GYANOPROBHA

A TEACHER'S HOPE

As a teacher and a human being, I struggle to be hopeful about the future. But I am close to giving up. I am beginning to think this insistence that teachers need to be hopeful is also a red herring. Teachers need to be truthful above all, but I find it difficult to be hopeful and truthful at the same time. 

And here’s what I have noticed about myself: I have lost the capacity to be surprised by anything in politics any more. Each change appears to be for the worse, in absolutely predictable or explicable ways. What does surprise me is the occasional good news: the growing sense that there is a crisis (accompanied by the bad news that no one has any faith in any solutions any more). Ordinary people – as I discovered on a trip home to an India still recovering from the terrorist attacks in Mumbai – are still surprisingly capable of responding with compassion and empathy, although a disconcertingly large proportion of them still continue to wish for death and destruction on Pakistan, Muslims, Christians, tribals, dalits...and anyone who dissents from their dominant self-image of a resurgent, powerful India. 

Post-communism and post-modernism have left us unable to deal with a post-capitalist wreckage and construct something worthwhile from it, except in small groups. The World Social Forum has lost its way, if it was ever on the way to anything at all. It’s passé to say that there is no left left any more. But do right and left matter any more? Liberal democracy, feeling itself threatened by a terror that it has itself helped create, has quite simply now become the new fascism..."O Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" cried Madame Roland as she passed a statue of liberty on the way to the guillotine during the Jacobin terror. That's an exclamation that has rung like a death knell around the world since the end of the 20th century. 

We are facing a catastrophe as a species, and the most urgent task for us humans is to find a way to survive. I am not quite sure whether we would be good for the earth if we do, but that’s another argument. I am trying to move towards constructing an inventory of ideas that can help us as a species to survive the coming catastrophe. The new test for ideas or ways of living could be: does this help our survival as a species or does it doom us to collapse? For some ideas, the choice seems clear. But for others, how can we be certain in advance? The Green Revolution was once touted as an idea that would prevent hunger for all who suffered from it; now some suspect it may have made hunger worse for some while assuaging it in others. Education - in the sense of schooling - is beginning to look like another idea whose time has gone, except for those, fewer in number every year, for whom it remains a passport to upward social mobility. 

I think the only sensible thing left to do is to prepare – culturally, cognitively, emotionally, materially – for the great cull of the human species that the world is likely to see in the 21st century and the next. Gather together traces of lost knowledge and ways of being and doing that may help us weather the oncoming tragedy, devise creative ways of surviving when we are hit by catastrophe, create repositories of wisdom from whatever we still have access to, pass them on to our children. Education (not schooling) now takes on a more urgent purpose than ever before: the survival of the human species, and the preservation of the impulses that helped us survive and flourish. The question is whether these impulses can be separated neatly from those that propel us towards self-destruction. 

Teaching needs to be de-professionalized, so that every one can be a teacher and learner at the same time. The usual modes of education, which served us well to teach us silence in the face of suffering and obedience to the needs of power, need to be firmly abandoned. Schools as we know them now will either die off into irrelevance or be radically re-structured. But don’t expect our leaders or our existing institutions to lead us in this, because they are part of the problem. 

BINAYAK SEN AND THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION

"How do you fight a rogue state?" asks Ilina, Binayak's wife. 

On a visit with her mother to Binayak in jail, Ilina discovered that the Chhattisgarh government has filed an appeal before the High Court at Bilaspur to re-instate the charges of which he was acquitted by the sessions court. Furthermore, they merely gave Binayak a copy of the appeal, and didn't even bother to inform his lawyers. 

Clearly, this appeal is designed to hedge against the "risk" that a Supreme Court bench may allow bail to Binayak. So even if Binayak is released on bail, the reversal of his acquittal on the charge of waging war against the state could ensure that he goes right back in as soon as he is released. Today, this has just hit the news media, despite the fact that it was already made public on Twitter a week ago. 

