashad@rediffmail.com Phone No. 06856-235092]

Lohia: A World Thinker the world’ Lohia wrote “Let Inushisforessayonce‘Round and for all realize that this (American) is a civilization that is dead, although of course, even as a corpse it can still go an for another fifty years and lead the world into many battles and wars.’1 What Lohia foresaw many decades ago has been cruelly fulfilled. Today, it is the hard – headed scientists who give dire warnings regarding the future of humanity.James Hensen is the chief Scientist of Nasa Goddard Institute. He wrote the famed Book ‘Storms of my Grand Children: the Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and our last Chance to save our Humanity’.

Following the footsteps of Gandhi (Lohia), he took part in a civil disobedience movement and informed the press that he was courting arrest and risking jail –going to save the environment so that the future generations do not

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face extinction. He accused the US Government of not heeding the warnings of the leading scientists of the US. In the meeting held in Copenhagen recently, Hugo Chavez, the president of Argentina, cited the French writer, Herve Kempf’s book ‘How the Rich are Destroying the Planet’ and warned that humanity will vanish from the earth if we fail to reduce our craze for more and consumer goods and our selfish desire to ignore the plight of the teeming world’s poor.

The world’s leading climate science bodies NASA /GISS, Hadley – met, Potsdam climate Impact Institute, NSIDE, ‘SIRO, Bom: each has warned of the dire effects of the impending climate change.

The world’s recent financial melt down has exposed the lethal nature of the global financial system. A civilization which grew on the foundation of greed and violence is in its death gasp.

In parallel with these two disastrous phenomena, the Himalayan disparity of wealth between and among nations, the sectarian identity craze that leads to violence and terrorism, the frantic race to arm the nations to the teeth, are all symptoms of a world in the grip of a deadly monster.

Among the world thinkers to whom we can look for the much needed sea-change or paradigm shift that can save the world, Gandhi is the foremost closely followed by his heretic disciple Lohia.

Some crucial questions cry for answers. One of them is why India was the only country in the world where two atheistic religions had their birth and progress. Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Levi Straus and many other great intellectuals fell under the spell of Buddhism which is based on rationality. Another million dollar question is why none of the great thinkers of the West and Edward Said, the renowned’ denouncer of ‘Orientalism’ (a cultural weapon of exploitation, devised by the West), almost ignored the original contributions of thinkers like Lohia and M.N. Ray, the two great towering materialistic rationalist intellectuals of India?

Can a thinker transcend the intellectual cultural traditions of a country? Certainly not, and that was why M.N. Roy, J.P. and Ambedkar were staunch Marxists in their younger days and gave up their ideologies in favour of cultural values in their mature years. Ancient Indian Yogic values (Non-violence and Truth) not only

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influenced Gandhi and Lohia, but also intellectuals like J.P. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism. M.N. Roy discovered Indian materialist philosophy in Lokayat.

Gandhi called the modern civilization a Satanic one.

Lohia was also an equally severe critic of the West. Both Gandhi and Lohia intuitionally absorbed the best in Indian culture and rejected its abominations like untouchability and the hierarchically graded caste system (Gandhi’s abhorrence of the caste system occurred towards the later part of his career and was most probably due to the influence of Ambedkar). Lohia was a great theoretician and very few other thinkers had such a rich mind teeming with ideas. When the arrogance of the Western ideologues claiming their civilizational superiority collapsed in the holocaust unleashed by Hitler, modernism based on reason was put under the lens. With a supreme sneer, nihilists like Nietzsche, dismissed reason’s claim to authenticity.

Camus pointed out how murder became rational in the twentieth century and he put criminals of passion at a higher pedestal than the criminals of reason.

Post-modernists used reason to question ‘reason’ itself and found it wanting, Zygmunt Bauman analyzed instrumental and procedural reason that plagued mankind through the institutions of the market and bureaucracy. Max Weber, the sociologist, found no light at the end of the tunnel. Reason was faulty in its pedigree. Plato and Aristotle used reason to justify slavery and subdue the women folk. Post-modernists, with a sleight of hand dismissed reason with undeserved contempt. They threw away the baby with the bathwater.

Indian civilization had its foundation in the pre-Vedic days. Reason was the guiding force. That animated the all –embracing supreme Vidya (Knowledge + wisdom) of the age called Anwikshiki (KAUTILYA). Unlike Europe, India in its initial Anwikshikian phase understood pretty well that reason alone does not represent human personality fully. They wisely got reason combined with right emotion and thus escaped the embrace of reason gone astray.

This long introduction regarding two civilizations becomes necessary because Gandhi and Lohia absorbed the Anwikshiki culture both consciously and unconsciously and their personalities could not be properly understood by either the Western scholars or the Arab- loving intellectual Edward Said, because their backgrounds were totally different. Both Judeo-

Christianity and Greek philosophy were Anthropo-centric, particularly man-centric and no mainstream philosopher of the West and Vedic India could escape their grip. Heroes and priests laid the foundation of the Western and Vedic civilizations where as womanly virtues and species- love - centric Anwikshiki guided the pre-Vedic Indians. Gandhi’s acceptance of God and Gita were subjected to his own interpretations that virtually placed Yogic values in the first place in human life. Thus pre-Vedic Anwikshiki got rehabilitated in a different garb. Even then patriarchy colored his outlook in regions like celibacy and Satitwa (Brahmacharya and chastity). Lohia suffered no such inhibitions. He was an atheist and no sexual prudery menaced his natural urges.Lohia rightly advised the Westerners to enrich the vitality of strife by adding poise to it and thus to make it more humane. He was contemptuous of the Indian love of sloth and advised them to shed it altogether. He was unconsciously urging the Samkhya ideal of the rejection of Tamo Guna (sloth) and by replacing Rajo Guna (strife) with the poise-directed actions of Satwa Guna. His penchant for world solidarity also reflected Satwa Guna ideal of the feeling of kinness with the whole living world (20th Sloka of the 18th canto-Gita).Lohia’s philosophical musings on the differences at cognitive levels of the concepts ‘Abstract and concrete’ are notable contribution in the field of ideas. Without embodying the abstract ideal in a concrete aim it is not possible to indulge in praxis. To my knowledge no other philosopher has discussed this point so well.2 He enriched the abstract ideal of one-entity - feeling for the whole living world (the Upanshadic seers simply mouthed it while supporting the iniquitous caste system) with the concrete suggestion of the international brigade of volunteers working in the poorer countries. He was dreaming of a war-free world but was realistic enough to realize that civil disobedience at the time of war is yet to transcend its abstract phase. It has to cross two hurdles (i). Planning the formation of an international brigade of Satyagrahis and (ii). Taking recourse to death –defying non-violent concrete challenge to the armed might of the hostile states.

Like Gramsci’s ideas which stirred the Western world to new level of thinking, Lohia contributed many novel ideas to the progress of humanity. Gramci’s idea of hegemony, though helpful in the analysis of civil

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society’s role in change in society still smells of fatalism.

How can revolutionaries increase their influence over the hegemonising elite? Gramsci’s solution based on the revolutionary organic intellectuals dominating society is totally utopian and no where in the world has such a transformation taken place. Among workers, the supervising or co-ordinating section can rarely function as a community of organic intellectuals of the proletariat because they are very conscious of their higher status.

High-salaried intellectuals associated with unbridled consumerism develop a different outlook from that of the working class.

Lohia is more realistic than Gramsci in the field of hegemonic challenge to the capitalistic state. The oppression – conscious group according to him consists of those individuals whose eye reddens at the specter of injustice and his heart beats in sympathy with the oppressed. He accepts non-violent suffering to fight the evil. While Gramci’s conscious organic intellectual may feel helpless when sufficient number of co-fighters are not emerging to challenge the dominant forces; even an individual of conscience can defy authority and though alone, court jail to further the cause of justice (Gandhi & Lohia). The blow struck by such a conscientious fighter shakes the civil society and his example is followed by more and more people. J.P.’s movement against Indira during the days emergency enthused the youth and India regained its democratic structure soon. Lohia’s idea of ‘shovel- jail – vote – practicing workers’ is more realistic than Gramsci’s wishful thinking regarding organic intellectuals. Gandhi’s salt Satyagraha threw ordinary people into the political arena and not their intellectual abilities but their sacrifice and moral stance converted them into leaders of note. Gramci’s educated organic intellectuals coming from the middle class may be a rarity. But Lohia’s (Gandhi’s) morally sound volunteers may come from all classes, the educated as well as the illiterate. (During communal riots, the educated in India proved to be more notorious than the illiterate - Nandy). Like Rosa Luxemburg, Lohia was an upholder of democratic principles in every field. Rosa, in the words of Lohia, made the actual the ideal. Her experience of the French revolution made her believe that spontaneous uprisings of the masses are possible and these will lead to revolutions. Modern Psychologists assert that mass movements may end in bloodshed and chaos unless they are guided by purpose-oriented 19

non-violent leaders. Like Gandhi, Lohia wanted a cadre of non-violence – loving trained party – workers to lead and discipline the emotionally charged masses in revolutionary situations. The French revolution devoured its own children and the result was the dictatorship by a charismatic personality (Napoleon).

French revolution leaders mostly confined themselves to abstract values like liberty, equality and fraternity.

Liberty and equality can only flourish by standing on the shoulder of fraternity. Had the revolution leaders concretized these values and put them to practice at the initial stage at least among themselves, the French revolution would not have drowned itself in rivers of blood.

Lohia’s ruminations regarding the actual and the ideal need a little examination. He is right in stating that European thinkers like Hegel made the actual the ideal.

Hegel’s quest for the dialectical development of the absolute idea ultimately ended in the Prussian state.