Every time you think some new low has been reached in the annals of the Chattisgarh judiciary, they surprise you with yet another legal legerdemain. Amazing, isn't it, that the brains of an entire bureaucratic apparatus are kept pre-occupied with inventing new forms of legal torture...because this is basically what it is. And yet must we keep faith in the Indian judicial system? As much as we must have faith in the compassion and mercy of our torturers. Or have faith that one part of the system still functions with a common sense understanding of justice. 

Here's her letter that appeared in The Statesman, Kolkata. 

A meeting with Binayak 

SIR, ~ I met Binayak this morning, along with my mother. It was great that both the old ladies, my mother-in-law and mother, made the great trek to come this distance and to stand by us in solidarity. Binayak is in good health and reasonable spirits, but there are some developments that I think I should let you know as I rush to catch my train to go back to Wardha.

Following our Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court, the state of Chhattisgarh has filed a criminal appeal on 28 February in the Chhattisgarh High Court, submitting that the acquittal of Binayak and others under certain sections, in the court of the sessions judge, should be reversed and that these charges should be maintained. This relates to waging war on the State etc. The specific sections are: 121A IPC, 10(A) UAPA.1967, in alternative 10(A)/120B IPC, 21 UAPA 1967, 38(2) UAPA 1967, 20 UAPA 1967.
I came to know about this because a copy has been advanced to Binayak. Obviously we are under obligation to inform them about our legal moves, but the state can get by with giving a copy to a person in prison who has no means of communicating anything to anybody. 

How do you fight a rogue state ? 

Yours, etc., Ilina Sen, Raipur, 14 March.

As this episode illustrates, this entire case, like so much else in the way we govern ourselves, is beset with the problems of asymmetry of information (the state knows more about you than you yourself - specifically, what your rights and obligations are), lack of information (can the state appeal against an acquittal of charges in a judgment that has otherwise gone in its favour?), and questions about the reliability of information (how can the justice system be trusted when the state can simply cook up evidence against an accused, who can be convicted even when the evidence is shown to be false?)

[Now I can already hear the nationalist jackals on the internet howling: Binayak should have known better than to tangle with the state! Now he must pay for it! 

So Binayak was supposed to have been aware that publishing a report critical of the state's policy towards tribals, and exposing the criminality of campaigns like the Salwa Judum, would earn him a life sentence for waging war against the state, even when the judge intially ruled that he was innocent of such a charge. You have to admire the touching faith of these nationalists in the right to free speech that the world's largest democracy enjoys, but also their breathtaking cynicism!]

As Ilina's statement - reproduced entirely below - to the RTI Convention in Shillong makes clear, Binayak's case is a vivid demonstration of the fact that even a Right To Information (RTI) law cannot succeed in shining the light of accountability, responsiveness and transparency on its governance to prevent the state's recourse to criminality in the pursuance of its aims. Who will be held liable for violation of judicial standards, for the waste of state resources and time in erecting a false case, for the suffering imposed on Binayak and his family? Many of these costs are unquantifiable, let alone calculable. But multiply Binayak's case several thousand fold, and you begin to get an idea (but not a measure, except in a metaphoric sense) of the enormity of the lack of reliable information in our benighted country, where thousands of undertrials are kept waiting for justice in our jails, often not knowing what they have been accused of. This must surely be one of the most painful injustices at the heart of our justice system. But what can a RTI law do to prevent such injustice, when so much else in our system allows such systemic criminality to continue? 

Ilina Sen’s Statement for RTI Convention Shillong, March 10-12. 

As I fight the long and painful legal battle  to extricate Binayak from the  clutches of the  penal administration, I realize that this battle is as much mine as  that of any Indian  citizen. Today, at many levels and in many fora including this one, the people of India are struggling  for  the establishment  of  accountability  and transparency  in our governance  structures as befitting our status as the world’s largest democracy. However, it is a sad reflection on our system  that once a false case is registered  in the name of security, it is almost impossible to  turn the clock back , even if facts  stare us in the face that indicate  that the case had no basis. To this ,  if we add  dimensions of face saving, prestige, and drubbing the nose into the ground of uncomfortable critics, we have Chhattisgarh  and Binayak Sen.