Vedic India including Shankar preached the ideal of Brahma- Vad (all are manifestations of Brahma), but the lack of concrete formulations of the abstract ideal landed them in the hypocrisy of giving importance to the mysticism of word- magic (Mantra). Gandhi concretized the ideal of Adwaita in the service of the lowest of the lowly and by practicing it fired the whole of India’s imagination. Pre-Vedic India concretized the ideal of love and compassion for all living beings in the Yama values and practiced them. Today’s ideal of environment protection will end in failure unless the Yogic value of Aparigraha (minimizing the wants) is practiced by us.

Buddha concretized the value ‘truth’ by making it guide our words and actions.

Lohia’s ideas resemble those of Morris. Lohia spoke, “Organization of violence inevitably leads to concentration of power. The use of violence is a major issue in the world today, and large numbers are beginning to realize that the advocacy and organization of violence is bad even when used for good purposes.4 The principle of non-violence in all situations is a great contribution of Lohia to political ideology. “… an act of Satyagraha or class struggle must pass the test of immediacy and it must not make use of lies or deceit or violence”.5 Needless to say, communism in soviet Russia, China and many other countries faced debacles because they failed to observe the principle of

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immediacy (‘The principle of immediacy’ is a contribution of Lohia to the world of ideas). Expecting to build a stateless society of free people in future, it (communism) unleashed violence of the cruelest sort on the people and many top communist leaders invited the odium of the world humanist intelligentsia.

A student of recorded history can only discern rape and violence blooding the pages of world history. Most of the conquering races were cruel and bereft of any sympathy for their victims. Evolution started four billion years ago. Prof. Lynn Margulis discovered that three billion years ago the process of endo –Symbiosis took place when two hostile bacteria forsook their hostility and formed the first multicellular body (EUKARYOTIC cells). Co-operation and love enabled a hairless ape species to acquire a brain having unimaginable creative powers. A section of this privileged animal species living a nomadic life in the huge grass lands of the world, used his creativity to wipe out the other species to feed on their flesh. A stronger group of such people imposed war on the weaker groups, made their men slaves and forced their women to be sex partners. Civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia developed under the rule of either priest - warrior kings or separate classes of warriors and priests. India was an exception because instead of warrior kings combined, with priests ruling the country, Yogis occupied the front rank in society (Megasthenes). This civilization based on Yogic Values (Anwikshiki) was replaced by DARSAN- based abstract concepts in 100 B.C. (Radha Krishnan). Species violence was abhorred by the Yogis, who were all materialists. Successful Marxism through out the world was only of one variety. It was military Marxism. In ancient India, Chandra Gupta over came the Nandas in a war because he could mobilize the support of some non privileged sections of society. Marxists, too, used the same method for coming to power. Warriors, as psychology reveals, cannot make good democrats Accustomed for decades to lives of command or obedience, how can they accept the commoners as their brothers? Elitism dogged Marxism, from its earliest days. The Western idea of the more civilized people

having a right to lord over the less civilized ones guided the West in invading other nations. Within the West’s borders many noble ideas flowered, though exclusivism put its stamp on Western and Semitic religions and cultures.

Though Yogic ideals were to a great extent manipulated and distorted by the Aryan warriors and priests, pre-Vedic India still retained sufficient vitality to give a message of love and brother hood to the whole of mankind. Both Gandhi and Lohia enriched their personalities by laying under toll Indian’s racial unconscious. Gandhi reinterpreted the sacred books as well as the symbols and myths of India and preached a highly humanist philosophy through his actions. Lohia modernized Gandhi. Ramila Thapar, in her Patel Memorial Lectures, described Indian civilization as non-spiritual. Lohia had a Yogic mind which enabled him to retain its sanity during the periods of torture in the Lahore jail. About Gandhi, Romain Rolland wrote, “All, be they nationalists, Fascists, Bolshevists, members of the oppressed classes – claim that they have the right to use force, while refusing that right to others. Half a century ago might dominated right. Today it is far worse.

Might is Right. Might has devoured right.”6 Rolland also wrote, “For there is no such thing as genius, great by its own strength, who does not incarnate the instincts of his race, satisfy the need of the hour, and requite the yearning of the world.” Gandhi’s was a combination of genius with the ancient traditions filtered through the Gita. Lohia, too, drew ideas unconsciously from the multi-racial unconscious of India.

To be contd................

References: 1. From the book ‘Interval during Politics’.

2. Lohia’s essay ‘Abstract and Concrete’ from the book Marx, Gandhi & Socialism.

3. (Morris, cited in Hulse 1970-108-9) as quoted by S. Mukherjee and S. Ramaswamy in the History of Socialist Thought) 4. “Speech at Pachmarhi, May 1952.

5. Speech at Pachmarhi, May 1952.

6. Mahatma Gandhi.

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Nandana Reddy

[Nandana Reddy is a political and social activist working on issues of democratic decentralisation, human rights, civil liberties and children’s right to self determination. She was born into a socialist family and was closely associated with Dr. Lohia who was a frequent guest in their house.]

Learning The Lohia Way was just 3 years old, playing ball on the Iveranda of the Inspection Bungalow in Red Hills near Madras (Chennai), the venue of the February 1956 first Socialist Study Camp. My ball rolled out into the darkening dusk and I was afraid to retrieve it. Dr. Lohia, who was discussing the day’s events with my parents the organisers of the convention, noticed my plight. He came up to me and encouraged me to get the ball. When I was hesitant and explained that I was scared, he said; “Only bad people are afraid of the dark, and you are not a bad person”.

This, one of my earliest interactions with Dr. Lohia marked the beginning of my Socialist education that spanned more than a decade, and it remains as one of the most important lessons.

It taught me that education or ‘learning’ should enable one to explore the unknown fearlessly. To be able to delve into the mysterious realms of science and math, language and literature, spirituality and the inexplicable and find answers that push the frontiers of ones understanding and empower one to break the barriers of language, cast, religion and gender in order to determine the course of ones life.

Unfortunately education in its present form does not do this. Instead it leads to social stratification and has no relevance to the lives of the majority of children. It does not ensure the earning of a livelihood or even

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employment, it alienates children from their roots, it makes them feel deficient and stupid; but most of all it disempowers children. Children emerge from the system semi literate at best (even after seven years of government schooling - that is if they have survived the system that long); and it discourages questioning and kills their inherent spark for exploration.

Mari Montessori wrote in her book ‘The Discovery of the Child’: “We keep children in school restricted by objects that are degrading to both body and soul, the desk and material rewards and punishments. And why?

To keep them silent and immobile. But where does this lead them? Unfortunately, nowhere! Their education consists in mechanically filling their minds with the contents of a syllabus that is frequently drawn up by departments of education and imposed by law.

Confronted by such a forgetfulness of the continuity of our own lives with that of our children and their descendants, we should hang our heads in shame and cover our faces with our hands! Truly there is an urgent need today of reforming the methods of instruction and education, and he who aims at such a renewal is struggling for the regeneration of mankind.”

So many years after those words were written the education system in India still fits this description. A system evolved and designed by the British to produce clerks for the Colonial bureaucracy and now, software engineers - the new IT contract labourers for the First World.

Education plays a fundamental role in sculpting the fabric of a nation. Today, the fact that we are being overtaken by the negative impacts of a Model of Globalisation dictated by the economics of business and industry is due in large part to the kind of students we churn out of our schools. This education system that is producing the new hybrid Indian is modelled on a development model that promotes competition, corporatisation, consumerism and privatisation and has put democracy and our constitution at risk. Our young citizens are conditioned to be ruthlessly competitive, believing in the survival of the fittest they scramble to join call centres. Ignorant of our rich tradition and culture, uprooted and distanced from their communities and often their very families, these individuals are more comfortable in Burger King than at home.

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An essential element of the Corporate Globalisation Model is social modification. Globalists are committed to social modification or the mass conditioning of people into believing that globalisation leads to pots of gold.

You are not ‘somebody’ until you have a mobile phone, a car, a TV, and wear a suit with a personalised clock-in swipe card hanging around your neck. Give up your identity, your language, accent, roots and don the mask of globalisation – then you have ‘arrived’.

In a society supplied with an abundance of material goods, in which information is carefully controlled by the mass media, and in which independent thought is discouraged from an early age by an education system which rewards conformity, it is possible to ‘opiate’ the masses into believing in a consumer culture. Once there, they can be induced to believe almost anything provided it comes from an accepted authority figure or source, such as political leaders, professors, newspapers with coloured pictures, teachers in the classroom, the lyrics of pop music, and most of all - the TV. A large degree of this kind of social modification is achieved through schooling and our education system.

Therefore our education system cannot abdicate its role in the process that has led to the discrediting of traditional and indigenous knowledge, the erosion of constitutional principles and values such as egalitarianism, non-discrimination, peace and non-violence, equality, participation and rights. [Today, the definition of political participation by ‘citizens’ begins and ends with casting of the ballot if at all and the definition of civil society participation is understood as the ‘participation of the elite’ through self appointed associations or NGOs.] Socialisation and Education: The process of socialising a child can be seen as a continuum representing the quest for independence on the one end and dependency on the other, with numerous possibilities in between. In countries like India the child is socialised towards being a part of a collective, accepting and securing both the rights and responsibilities of the collective, including a share of the burden of the survival strategy of the family. The West by and large socializes beings towards independence where the individual is supreme, when at the age of 18 years – a virtual stepping stone set by policy makers – the child is supposed to miraculously acquire the

attributes of ‘adulthood’ and is pushed out of the nest.

These represent two opposite extremes of the continuum.

A universally acknowledged concept is that of the socialisation of the child is the process by which the child not only seeks to relate itself to others, but to its environment in general. If one examines the process of socialisation of a child - formal school is not the only component. Work, life, the state and the environment are also integral parts of the socialisation processes, more so in developing countries where the interaction and impact of these are more immediate.

This interactive process determines the development of each person, because it is during childhood that the human being is the most prepared and motivated to learn. The richer the process of socialisation, the greater and better will be a person’s life experience. One thing is the classroom; the other is the school of life.

The issue of children, work and education have been inexorably linked through the ages. Initially work was seen as a means of socializing (educating) a child. But cast and economic barriers determined the extent of the child’s access to information and skills and as a response; education was seen as a leveller or equalizer.

Through education, society aimed to give all children the same opportunities.

However, of late the approach adopted is that of promoting compulsory education - the magic wand that supposedly solves all problems. It assumes that if we can push all working children into schools from 9-5 we have solved the problem of child work. Myron Weiner says in his book ‘The Child and the State in India’: “Compulsory primary education is the policy instrument by which the state effectively removes children from the labour force. The state thus stands as the ultimate guardian of children, protecting them against both parents and would-be employers.“ This view places the child as the ward of the State, a meek recipient of a bureaucracy that has proved unimaginative, insensitive and uncaring. Worse still it brands the parents as the ultimate villains that are out to exploit the child. A critique of what actually happens within the four walls of the school and is passed off as education is not allowed, such questioning is considered sacrilege.

The assumption is that forcing children into schools

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automatically brings about the necessary pressure to change the system for the better. The responsibility of change is on the children and the teachers. What happens in actual fact is that the system collapses.

In 1924 Gandhiji wrote in Young India: “All compulsion is hateful to me. I would no more have the nation become educated by compulsion than I would have it become sober by such questionable means. If the majority wants education, compulsion is wholly unnecessary. If it does not, compulsion would be most harmful. I should resist compulsory education at least till every effort at voluntary primary education has been honestly made and failed. There is more illiteracy in India today than there was fifty years ago, not because the parents are less willing but because the facilities they had before have disappeared under a system so foreign and unnatural for the country. It is not reasonable to assume that the majority of parents are so foolish or heartless as to neglect the education of their children even when it is brought to their doors free of charge.”

Let us look at a real life example. Prema is a very poised young girl. She lives in a tiny village called Uppunda that nestles between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats in South India. It is a fishing village. Prema and her family belong to a low cast in the social hierarchy.

The boys in her family are taught how to fish and the girls and women run the home and do all the menial chores. A primary occupation is the collection of firewood from the forests on the slopes of the foothills.

This means waking up at 2 am, walking 10 to 11 kilometres and returning with a head load of firewood by afternoon.

Prema went to school for a few years but found it impossible. She learnt nothing and nothing made sense to her. The teacher could not manage the class of 100 children and just made the children repeat the alphabet and numerals after him. She found no relevance in what was being taught in school to her life. It did not help her cope with her domestic problems; there was no information on health. It did not help her understand the physical and emotional changes she was experiencing. It

did not tell her about reproduction, the protection of her body or childcare. School did not help her to deal with the forest guards when she went to collect the firewood, or show her ways of coping with her position as a girl from a low cast family in a patriarchal community.

Instead, Prema was treated badly in school because of her cast. Finally her teacher told her that she was only good for carrying cow dung and breaking fish heads. She felt humiliated and she left school like many others.

After four years of schooling she could barely read the alphabet.

All children, including working children have a thirst for knowledge and value learning and education, but many have rejected formal schools and the so-called ‘education’ provided within those four walls. The reason is summed up by well by Amuktha Mahapatra. She says that “Schools makes children feel that something is wrong with them, that they are not interested in learning and that they are not fit to be in school. Whereas actually it is the other way around. The school is inappropriate.

Schools are meant for children, who are the clients. If the majority of the clients are rejecting this facility, then something is wrong somewhere. The service provided has to be redesigned if we want children to continue using the facility.”

The Little Prince in Antoine de Saint Exupery’s book by the same name says: “Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.” All children are complex beings, street and working children, more so. Each one of them is a small bundle of contradictions and they teach us something new every day. They are angry yet very affectionate; rebellious but loyal to their friends and loved ones; they often ‘violate’ the law, yet have a strong sense of justice. They feel the need to do the right thing but break the boundaries of so-called ‘morality’ that we have set. Children feel injustice more sharply than adults and possess a strong desire to right wrongs. They want to improve their situation but not according to the middle class norms we follow.

To be contd...................

From the writings of Amlan Datta: Reason, considered abstractly, is an instrument of universal truth. But as a handmaid of practice it is limited and notoriously variable.............

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Current Affairs:

Rajindar Sachar [Justice Rajindar Sachar is Retd. Chief Justice of High Court of Delhi, New Delhi. He is UN Special Rapportuer on Housing, Ex. Member, U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and Ex-President, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) India.]

The Tragedy in Sri Lanka -1ne of the most tragic happenings of the decade is the breakdown of Sri Lanka Ceasefire in 2006 and its aftermath resulting in the horrors of war crime and slaughter of innocent Tamil population of Sri Lanka. Why did it happen and could it have been avoided were some of the questions posed before the Permanent Peoples Tribunal, (successor to Bertrand Russel Tribunal) which had been requested by the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka, and held its sittings from January 14 to 16 at Dublin, sought to answer.

The Tribunal was presided over by Mr. Francois Houtrt, Chairperson of the U.N. Committee on Economic Recession. The writer was one of the ten members of this panel.

As is well known there have been since over a decade warlike encounters between Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the later were virtually running their own administration with unbearable losses to both sides. At last due to intervention by the USA, European Union, ceasefire agreement was signed between GOSL and LTTE in 2002 which was being overseen by Norwegians.

O

I can personally vouch for the comparatively relaxed and hopeful atmosphere that prevailed when our delegation of Peoples Union for Civil Liberties on invitation from some Human Rights Group in Sri Lanka visited it in 2003. The confidence was such that Balsingham the spokesman for Prabhakaran, LTTE Chief, on one of his visits, because of time factor constraint had no hesitation in using Government helicopter to meet Prabhakaran before the start of one of the rounds of peace talk.

However on 2nd January, 2008 the GOSL officially declared its withdrawal from CFA, of course both parties blaming each other for this eventuality.

-2Various reasons were advanced for failure of CFA like the delayed response of the GOSL to begin reconstruction and rehabilitation work in the war ravaged areas and also failing to ensure the social and economic well being of the people thus eroding the mutual confidence. Especially after the Indian Ocean Tsunami Tamils were led to feel neglected, marginalized and discriminated against thus increasing their distrust.

The European Union’s decision to ban the LTTE in 2006 even before the war started has also been seen as a grave error that destroyed the parity of status conducive for the contribution of the peace process. In addition, the USA has been accused of being instrumental in undermining the post-Tsunami Operational Management structure which was put in place as a unified mechanism to carry out joint rehabilitation and relief work in the Tsunami affected areas by insisting that it would not direct money to any joint fund other than the Government Treasury.

But the most crucial reason for breakdown of ceasefire was the attitude of US Government which insisted on excluding LTTE from advanced talks in Washington.

The conduct of European Union in so early withdrawing from talks was explained by impartial witnesses as being due to strong pressure put by USA which because of its own war in Iraq and Afghanistan wanted the logistic support of GOSL which obviously it could not hope to get if LTTE continued to be associated with ceasefire talks.

The Tribunal found that the Lankan Army dropped cluster ammunitions by war planes. There were was frequent use of heavy military against LTTE forces in civilian areas on public building and schools and which constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

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British and French media indicated that during the third week of fighting some 20,000 Tamils have been killed.

Sexual abuse and the rape of women were yet other atrocities clearly proved against Government military and would amount to crime against humanity, and Geneva Convention.

-3The Tribunal rejected the claim that all these war crimes should be allowed as the best means to defeat the most dangerous enemy. This kind of new security paradigm is totally unacceptable. The State cannot be allowed to transgress international norms of Geneva Convention and Rome Statute whatever the provocation and challenge to the authorities by its own citizens – such is the mandate of Human Rights law which is universally accepted.

The Tribunal regretted that after repeated pleas, and in spite of the appalling conditions experienced by Tamils, the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council failed to establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate those responsible for the atrocities committed.

The Tribunal has emphasized that if normal conditions are to be restored in Sri Lanka, the Government must establish as a matter of urgency an independent and authoritative Truth and Justice Commission, to investigate crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by parties in conflict.

The Sri Lankan Government must also implement a political power-sharing solution that gives the Tamil people a proactive and legitimate role in the administration and management of the Northeast, while upholding their rights to equal citizenship, participation and representation at all levels, and ensuring a free, fair

and peaceful electoral process in regard to parliamentary elections scheduled for May, 2010 and allow free and unlimited access to humanitarian organizations, such as the international Committee of the Red Cross, human rights defenders and media in refugee camps.

The Tribunal also urged the international community and the United Nations to appoint a UN Special Rapporteur for Sri Lanka to investigate and identify responsibilities for human rights violations and for war crimes committed by all parties in conflict.

-4I feel that in the matter of restoration of peace in Sri Lanka, Tamil Diaspora, can play an important role. It is well known that Tamil Diaspora in Europe and America was greatly sympathetic to LTTE demand for Eelam – its active help was stupendous.

It has, during the present tragedy, tried to do its best for rehabilitating the victims, but lack of support by the GOSL has greatly hindered its activities. It is rightly not only deeply hurt but also furious at the indignities and brutalities suffered by their brethren / sisters – the same sentiments that every Indian in the country shares.

But in the anger, nothing should be done to bring Tamils in Sri Lanka again on the path of violent confrontation of course much will depend on how GOSL treats Lankan Tamils and whether it genuinely tries to give a humane, understanding touch to the strong sentiments of Tamils in Sri Lanka and gives them an equitable, honourable position in power sharing so that both of them can jointly make Sri Lanka, a beautiful country with bountiful nature free of conflict and move on to a joint quest for a happy, united living without any discrimination of religion or language, each being considered on the same level.