Binayak Sen has been convicted of sedition  and of violating sections of the UAPA and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and sentenced along with two others to  rigorous life imprisonment. His jail ticket notes his  provisional date of release as 2028, The conviction has followed an unfair prosecution and prejudiced judgment  based on confessional statement recorded , according to the judge, during   ‘preliminary investigation’ before the first accused in the case was taken into police custody, thereby defeating the  provision of inadmissibility of custodial confessions. In the absence of any  visible crime, this first arrest  and the so called ‘preliminary investigation’ become the ‘incident’ around which the case is woven. The charges framed are  equally vague  regarding nature , time and place of the ‘crime’. Extensive and expensive police investigations (sadly beyond the orbit of the RTI Act!) into Binayak’s (and mine) homes, places of work and associates failed to provide   any evidence  other than social service in remote rural areas , and obviously was not brought  on record.   The  case against Binayak hinged upon his  33 meetings with jailed  Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal, his supposed couriering of Sanyal’s letters and their passing on to Pijush Guha, through which letters, the death and destruction  being  carried out by the Maoists was supposedly  given effect.

Since the prosecution failed to produce even a single jail official or any other eye witness testifying to any letter or message, oral or written, being passed by Narayan Sanyal to Binayak Sen in their jail meetings, the verdict makes much fuss about certain entries in jail registers referring to Sen being Sanyal’s relative, ignoring the defence contention that these entries were filled in by the jail officials, and not by either the visited or visitor, as apparent from the face of the record. On the contrary, all the applications Binayak Sen submitted to the jail officials, requesting a meeting with Sanyal, were written on the letterhead of his organization - PUCL (a Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights organization founded by leading Sarvodaya leader Jayprakash Narayan). These visits were duly permitted by the jail officials and transpired in their full view and hearing. Binayak’s own statement to the court gives a perfectly rational explanation for these visits and the way in which his intervention was essential in facilitating the hand surgery of Narayan Sanyal at the Raipur Medical College,, but this was not taken into account.

Binayak  is also supposed to have had prior acquaintance with Sanyal and facilitated the hiring of a house by him. This is based on the testimony of a landlord who, while  testifying to this fact also alleges that Sanayal was arrested from his house, which is contrary to the facts brought on record  during this trial.  Sanyal’s arrest was in Andhra Pradseh according  to the testimony of the arresting officer, and how a witness  who perjures himself in one part of his testimony becomes a reliable witness for the other part, beats imagination.

Hearsay evidence from police officers about Binayak’s  presence in naxal meetings , his supposed association with ‘hard core naxals’ who are not even named in any case anywhere in the country , supposed seditious literature pertaining to resistance of US imperialism and atrocities committed during the salwa judum  seized from our  house during police search, correspondence addressed to the ISI  (read Walter Fernandes, Director, Indian Social institute, New Delhi) and the evidence of correspondence with  people bearing Muslim names   constitutes  the rest of the evidence.

While weaving a narrative of sedition against Binayak Sen and other accused in the case, the Sessions court verdict violates a well laid judicial principle of the Supreme Court in matters of sedition. In Kedarnath Singh Vs State of Bihar the Supreme Court has held that the provision of sedition in the Indian Penal Code must be interpreted in a manner consistent with the fundamental freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. In this regard the Supreme Court held that the offence of sedition, which is defined as spreading disaffection against the state, should be considered as having been committed only if the said disaffection is a direct incitement to violence or will lead to serious public disorder. No speech or deed milder than this should be considered seditious. The Sessions court verdict in the case against Binayak Sen and others fails to establish that the words or deeds of the accused were a direct incitement to violence or would lead to serious public disorder. This would be the case even if it was established beyond doubt that Binayak Sen had passed on Narayan Sanyal’s letters to Pijush Guha, or Pijush Guha was likely to pass on these letters to other members of the CPI (Maoist), or that Narayan Sanyal was a politburo member of the CPI (Maoist).   