Important Announcement: It has been decided by the Indian Renaissance Institute (IRI) to hold the “M.N. Roy Memorial Lecture -2010” at Indian Law Institute, opposite Supreme Court of India, New Delhi on 3rd April 2010 at 4.30 p.m.

Mr. Kumar Ketkar, the eminent journalist and editor of Loksatta, a leading Marathi daily, has kindly consented to be the Guest Speaker.

The subject of the lecture will be “Today’s Turbulent World and Relevance of M.N. Roy.” Interested friends may write to Mr. N.D. Pancholi, Secretary, Indian Renaissance Institute, New Delhi, to make arrangements for their stay at Delhi and for any other detail at his Mob: 09811099532.

—Rekha Saraswat

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Balraj Puri [Mr. Balraj Puri is an authority on Jammu and Kashmir Affairs. He is Director, Institute of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs, Karan Nagar, Jammu-180005 Ph.no. 01912542687,09419102055 www.humanrightsjournal.com]

Wider Lessons of Khan Calls Bluff of Shiv Sena Mumbai Experience set back that parochial form of TheMaharashtra regionalism has recently received may be controverted with progressive potentialities it had cone displayed. Its experience is of wider relevance in other parts of the country also and needs a more thorough debate than has taken so far.

First, let us recall what happened in Mumbai.

Overwhelming response of Mumbaikars to My Name Is Khan in defiance of Shiv Sena’s call of its boycott, will have deeper lesson and for longer period than any other contemporary event. Though multiplexes were reluctant to open the show in the morning due to the threat of the Sena, soon the houses were full as police arrived to provide protection.

So far Sena was used to be handled by kid gloves and its threats used to work. But this time its bluff was called.

Though police was deployed in large number, still no action was taken against the leaders of Sena.

Whatever differences one may have with the RSS, it has to be conceded that it took the first initiative in exposing the threat of Sena’s parochial regionalism as a threat to its concept of extremist nationalism. The BJP dutifully followed suit and its spokesperson in Mumbai is said to have arranged two private shows for the glitterati of the

town to convince them that there was nothing objectionable in it. Later it reiterated that despite differences with the Sena, the alliance with it would continue. This has demonstrated how two kind of parochialism clash and weaken each other.

These development emboldened the Congress party also. Its General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, in his usual novel style had a one day round on local trains. Sena could not do any thing to prevent it.

This further emboldened Shahrukh Khan also who refused to apologize and asserted his right as an Indian for free expression of his views. After all what was his crime? He regretted non inclusion of Pakistan cricketers in IPL which many other Indians had done. Why was SRK the only target of the Sena’s ire? Except that he was a Muslim? But the foregoing development had somewhat lowered the morale of the Sena and it withdrew the call for boycott of SRK’s film.

Sena Chief Bal Thackery recovered his morale when Sharad Pawar visited him. Whatever transpired between them, the visit was untimely and unwise. Pawar is an important member of the union cabinet and his party is an ally of the Congress in the Maharashtra government.

It was after his visit that Thackery revived his call for boycott of the SRK’s film.

Sena’s spokesman has discounted the extent of popular response to the film. But even it would not deny that SRK’s popularity rating at the national level is far higher than Shiv Sena, if at all it has any. How could North Indians, whose boycott is the latent plank of the Sena have any admiration for it? Even in the BJP ruled state of Gujarat, film was shown to packed hours despite the protest of other members of the Sangh privar like Bajrang Dal and VHP, besides Sena. Internationally also the film has set a record of the rates of tickets. Above all, Shah Rukh Khan has emerged as an icon of Indian nationalism and has emboldened other voices of dissent.

Karan Johar who, for instance, had apologized to Shiv Sean for using Bombay instead of Mumbai, in his film, had offered an apology to Shiv Sena and to correct his “mistake,” has now regretted to have done so.

The Shiv Sena had survived on hate campaign and lack of courage of its opponents. Sometimes South Indians were its target. At other time it whipped up hatred against Muslims. In 1984, Sikhs were attacked. Its current tirade is against the North Indians.

It we go back, at one time the leftists were champions of

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regional nationalism and apart from Maharashtra championed it elsewhere also, when they believed that it had progressive cause potentialities. It did serve a progressive and also acted as a check on chauvinistic nationalism. Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, for the formation of a Maharashtra state, was led by the leftists who became a formidable force when socialist leader George Fernades was called a giant killer after defeating SK Patil, Congress strong man of Mumbai. It was also a period when socialist leaders like Asoka Mehta, Nath Pai, Madhu Limaye and NG Gore were returned to Parliament. It also saw rise of the communist leader SA Dange and trade union movement led by his party. Whey could not the progressive character of Maharashtra regional nationalism be maintained for long? Why could not its progressive icons, like social reformers, be projected instead by distorted and chanvistic image of the symbols that Shiv Sena adopted. For a while it served Congress purpose for weakening the leftist stronghold.

Bengali and Kashmiri patriotism have also shown its positive and negative potentialies. Jyoti Basu’s could set up a record of three decade rule of CPI(M) led

government as a champion of Bengali patriotism and could introduce radical land reforms. But failure of the West Bengal government to reconcile aspirations of Bengali patriotism with those of sub-regional identities was the main cause of the collapse of this citadel of communism.

Similarly it was due to strength of the sentiments of Kashmiri nationalism that it could maintain remarkable communal harmony in 1947 when the entire subcontinent was engulfed in communal conflagration.

Land reforms in Kashmir were also unparallel for its radical content. It was in turn encouraged by India, Soviet Union, America and Pakistan. It could not throw a powerful leadership of its own and control its direction, moreover, its failure to come to terms with the urges of the other regions and non-Kashmiri speaking communities, led to many complications in what is called Kashmir problem. If rightly handled even smaller identities play a positive role. After all it was caste politics that stemmed the Hindutva wave in the UP and Bihar. The advantage of India’s rich diversity is that excesses of one often check those of the other.

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N.K. Acharya [Sri N.K. Acharya is an Advocate, Columnist and Author of several books on law. He was formarly Secretary of Indian Rationalist Association and had edited the Indian Rationalist, then published from Hyderabad on behalf of the Association prior to its transfer to Madras.]

(I)

Cooperative Farming Government of Andhra Pradesh has Theannounced that it will implement the scheme of co-operative farming by stages. Conditions are now propitious for introducing cooperative farming in the state which is predominantly aricultural. During the earlier stages of rural economy, landlordism of various types such as Zamindaris annd Jagirdaris were abolished. So also, all other intermediary tenures including Inams also st ood abolished. Agriculturists owning lands and cultivating them have become free and independent owners of their holdings. The introduction of land ceilings has reduced the size of land holdings to a maximum of 28 acres of wet and 60 acres of dry land.

The tenancy legislations have practically made the tenant a land holder as when the landlord proposed to sell the land, the tenant now gets the right of pre-emption. That apart, agriculture in Andhra Pradesh has become commercialised. Sugar factories and tobacco factories have converted the agriculture factory-oriented in the sense that factories have been giving funds necessary for all inputs and purchasing almost the entire produce at a pre-determined price.

Those who are outside this field have since adopted a novel method of getting their lands cultivated by the

local cultivators. Under this scheme, landholders of small holdings are getting their lands cultivated by others on an agreed return. Thus, the landholders have learnt the art of getting the land cultivated either with the assistance of some other agency or through agency of other cultivators.

Cultivation in Andhra Pradesh has since become scientific. Cultivators have have learnt how to multiply the production of grains by use of fertilizers and pesticides. Thus, the cultivator has become a sturdy individual not to be exploited by anybody. Under these changed circumstances, the introduction of cooperative farming fits in with current social conditions.

Whhat all the cultivators should do under the scheme of cooperative farming is to club his land holding with others and cultivate the same jointly with all others and share the produce. The entire inputs are provided by the agency created for that purpose. The needed labour is contributed by the landholders themselves. They receive interim periodic payments. When the accounts are settled finally at the end of crop season they receive a return as income derived proportionately from his own holding. It is not correct to say that in cooperative farming he becomes a surf with dignity and self esteem.

To say that he becomes a mere wage earner, is also certainly wrong. He earns what all is due to him and for his endeavours and as owner of his own property.

Co-operative farming is experienced in Israil. There the Members of Society are neither independent owners of their lands nor are their cultivators as a class. They are immigrants professing different cultures and cooperative farming is designed for them as a measure of resettlement to get over their hardships. Accordingly, it failed to achieve the objective of cooperation as a social alternative to the exploitative land relations inherent in the old social order. Cooperative farming was also experimented in the Soviet Union. Thre, it was not a voluntary union of cultivators but they were to a compelled relationship. The communes in Soviet Russia have had a disastrous end.

The experiment proposed in Andhra Pradesh is a voluntary association of landholders who all have a unified aspiration to cultivate their lands scientifically and with a drive to produce more for the greater good to the community in addition to their self-improvement. It is certain to bring about a radical change in the

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community of cultivators. Here, it may be relevant to refund with interest calculated as and from the date when note that Mr. M.N. Roy is popular with the enlightened the excess is ascertained. Such refunds must be debitted and progressive farmers of Andhra Pradesh. to the accounts of the assessees at their banks. The question of carrying over the excess to the subsequent years or adjusting the same to any other dues should be (II) dispensed with.

2. Under the present dispensation, the assessee under the Direct Taxes Code Capital Gain Tax, if he purchases another residential house for himself is exempted from paying capital gains he business community as a whole and most tax. This exemption applies only in the case where the of the intellectuals of public finance assessee purchases a residential house and not welcomed the draft Direct Taxes Code which was residential houses. In the context of the need being felt of released by Government of India on 2nd August 2009 the families to have different residential houses or flats for open public discussion. The Code, if passed b y the for members of the family, it is suggested that this Parliament, in its budget session 2010 will come into exemption from payment of Capital Gains Tax should be force from 1st April 2010. The Direct Taxes Code covers extended to cases where more than one residential house the Income Tax, the Wealth Tax and Capital Gains Tax. or flats purchased with the consideration received under The objectives of the Code are simplification of tax the property sold. procedures, elimination of exemptions, providing easy 3. Under the proposed Code, a new jurisprudential access to an independent authority called Ombudsman to principal is envisaged. It relates to tax planning. Since, attend to the grievances and complaints of the assessees, times immemorial it is the right of the assessee to plan and imposition of heavier penalties and prosecutions. his affairs in such a waythat he will have to bear a The tax rates will remain the same for all classes of minimum tax burden. So long as the tax planning is income. The basic exemption limit is increased from Rs. within the ambit of law, it shall be allowed. It is now 1.6 lakhs to Rs. 2 lakhs. The differential treatment proposed that the Commissioners of Income Tax are between long term and short term capital gains tax is invested with the power to ascertain whether the tax removed. The existing levy of tax at different rates on the planning is bonafide or designed to avoid payment of domestic and foreign firms is changed. But in its place a tax. This problem has only two dimensions. If it is special levy of 15% additional tax is proposed on foreign viewed from the point of view of the assessees, the tax firms. The minimum alternate tax (MAT) will here after planning can never be treated as tax avoidance. If it is be levied not on the basis of profits earned but on the viewed from the point of view of the administration, tax value of assets. The exemption from tax on the interest planning by the assessee is sure to be looked at as a earned on investments made in notified savings scheme measure of tax avoidance. In such circumstances, the is raised to Rs. 3 lakhs. In the context of above changes Commissioner’s decision on this issue would the following are the suggestions which may be taken necessarily be arbitrary. No guidelines in this regard can into consideration before the Direct Taxes Code is also be formulated. Hence, this provision relating to conferring of powers on the Commissioners to decide enacted into law by the Parliament.

1. As per the present procedure which is likely to whether a particular method of tax planning adopted by continue, tax is levied and and collected on incomes as the assessee is bonafide or a scheme of tax avoidance, and when earned. The scheme of collecting advance tax should be omitted. from the assessees and the scheme of deducting Income 4. As a rule, the objective of all tax measures is to secure Tax at the source naturally results in refunds in almost all as far as possible its voluntary compliance. That being the cases of the assessees. While interest is being so, it is true that Code envisages several measures which collected on every day of delay in remitting the tax by make it easy for the assessees to comply with the statute. the assessees, an automatic refund scheme should be Since it is never the objective of the tax law to punish the evolved in such a way that the assessee should get their assessees for anything done by them, it is not proper to

T

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provide more offences and prescribe higher penalties.

Right from a delay in filing the return upto the full payment of tax, the assessee is watched closely at every stage as though he is a potential offender.

A humanistic aopproach should therefore, guide the levy and collection of tax. The tax method should never be striking terror in the assessees. It is therefore, suggested that the number of defaults which are treated as offences should be reduced and so also the defaults warranting automatic imposition of heavy penalties, should be minimised. Compounding and not exceeding double the tax involved should be made a rule.

required to stock with the Reserve Bank larger percentage of their cash reserves and also reduce the rates of interest. Even then, there is no trace of fall in prices.

There is however one important way out as suggested under M.N. Roy’s thesis, i.e., introduction of cooperatives among the producers of foodgrains which directly supply the essential commodities to the consumers without the intervention of a long chain of middlemen.

(IV)

(III)

Compulsory Voting

Price Rise the emergency, there were wide During ranging discussions and seminars on the subject of “nationalisation of wholesale trade in foodgrains” as a measure of controlling the prices. That proposal was not persued. The object of the discussion was how to eliminate the middleman in the trade of essential commodities.

The Essential Commodities Act is the legislation which authorises the Government to regulate trade and control prices. It enables the Government to monopolise trade in any or all the essential commodities. Accordingly, several orders under the Act were issued to confer monopoly on the Food Corporation in purchasing and distributing food grains through fair price shops. It also enables the Government to fix prices both minimum and maximum. Notwithstanding the steps which are being taken under the Act, the rise in prices could not be averted. A ban on speculation and forward markets in foodgrain also could not control the abnormal rise in prices. Regulating the movement of foodgrains from one state to another and regulating the import and export in foodgrains also did not achieve the desired results.

Experts say, that inflation is the cause of price rise which in other words means that if there is no money in the hands of people naturally the demand being more there occurs rise in prices. Steps are being taken to control inflation by the Reserve Bank to reduce the availability of excess cash in the hands of the people. Banks are

Right to vote is a basic human right in democracies but in the context of the Indian Constitution it is the fundamental right of citizens. However, the representation of People’s Act has made it a statutory right. Only people above the age of 18 are entitled to exercise their vote. A member of Cooperative Society, a Member fo Association of Persons and shareholder of a Company are all entitled to exercise their vote at General Body Meetings as a n act of exercising their control over those institutions. A citizen is entitled as of right to exercise his vote at all self-governing institutions right from the Panchayats to Parliament as an act of exercising their sovereignity. In democracy, citizen is the sovereign just as a Monarch in monarchies and the dictator in fascist countries. In countries where religion dominates every activity, the religious Heads such as the Pope or the Ayutulla is the sovereign.

Since history has passed through all these stages and democracy is the order of the day, people themselves are the sovereigns entitled to manage all their affairs. Hence, is the importance of their right to vote in electing their representatives to carry on all the administrative and executive functions of the state.

Right to vote involves two things. The first is, whether the person who has the right to vote can choose not to vote. Secondly, whether the right to vote includes a right to reject a person claiming to represent the people.

Supreme Court held that a wholesale rejection by voters stating that “none of the above” is invalid. There is also a third dimension to the right to vote i.e., whether a citizen

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can be compelled to vote at the threat of being punished for not participating in voting. It is this third dimension which has since become controvertial. The Gujarat Assembly has recently enacted a law which made it compulsory for villagers to vote at the Panchayat Elections. But, the Gujarat Act has not provided for punishments which would be imposed on the villager who fails to vote. When an Act defines an offence and does not proide punishments, the Act is liable to be declared not effective of enforcement.

In the case of Gujarat Act, the Legislature delegated the power to prescribe penalties to the Goernment which is

an essential part of its legislative power. In the context of the well established rule that a legislature can not abdicate its essential legislative functions, the Act is liable to be struck down, as well, for its excessive delegation of its powers. Hence, it is better if the Gujarat Assemly brings about in the meanwhile, an Amendment providing punishments. That apart, it is certainly a welcome measure to make the exercise of the right to vote compulsory but not at the threat of prosecution and punishment, but only by facilitating the exercise of the right to vote at the place where he resides through post or through proxy.

Declaration of ownership and other particulars regarding The Radical Humanist Place of Publication: Periodicity of the Publication: Printer’s Name: Citizenship: Address:

New Delhi Monthly N.D. Pancholi Indian 1183-Chhatta Madan Gopal Mali Wara, Delhi, 110006 Publisher’s Name: N.D. Pancholi Citizenship: Indian Address: 1183-Chhatta Madan Gopal Mali Wara, Delhi, 110006 Editor’s Name: Rekha Saraswat (Controls the selection of the matter published in the journal (as per the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1857) Citizenship: Indian Address: C-8-Defence Colony Meerut 250001, U.P. Name and Address of the Individual who owns Indian Renaissance Institute the journal and partners and share holders of more A-12-Neeti Bagh than one percent of the capital: New Delhi, 110049 I, N.D. Pancholi, hereby, declare that the particulars given above are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Dated: 1st March, 2009 N.D. Pancholi Publisher

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Political History of Andhra Pradesh

IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

and Prakasam’s groups were in the Rajaji’s Vellore jail. They did not even talk to each

Innaiah Narisetti [M.N. Roy opined that politics should be studied systematically and history must be written in a scientific manner. Following both these principles suggested by M.N. Roy Dr Narisetti Innaiah, chairman of Center for Inquiry India, has come out with a scientific study of the political history of Andhra Pradesh in the form of a book “Political History Of Andhra Pradesh”. This book with 300 pages covers 100 years of contemporary events commencing from pre-independence days and concludes with 2009 emergence of Mr. K. Rosaiah as Chief Minister. This book narrates how Andhra Pradesh gained importance with the visit of two presidents from USA, namely Bill Clinton and George Bush. Mr. Bill Gates too visited. This happened due to prominence given to high technology. Political parties and their power games, constant defections, hereditary power sharing, and innumerable regional developments, all these aspects are traced in this book. Naxalite movement since 1969 and two turbulent agitations for separate state for Telengana have also been given a panoramic view. How Congress and Telugu Desam parties ruled the state while all other parties remained in opposition and then N.T. Rama Rao dislodged Congress party within nine months during early 1980s and established name for the state in Delhi circles is also discussed in it. CFI India brought out this volume as model study. It is distributed by Akshara. Chapters are divided according to the rule of chief ministers. No sides are taken and the whole presentation is critical and objective. It will be good addition to the institutions, students, libraries. This book is being serialized in the RH, November 2009 onwards.]

other. Later Prakasam’s group was shifted to the Thiruchirapally jail. Rajaji too came to the same place as a result of individual sathyagraha. The Brahmin, non-Brahmin feeling prevailed there also. Arrests in the Quit India Movement drove Prakasam, Tenneti Viswanatham, V.V. Giri, Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, Mullapudi Pallamraju, and Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy to the Vellore jail once again. Kala Venkata Rao, Sanjeeva Reddy, Mullapudi Pallamraju, and M. Bapineedu acted as one group. In the Tanjavur jail, Ranga and Goutu Lachanna happened to be one group, and Gottipati Bramhaiah, Kasu Bramhananda Reddy, Kalluri Chandramouli, Gollapudi Seetha Ramaiah and Mantena Venkata Raju joined together as the opposite group, they were just short of coming to blows. The leaders were set free on parole on some pretext or other. They were all released before the assembly elections of 1946. When these leaders were in jails, the Communists, and radicals took charge of students and farmers’ organizations.