Both the trial court  as well as the appellate court  (while passing and upholding the maximum  sentence for sedition) have  gone on record that the situation of violence and uncontrolled Maoist bloodshed calls for non-application of any grounds for leniency in sentence.  This is without any clear establishment that Binayak Sen had any involvement in such bloodshed, in fact even the court does not allege this.  How  criminal justice can be based on the doctrine of lateral responsibility is  mind boggling. Clearly the verdict and the sentence are both intended to make an example of a civil society activism, and to send a message to all of us who are asking any kind of questions. The issues in this case  thus go beyond the case itself and the fight for justice for Binayak becomes the struggle of all of us for the Rule of Law  in our polity.

RESPONSE TO THE LESS ABUSIVE RIGHT-WING CHATTER ON BINAYAK SEN

Some of the right wing chatterati notably Swapan Dasgupta , Joginder Singh, Chandan Mitra and Kanchan Gupta persist in their efforts to label Binayak Sen as a maoist activist, ideologue or sympathizer. Their persistence is partly a response to the immediate, public and generous chorus of outrage that greeted his sentencing to life imprisonment.

A few mainstream media outlets had been reporting on the developments in the trial as it progressed, and it was clear even before the judgment appeared that much of the evidence against Binayak Sen was fabricated, and the prosecution witnesses had failed to substantiate the charges. See especially these reports in The Hindu.


As soon as the judgment appeared, at least two things became quite clear to anyone who took the trouble to read it and the copious and public legal scrutiny that it has generated: firstly, that the judgment was a miscarriage of justice, being secured on extremely dubious evidence; and secondly, that it ignored established legal standards of conviction.

Here are the judgment in Hindi, and a translation in English

and critical commentary on it by

Dr. Ilina Sen, Ms. Sudha Bhardwaj, and Ms. Kavita Srivastava

Professor Madabhushi Sridhar at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University of Law, Hyderabad

Times of India

But the right wing chatterati are not interested in the arguments, but in continuing their smear campaign. It would be a mistake to expect anything less -  like an attempt at objectivity or a mildly self-critical stance - from those who have never engaged in any act that could be remotely suspected of compassion or the relief of suffering, but who have instead prostituted their formidable intellects and academic distinctions in the service of a majoritarian victimology. Slander and smear are their weapons in the service of political authoritarianism, and they wield them with a cultivated genius.

The only way they have found of justifying this is by insisting that the law has charged and sentenced him in a supposedly fair and open process. So in their view, until the judgment is overturned on appeal, it is fair to continue to smear Binayak Sen as a maoist, despite his long and distinguished public record of service to the poor and his statements on the futility of violence. Their only response to a judgment that beggars belief is to demand a willing suspension of disbelief in our judicial system. For them, the law has spoken, and must be respected, even if it is patent to anyone with a rudimentary capacity to reason that the judgment was wrong.

This principle of the majestic infallibility of the law assumes that the law can seldom be wrong, and in the rare cases of error, can be quickly rectified. It also requires that people refrain from using their powers of reasoning in public. This is a country where judicial malfeasance, especially in the lower branches of the judiciary, is part of the everyday reality of massive and pervasive corruption. When the very air we breathe has been so fouled that fresh, clean air is an exception (and the judiciary in India is probably still the part of government with the greatest credibility), we are asked not to complain about the malodorous environment, lest we upset those whose job it is to keep the air clean.