The Congress Committee elections did not take place after the Quit India Movement. When Prakasam went on a tour of Andhra after his release from prison, he collected a lot of money in the form of funds. Gandhiji was travelling by train to Madras to attend the silver Jubilee celebrations of the Hindi Prachar-Sabha, and he was accorded a rousing reception through-out Andhra.

Kala Venkata Rao who was travelling with Gandhiji was suspected by Tenneti and others of having complained against Prakasam. A sum of rupees eighty thousand, not accounted for by Prakasam was the evidence against him. Prakasam became a victim of Gandhiji’s displeasure when he joined hands with Kamaraj Nadar in the Madras political affairs. Gandhiji desired Rajaji to be the leader in Madras. When Prakasam became the President of Andhra Congress, his opponent Kala Venkat Rao happened to be the Secretary. Kala appointed an election committee without the knowledge of Prakasam. There was no representative of Ranga or Prakasam in it. It was decided to elect a new Committee in an emergency meeting attended by Krovvidi Linga Raju, Gouthu Lachanna, Kandula Obula Reddy etc.

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They all had to convince Ranga to that effect and a requisition notice with the signature of the Pradesh Congress members was submitted according to which a meeting was summoned in Rajahmundry. The Committee selected by Prakasam was unopposedly accepted but Ranga’s men did not find a place again.

This attitude of Prakasam enraged Kala Venkat Rao, and he lodged a complaint against Prakasam to the Centre.

Pattabhi, an opponent of Prakasam, later revised the list of the Committee members. But Prakasam and his group behaved like dictators in selecting the candidates for the elections. The Congress was all the more strengthened in the 1946 elections. The communists, who for the first time, entered elections could secure even one seat, whereas the deposits of all the radical democrats were forfeited. The Socialists too could win some seats from within the Congress. The stage was set for the leadership struggle. Gandhiji sent his message, almost an order from “Mahatma” at Delhi to prefer Rajaji’s candidature to that of Prakasam’s. Patel and Azad sided with Rajaji’s and Prakasam was supported by Kamaraj Nadar.

Though Prakasam had the majority support among the MLAs, the Congress High Command put off the decision. Gandhiji accused Prakasam of being corrupt as he had misused public funds. Prakasam challenged Gandhiji but he managed to lure Kamaraj Nadar away from Prakasam. Kala and Gopala Reddy did not spare any effort to sabotage Prakasam’s chances. Despite all this, Prakasam was elected as the leader in April 1946.

Justifying his attitude in handling money, Prakasam accused Pattabhi of collecting funds in the name of the paper, “Subhodaya”. Pattabhi’s followers did not find a place in Prakasam’s ministry. V.V.Giri, Kadapa Koti Reddy and Vemula Kurmayya were taken as ministers and Tenneti, Vennelakanti Raghavaiah and Krovvidi Linga Raju became the Parliamentary Secretaries. But the opponents created such a situation that Prakasam’s Ministry could not continue peacefully. They were able to defeat Prakasam’s candidate, Tenneti, in the Speaker’s election. Hardly a year had passed when Kala Venkat Rao, Kamaraj Nadar, and Rajagopalachari deposed Prakasam with a “no-confidence” motion.

Omanduri Ramaswamy Reddiar became the next Chief Minister in March 1947. His ministry consisted of H. Seetha Rama Reddy, Kala Venkat Rao, Bezwada Gopala Reddy and Kalluri Chandramouli. They had to meet humiliation in Andhra, wherever they went. Kala

33

Venkata Rao introduced a new scheme through which each political sufferer would be given cultivable land on producing a certificate to that effect from the State Congress. Many Political sufferers as well as pseudo-political sufferers managed to get the certificates from the State Congress. Kala’s plan gave rise to several immoral and corrupt deeds. Gopala Reddy as Finance Minister and Industries Minister H. Seetharama Reddy could amass lakhs of rupees in the name of private business enterprises. Vemula Kurmaiah, still continuing in Prakasam’s ministry, joined hands with the opposition and resorted to corrupt practices in fertilizer deals.

Prakasam exposed many immoral and corrupt practices of the ministers. Pattabhi’s group came out with a vengeance and brought several charges against Prakasam.

Ranga surprised these squabbling leaders by winning many seats in the Pradesh Congress elections of 1946.

Ranga, who was abroad, won the Presidentship in a straight contest against Pallam Raju. He also came out with a proposal that the Congress workers should be given financial help. Both Kandula Obul Reddy and Lachanna as Secretary and Joint Secretary to Congress helped the workers. On the basis of Pattabhi’s complaints against Ranga, within a month of his Chairmanship, Smt. Kamala Devi was appointed to institute a probe. Prakasam and Ranga on one side and Pattabhi on the other continued their groupism.

Elections for the Guntur District Congress were made invalid. Ranga as Chairman of Pradesh Congress went abroad four times within five years. In his absence, his followers led hectic group politics in his name. Ranga easily defeated Sanjeeva Reddy in the Presidential election of the Pradesh Congress in 1948.

The Communist Party attracted many workers to the party when most of the Congress leaders were in jails.During the 1946 elections only Pillalamarri Venkateswarlu was elected to the Legislative Assembly as the workers’ representative. The Communists took up tasks like uniting the workers and labourers and fighting for their rights. At times they rebelled against Congress.

The Chief Minister was then the dead opponent of the Communists. Ranga was on similar terms with them. An ordinance was issued in 1947 against the Communists alleging that they were creating chaos and that they could be punished without trial. But after the

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

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Independence on 15th August, all the Communists were released.

They continued to be a menace to the land lords through their anti-zamindari struggle. They created troubles to the officers in collecting food grains. The Government renewed the arrests of Communists. The Malabar Police were summoned to curb the Communists and on 26th September, 1948 the Communist Party was banned. By then, many had withdrawn from the Communist Party.

Vavilala Gopala Krishnaiah, Mukkamala Nagabhushana Rao, Komararaju Achmamba, Alluri Satyanarayana Raju and Venkata Rama Shastri left the party as a protest against the party’s policy of armed-struggle. The naked truth about Communist Leaders was written by Chadalawada Pitchaiah implying Makineni Basava Punnaiah and others. The party dismissed the former. There were different groups within the party. Korrapati Patabhi Ramaiah and C.V.K. Rao who formed a group in East Godavari accused the party of being partial to the Kamma Community.

The Central Communist Party too was divided into groups. The Andhra Party stood separate in its support to the China Communist party. They gave it full cooperation to the armed struggle of the communists in Telangana.

The Socialists left Congress in 1948. At the Party’s call, Socialist MLAs resigned from the Assembly. Gouthu Lachanna was elected for the first time from a seat that fell vacant due to the resignation of Mallikharjun, a Socialist from Andhra.

In the name of suppression of the Communists in Andhra, the Congress Government, with the help of the Malabar Police, acted very brutally. It resulted in increasing resentment among the people towards the Congress Government. The Congress behaved in a nauseating way with their internal fights, and the way they exposed each other. The first General elections after Independence, were announced in 1952. The Andhras

were already dissatisfied with the inefficiency of the Congress in forming separate Andhra. The Communist Party gave a clear slogan for ‘Visalandhra’ including Telangana. The Communists, who came out from the prisons apologised to the people openly in their meetings for their violent actions in the past. They even promised to the people that they would give 5 acres and a cow and a calf to each family if the communist Party came to power. They could gain the sympathy of the public in their meetings by giving a clear picture of the brutality of the Malabar Police against the Communists. Just before the General elections, the Congress in Andhra had its elections. Ranga, who had earlier been the Chairman of the Pradesh Congress, decided to contest again opposing Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy. Kala Venkat Rao tactfully brought the Pradesh Congress members together in the West Godavari district. The State Ministers, Kala Venkata Rao, Kalluri Chandramouli and H. Seetharama Reddy made tall promises to the people. Kala Venkat Rao saying that he had recruited one lakh members to Congress, remitted to the party account, a membership fee of four annas each from the amount he collected from the business organizations. Kakani Venkata Ratnam, along with three other members from the Krishna district, who were with Ranga till then, suddenly turned against him. 25 elected members from Guntur had to abstain from voting due to a stay order issued against them by the court. Ranga, who was hopeful of winning with a majority of 7 votes lost by 4 votes. The winner, Mr. Sanjeeva Reddy, had already resigned from the cabinet. Kandula Obula Reddy was no match to the machinations of Kala Venkat Rao. Ranga and Prakasam did not accept Sanjeeva Reddy’s offer to allot 9 out of nineteen seats in the Working Committee. They convened a meeting at Kaleswara Rao’s residence in Vijayawada where it was decided to form a new party inspite of Kaleswara Rao’s advice to them not to leave Congress. All Ranga’s men left Congress and a new party “Andhra Praja Party” came into existence. ...........................To be continued.

Dear Friends, Please register yourself on the RH Website. Please log in to it to give your comments on the articles and news which are uploaded on the Website almost daily. Please send in news and write-ups from your part of the land for uploading on the Website. Please send your views on the topics of debate and suggest themes for the next debate in the given columns on the Website. It is your own inter-active portal formed with a purpose of social interaction amongst all Radical Humanists and Rationalists/ Humanists from different forums.

Please utilise it to come closer for the common cause of ushering in a renaissance in our country.—Rekha S. 34

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Teacher’s & Research Scholar’s Section:

Jugal Kishore

Obesity: A Social Problem —Jugal Kishore & Puneet Mishra [Abstract: Obesity is an excess body fat that frequently results in significant impairment of health by increasing risk of many diseases like diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery diseases, various cancers etc. It is also a big economic burden on society.

Obesity is described as a global pandemic, with 23.2% of world’s adult population overweight and 9.8% obese, the pattern of prevalence showing variation according to the social, economic and cultural differences.] can be considered primarily as a Obesity “Social disease” with medical issues than otherwise as most of the factors responsible for it like changing eating behaviour, physical passiveness and some socio-cultural practices are part of the social setting in which we live. Also the social networking and social multiplier effect plays an important role in it perpetuation. Apart from being social problem obesity also has a huge social impact including discrimination in various fields of life. So any effort to address this issue must focus on social aspects of it for a comprehensive solution.

Key Words: Obesity, Social Disease, life style diseases.

Introduction: A social problem is a condition that at least some people in a community view as being undesirable. A social problem can be a personal problem; a personal problem can be or become a social problem. Many public health problems are social

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problems and vice versa. Alcoholism, venereal diseases, mental illness and narcotic addiction etc. are both, public health and social problems. Apart from the impact of a problem on the society, the social factors might be responsible for origin or worsening of a problem.

Obesity is one such problem with both social origins and impacts.

Obesity is an excess of body fat that frequently results in a significant impairment of health. Obesity results when the size or number of fat cells in a person’s body increases. Body mass index (BMI) provides a simple numeric measure of a person’s “fatness” or “thinness. It is defined as the individual’s body weight in kilogram divided by the square of their height in meters. The WHO defines ”overweight" as a BMI >/= 25, and “obesity” as a BMI >/= 30.1 But the Asian “overweight” criterion is >=23.0 kg/m2 and an “obesity” Body Mass Index criterion is up to each Asian nation to develop for themselves.2 In Asia, the need for a more limited range of normal BMIs (i.e., 18.5 to 22.9 kg/m2 rather than 18.5 to 24.9 kg/m2) because of the high prevalence of co morbidities, particularly diabetes and hypertension was suggested by the investigators.3 Obesity raises concern because of its implications for the health of individuals.

It increases the risk of many diseases and health conditions,4 many of which include Insulin resistance and Type 2 Diabetes mellitus, reproductive disorders including hypogonadism, Cardiovascular diseases (including Coronary heart disease, CHF, Stroke etc.), Cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon), Pulmonary diseases, Liver and Gallbladder disease, bone, joint and cutaneous disease etc.

With obesity affecting whole world as a pandemic, many studies are being done for various aspect of aetiology and treatment option for obesity. However, very little is highlighted on social aspect of obesity.

Problem Statement: Obesity is becoming a worldwide problem affecting all levels of society and is thus being described as a global epidemic.5 According to a recent study 23.2% of the world’s adult population in 2005 was overweight (24.0% in men (23.4–24.5%) and 22.4% in women (21.9–22.9%)), and 9.8% (9.6–10.0%) was obese (7.7% in men (7.4–7.9%) and 11.9% in women (11.6–12.2%)). The estimated total numbers of overweight and obese adults in 2005 were 937 million (922–951 million) and 396 million (388–405 million),

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respectively. And according to the same study, by 2030, the respective number of overweight and obese adults will be 1.35 billion and 573 million individuals without adjusting for secular trends.6 Contrary to conventional wisdom, the obesity epidemic is not restricted to industrialized societies; in developing countries, it is estimated that over 115 million people suffer from obesity-related problems.7 Data on prevalence of obesity from different published articles in India suggest that the prevalence ranged from 10 to 50 per cent. Undoubtedly, these large differences in prevalence rates are due to differences in methodology and the definitions and cut-off points used for defining obesity.8 Also, there is difference in prevalence of obesity between the different classes of society as depicted by Nutrition Foundation of India. Prevalence of overweight in slums of Delhi is 1 per cent for males and 4 per cent for females where as the corresponding figures for the high-income group among the middle class were 32.2 per cent and 50 per cent.9 Another study showed prevalence of overweight was 37.5% in urban Delhi and 8% in rural Haryana.10 The problem of obesity starts early in childhood, a study on 9-15 year age old school children in Punjab revealed the overall prevalence of obesity and overweight to be 11.1% and 14.2% respectively.11 The problem of obesity in society is also a big economic burden. According to an estimate total cost on healthcare due to obesity to the US was around 117 billion dollar in 2000, 12 of the 1 trillion spent on health care.13 Factors Responsible: Obesity results when there is an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure. The rising epidemic of obesity is the result of the profound changes in society and in behavioural patterns of communities over recent decades. The societal changes and worldwide nutrition transition are driving the obesity epidemic. Economic growth, modernization and urbanization are just some of the forces thought to underlie the epidemic.

As incomes rise and populations become more urban, diets high in complex carbohydrates give way to more varied diets with a higher proportion of fats, saturated fats and sugars. Long working hours and many of the families having both working parents is also responsible for the change in the eating behaviour. Now people find it easier to purchase packed high caloric food (cooked) rather than cooking their own meal. Also the easy availability and large scale marketing of these kinds of

food have aggravated the situation.

The socio-cultural environments that influence food, eating patterns and physical activity vary enormously across populations and these influences undoubtedly explain many of the differences in obesity prevalence among populations and sub-populations. Cultures may differ in the expectations that they place on hosts (to over-provide food) and guests (to over-consume food), the appropriateness for girls and women to be physically active, the status of certain foods or dishes, or the beliefs in the value of food and physical activity for health.

Overeating in humans can occur for cultural reasons among populations in which fatness is esteemed. A good example of this comes from urban Gambia, where the prevalence of obesity is >35% in middle-aged women and <2% in men.14 This may mean that the socio-cultural differences between groups may confer a relative predisposition to or protection from weight gain when the group is exposed to a modern obesogenic environment.

Physical passiveness is penetrating deep in the society including school children. There is shift in work profile of general population towards less physically demanding work. Physical activity has been reduced due to the increasing use of automated transport, technology in the home, and more passive leisure activities. Current social practices are leading to the epidemic of childhood obesity. DVD players, computer games and mobile phones have replaced bicycles and football or other outdoor games instruments as birthday presents. Surfing internet, watching TV and playing video games are activities in which children are spending their time as compared to other outdoor games. Physical inactivity is not only an important predisposing factor in causing overeating, but it is also a health risk in its own right.

There are many examples of evidence linking physical inactivity and unfitness to a range of health outcomes, including premature mortality. Physical inactivity compounds the effects of high-fat, energy-dense diets, causing positive energy balance.

Another aspect of sedentary life style which is also a major risk factor of obesity is that being sedentary reduces the cost of being obese, since the less active one is, the less one is impeded by being obese. Thus the fatness perpetuates/ enhances itself in sedentary individuals.

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Social networking also plays a part in determining the individual chances of gaining weight. We can also say obesity transmits in the society, what really transmits is an idea as people around us gain weight our attitude towards acceptable body size and weight changes and we might accept that body size as normal. As in a society practices tend to be normative, the more fat people there are, the more being fat is seen as normal. A recent study showed that friends’ fatness would have an influence distinct from that of the culture as a whole.15 A 2006 survey by the Pew Research Centre finds that while people are acutely aware of the weight problem, they tend to regard themselves as of normal weight even when they are overweight, and this tendency to self-deception can be expected to be greater the heavier the people they associate with are.16 If you weigh 180 pounds, though you should weigh only 150, but your friends weigh 200 pounds, you will tend to think of yourself as thin. As Becker explains through the concept of a social multiplier, when you weighed 150 pounds your thinness may have constrained your friends, but when you move up to 180 you exercise a lesser constraint. The social multiplier effect can of course operate in either direction.

The social impact of obesity is in no way less significant but health issue is not the driving force here. Social consequences of obesity include discrimination in many spheres of life. Emotional suffering may be among the most painful aspects of obesity. Many of the societies stress upon physical appearance and often regard slimness as a mark of attractiveness especially for woman. These consequences may be devastating to overweight people. Obese individuals are often considered as lazy, gluttonous or both even though this is not true. The effects of such ill treatment on the psyche of the individual can’t be overemphasized. Before becoming a health issue, it grows tremendously as a social issue, when the child grows up into a youngster and becomes more and more conscious of his/her body image. An obese girl faces a real challenge in finding a suitable groom and getting married at the ‘right’ age.

Then she seeks desperate help from a fitness centre, which have mushroomed in every nook and corner recently and are satisfying primarily the cosmetic concerns rather than health. Obese people often face prejudice or discrimination in the job market, at school, and in social situations. Feelings of rejection, shame, or 37

depression are common. A 1991 study found that 100% of formerly severely obese patients preferred to be deaf, dyslexic, diabetic, have heart disease or bad acne than to be obese again, that 91.5% preferred leg amputation, and 89.4% blindness. All (100%) preferred to be a normal weight person than a severely obese multimillionaire.17 Preventive Measures: Being a social problem with social impact, obesity should be prevented and treated at every level including at individual level, family level, society level and national/international level.

At individual level personalised advice and support should be available for overweight/obese individuals.

These services must be tailored to their need and should support them in achieving real and sustained weight loss.

For this all health care providers should be trained to treat not only the health effects of obesity but to give a comprehensive care pathway for prevention and management of obesity.

At family level, family should be motivated to use balanced and healthy food for its members and avoid use of junk food. As family is the first and most important point of inculcating healthy habits and behaviour in young children so they should be made aware about causes, impact and prevention of obesity through different IEC activities.

At society/state level, access to healthier foods can be improved so that individuals have a healthier option available every time they go out to eat anything.