The right wing chatterati also attack Binayak's defenders on the following grounds:

1. If every legal judgment were to be open to public discussion and an occasion for aggrieved parties to vent their outrage, the law would become a travesty. The only place to settle a legal argument is in a court, and the only way to remedy a judicial error is through appeal. But what if the law is made a travesty by the way the judgment has been reached? And what if the resulting injustice is apparent not just to leading luminaries in the legal profession, but also to the public? In what kind of democracy would an enormity of this magnitude be left unaddressed? Shouldn't the public express its concerns when the little trust there is in the judiciary is further eroded? Actually, Binayak's case is one of those rare cases of injustice where public opinion has been mobilized. Most of them remain unknown, or sink into oblivion after some brief publicity. Public opinion is generally either silent or amnesiac. By contrast, Binayak's case is an all too rare opportunity for the public to make its concerns known. (This is where I think the attention of activists should focus more broadly on the issues that Binayak's case raises, than on the man himself, although the man and the issues that he represents may not always be clearly distinguishable.) Only one blinded by unthinking loyalty to the state would insist that in a democracy, the public has an obligation to remain silent in the face of gross injustice.

2. Democracy and free expression cannot be allowed to criticize the judiciary, because if judges do not remain aloof from and uninfluenced by public discussion, then their courts could become vitiated by the interference of the media. Law courts would in effect be replaced by the courts of public opinion. Those making this argument seem to have little problem with the Supreme Court death sentence on Afzal Guru citing the "conscience of the nation" as a reason, despite the flaws in the evidence that the judges themselves acknowledged. Wasn't the court influenced by public opinion on Afzal Guru rather than the strength of the evidence? More substantively, I am in agreement with this argument, but in order for the courts to be trusted by the public, they must be seen to be fair. True, their functioning is undermined if their decisions remain the subject of argument. Nor is the public always the best judge of the functioning of courts, because of the many technical issues of law. But when courts undermine public trust by being as flagrantly in favour of one side, as the trial court has been in Binayak's case, then public discussion is inevitable and justified.

3. Those who publicly declare their lack of confidence  in the judicial process seem to muster enough confidence to launch an appeal. This is not a matter of choice or confidence, but because if a remedy is to be found, it is to be sought within the system. The alternative is to accept the injustice. I believe the system does allow for the trial to be conducted outside Chhattisgarh, but we cannot know if such a request would have been granted. At any rate, the failures of the judicial system are so pervasive that even if Binayak's verdict is overturned on appeal, that by itself will not restore public confidence in the integrity of the system. As I said in the previous entry in this blog, the fact that there are moments of lucidity in a patient dying of brain cancer, does not entitle us to place great confidence in the patient's state of health.

4. The concern for human rights and justice that Binayak's defenders express must be specious, because when maoists use violence to kill innocent villagers, policemen and other state functionaries, and seek revenge through their kangaroo courts, the human rights wallahs have never condemned such acts of violence with the same force as they condemn the violations of the state. This argument has been rebutted so persuasively by some of Binayak's supporters on the Save Binayak forum, that I can do no better than to quote them directly.

Mary Ganguli 11 Jan

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding in these people's minds, which is being exploited by those who wanted Binayak convicted.
 
1)Maoists don't believe in the state and they operate outside the state's laws, i.e. they are outlaws, and whether their original goals are noble or not, their violent methods are unlawful; they can and should be prosecuted under the law by the state and its agents.

However, Binayak Sen  is not a Maoist, and he has openly repudiated the Maoists' approaches as "invalid and unsustainable." His opponents' arguments seem to all be based on the false assumption that he is a Maoist.
 
2) The People's Union for Civil Liberties was founded by Jayaprakash Narayan to hold Indira Gandhi's government accountable for its violation of civil liberties during the "National Emergency" in the mid 1970s. It is still carrying out the same function, i.e. holding the state and central governments accountable for violating the civil liberties of its citizens.  By definition, the state is supposed to uphold our civil liberties, and should be brought to book when it violates them Only the state can violate them.  If someone breaks into my house and steals something, he is charged with a crime, not with violating my civil liberties.
 
3) In other words; the state is supposed to prosecute the outlaws, and non-state agencies such as the PUCL has to hold the state accountable when it violates its own laws.  It is a matter of checks and balances which are central to a functioning democracy.
 