Nutrition and physical activity in schools should be improved through easy availability of nutritious food, proper infrastructure and facilities in school promoting physical activity in both curricular and extra- curricular activities. Healthier food choices should be promoted in general by setting out a healthy food code of good practices in partnership with food and drink industry. At the same time promotion of unhealthy foods should be restricted especially to children.

At national/international level policies favouring good health should be incorporated like restricting the advertisements of junk and other unhealthy food and promoting the healthier options through subsidy etc.

Also physical activity should be incorporated in public life through developing well planned township with well developed infrastructure promoting physical activity.

Government can create incentives for better health by giving fit individuals priority in jobs etc.

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So obesity can be considered as primarily a ‘social disease’ with medical issues than otherwise. Thus for prevention and treatment of obesity a holistic view is imperative and acknowledging the social aspects is essential. Sincere efforts must be made to minimize the social impacts of obesity.

References: 1. Vasan RS, Pencina MJ, Cobain M, Freiberg MS, D’Agostino RB. Estimated risks for developing obesity in the Framingham Heart Study. Ann Intern Med. 2005;143:473-80 2. Choo V. WHO reassesses appropriate body-mass index for Asian populations. The Lancet. 2002 Jul;360(9328):235 3. Philip T. James, Rachel Leach, Kalamara E, Shayeghi M, The orldwide Obesity Epidemic Sec I :obesity, The Major Health Issue of the 21 Century 2001, The North American Association for the Study of obesity Research.

2001; 9: 228-33 st 4. Dennis LK, Eugene B, Anthony SF, Stephen LH, Dan LL, Jameson JL. Harrison’s principles of internal medicine. 16thedition. Newyork: MacGraw-hill; 2005.

P. 426-7 5. World Health Organization: Global prevalence and secular trends in obesity. In: “Obesity preventing and Managing the Global Epidemic, Report of a WHO Consultation on Obesity.” Geneva: WHO; 1998. p.

17-40.

6. Kelly T, Yang W, Chen C-S, Reynolds K and He J. Global burden of obesity in 2005 and projections to 2030. International Journal of Obesity (2008) 32, 1431–1437; 7. Controlling the global obesity epidemic. Available from www.who.int/nutrition/topics/obesity 8. Mohan V, Deepa R. Obesity & abdominal obesity in Asian Indians. IJMR. May 2006; 593-96 9. Investigation of Current Prevalence, Nature and

Aetiology of Obesity in Urban Communities. Available from http://nutritionfoundationofindia. res.in 10. Chadha SL, Gopinath N, Shekhawar S. Urban-rural differences in the prevalence of coronary heart disease and its risk factors in Delhi. Bull WHO1997; 5: 31-8.

11. Chhatwal J,Verma M, Riar SK. Obesity among pre adolescents and adolescents of a developing country (India).Asia pacific Journal clin nutr 2004;13: 231-5 12. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Surgeon General’s call to action to prevent and decrease overweight and obesity. [Rockville, MD]:U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General; [2001].

13. Centres For Disease Control and Prevention http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/cardiov.htm andhttp://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp /upo/intro.htm 14. Katan, M. B., Grundy, S. M., Willett, W. C. (1997) Should low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet be recommended for everyone? Beyond low-fat diets. N Engl J Med 337: 563–6.

15. Nicholas A. Christakis, James H. Fowler. The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years.

NEJM.july 26,2007 Volume 357:370-379 16. Americans see weight problem everywhere except in mirror.

Available from http://pewresearch.org/assets/social 17. Rand CSW, Mac Gregor AMC. Successful weight loss following obesity surgery and the perceived liability of morbid obesity. Int J. Obes 1991; 15: 577–579.

[Dr. Jugal Kishore is Professor and Dr. Puneet Mishra is Resident at Community Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi 110002. This article was earlier published in Journal of Community Medicine, July-Dec, 2009, Vol, .5(2) (Public Health Matters). It is being reproduced here seeing its present social relevance.]

Dear Friends, Please email your articles at rheditor@gmail.com and send your passport size photographs as attachments.

Or post them at C-8 Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India with small introduction about yourselves, if you are sending your write-ups for the first time to me.

Please feel free to contact me at 91-9719333011 for any other querry. —Rekha Saraswat

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Book Review Section:

Dipavali Sen [Ms. Dipavali Sen has been a student of Delhi School of Economics and Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (Pune). She has taught at Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, and various colleges of Delhi University. She is, at present, teaching at Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, Delhi University.

She is a prolific writer and has written creative pieces and articles for children as well as adults, both in English and Bengali. Dipavali@gmail.com]

A Meeting of the Twain [BOOK: Comparative Study of The Indian Poetics and The Western Poetics, by Mohit K. Ray, published 2008, by Sarup & Sons, New Delhi; hardcover, pp 196; Rs 550.] the area of literary studies, a comparative Instudy of Indian and Western poetics has its own niche, and as an academic work, this book by Professor Mohit K. Ray fills it very well.

Professor Mohit K. Ray is a scholar and educationist of vast and varied experience. He has participated in several international conferences, and written and edited various books and papers. His knowledge of languages ranges from Latin, English, French and German to Sanskrit, Bengali and Arabic. He has brought all that scholarship to bear upon his subject and given it superlative treatment.

But this book is also a step forward in the rennet move towards Globalization.

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Globalization is not simply a matter of international trade, factor movements, and technology transfer. In its true and only acceptable sense, it is a drawing together of all humanity. And not by bread alone does that drawing together take place. It calls for a sharing of art and literature, philosophy and science, ideas in general, all across the globe.

Base and Superstructure, together constitute the Mode of Production, Marx had said. Art and literature, being part of the superstructure, are thus specific to time. The artistic and literary ideas of the Primitive Community (and they did exist) were different from those of Feudal or Capitalist times.

But is this true also across space and not just time? Are artistic and literary norms of the West essentially different from those of the East? Is one superior to the other? Do they have common points where the impossible meeting of the east and the West actually happens? Marx himself could not box India into any of the five usual Modes of production. He had to invent yet another – the ‘Asiatic Mode’. Is Indian Poetics like that? Too distinctive to be described by any other adjective other than ‘Indian’?

How then does the Indian man “buy” Western concepts and ideas? How does Max Mueller write in praise of Kalidasa?

Because there is a certain artistic and literary sense that is common to all men – the “literary universal” as Professor Ray terms it in the Preface.

“There is no doubt”, Professor Ray goes on to say in the Introduction (pp1-13), “about the fact that literature is essentially culture-bound, in the sense that a particular culture produces a particular kind of literature, as it is equally true, that the culture of a particular country at a particular point of space and time is reflected in the literature produced by that country. — But the paradox is that readers of different countries, of different cultures, of different religions and beliefs, of different ideologies, of different passions and prejudices do appreciate literatures of other countries, other cultures,, other religions, other beliefs, other ideologies, immaterial of the fact whether a literary work was produced centuries ago, or only a year before, whether it was produced by the neighboring country or a country situated on the other side of the globe. This leads us to the conclusion that there is something in these literary works produced

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across continents and centuries, that has an appeal, which is both timeless and universal.”(pp 2-3). For example, Western thinkers from the rimes of Aristotle tend to agree with Indian thinkers from the times of Bharata that the end of poetry is pleasure derived from the aesthetics of a poem (p 13).

The second chapter (p 14-44) compares and contrasts the Alamkara school of ancient India to the Western school of Rhetoric associated with the names of Aristotle, Cicero, Longinus et al. There are points of “affinity” (p 44).

The third chapter (pp 45-79) relates the Indian theory of Guna and Dosa to Stylistics, and concludes that from both perspectives, ultimately it is the “integral reality” of a piece that makes it come to life. The fourth chapter (pp 80-95) points out that, in both Indian and Western poetics, vakra and oblique statements have a recognized role. The fifth chapter (pp 96-103) is on svabhavokti or simple realistic descriptions, and here too there is an affinity with ‘simple statement poetry” of the West, best exemplified by Frost.

Coming to aucitya or decorum/propriety, treated in the next chapter (pp104-113), Ray finds the Indian stand amazingly meticulous, perhaps more so than the Western.

What is poetry without the suggestion or resonance of sound or dhvani? The seventh chapter (p 114-131) discusses dhvani and suggestion with a focus on Anandavardhana and Mallarme. The Indian concept of Rasa and the Western idea of Pleasure are not the same and yet have affinities, says the eighth chapter (pp 132-156).

The theory of Sphota maintains that a word or a sentence

is not a mere collection of sound units but a single whole; language is the final revelation, not the phonemes themselves. According to Derrida’s theory of Ecriture, language is the expression or manifestation of idea.

Though they belong to different times and lands, they agree in several aspects, as the ninth chapter (pp 157-1660 points out.

The tenth chapter (pp167-178) posits that both Bharata and Aristotle discussed the role of imitation in drama; they differ and yet they agree in basics.

The Conclusion ( pp 179-185) is a masterly summary of the main points made across the chapters. It ends with a thought-provoking observation of Ray’s.

Indian aesthetics is amazing in it’s “immensity and profundity’; Western poetics is relatively “perfunctory” in spite of occasions flashes of insight (p 185).

The Bibliography is followed by a handy Index.

But apart from the content of the book, which is undoubtedly valuable, what strikes one is its approach, its purpose, its quest.

As mentioned in the Preface, it is a search for the `literary universal’.

In this sense, the book is a most timely effort. It is such books that promote universal understanding and through it, bring about true Globalization.

This is epitomized in the Dedication – “To Professor Ramaranjan Mukherji At whose lotus feet I had my first lessons in Poetics.”

Indian imagery in an English publishing format —- isn’t this one of the ways the East and the West can meet?

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No Seminar will be the same now without Amlan da

His wit, his humour, his simple and pure love for all of us will remain with us and our movement as his rich legacy.