4) So it is a false argument for the RSS and others to criticize the PUCL and Binayak Sen for not spending their time criticizing the Maoists.  That is not the role of the PUCL. By analogy, it is not the role of the bookseller to sell bread or the baker to sell books.

5)  Surely we have a right to expect the state and its agents (e.g., the police) not only to uphold the law but to maintain a higher standard of lawfulness than we expect from the outlaws.  When the state break the law and violate the civil liberties and human rights of citizens, someone has to hold them accountable; otherwise, we would be living in a police state.

Margaret Dickinson 11 Jan

Perhaps one can go a little further by  pointing  out that those who complain that we are not criticising Maoists in the same way as we are the forces of Government are by implication suggesting  the Maoists and the Government  as equivalents.  So, are they both criminals or both legitimate political entities?   As you say,  Maoist don’t pretend to be operating within the law as it stands. So, to whom could one usefully complain about their behaviour? By suggesting that the public should put the same energy into criticising Maoist killings as into unlawful police killings suggests that the Maoists are a legitimate alternative government. Surely the friends of Raman Singh do not think this? And if they don’t,  then there is no substance to their case.   

5. Satya Sivaraman (Save Binayak Forum 11 Jan)  introduces another counter argument to the constant slurs by association that the right wing chatterati apply to Binayak:

To add to all these excellent arguments I would suggest that the editors of the Organiser also explain how come senior members of the RSS and its sister organisations have now been caught (Swami Aseemanand, Indaresh Kumar) carrying out bomb blasts in mosques in Malegaon, Ajmer, Hyderabad and the Samjhauta train bombing. We do not know yet which other terrorist attacks they have been responsible for in the past twenty years but we do know that in Narendra Modi's Gujarat they killed around 3000 Muslims in broad daylight eight years ago. They are as much against the Indian Constitution as the Maoists are. And if the dubious principle of guilt by association is to be applied to them- as has been in the case of Binayak- then several BJP Chief Ministers will find themselves charged with 'sedition'. And when that is done they will discover the merits of having some human rights wallahs take up their cases and insist on democratic norms, due process of law, a fair judiciary etc.

Lastly, here is a deliciously sarcastic reply to the arguments of the right-wing chatterati (H/T Khushwant Singh)

The guilty doctor

We have the greatest respect for our judiciary
Not just for the justice done but also its travesty
Hence the butchers of nineteen eighty four roam free
And the murderers of Gujarat have boundless glee
While a doctor who looks after the health of the tribals and downtrodden,
Whose services make him one in a million
Is a guilty man of the nation.

Against our great nation, he waged a fight
For, whatever the police says must be right
So he should get a taste of this country’s might,
While the scamsters and swindlers, for their brilliant record
Should never be held guilty of fraud
And because our judiciary can never fail
Dr Sen will remain in jail.

(Courtesy: Kuldip Salil, Delhi)

REFLECTIONS ON DR. BINAYAK SEN'S BIRTHDAY

Today, the fourth of January, 2011, is Binayak Sen's sixty-first birthday. He is spending it in solitary confinement in a small cell in Raipur Jail. He is taken out twice a day, each time for a couple of hours. Prolonged solitary confinement is known to break the strongest minds. Binayak spent a month alone during his last incarceration before the Supreme Court granted him bail. He later told me that he felt his mind turning into mush.

This is the punishment that a vengeful and vindictive probationary judge has thought fit to bestow on one who has spent the better part of his adult life in service to the poorest and weakest in our society - dalits and tribal villagers and mine workers - in what is now the state of Chhattisgarh.  Under any reasonable system of justice, his record should have served to mitigate any punishment if indeed he was guilty. However, this is Chhattisgarh, where  even the Supreme Court’s standards have little force in the judiciary, as the learned judge in Binayak’s case demonstrated. According to a Supreme Court ruling (Kedarnath vs State of Bihar), the charge of sedition, for which he has been sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life, requires clear evidence of incitement to violence and disturbance of public order. (See this detailed legal analysis of the case and the evidence presented before the court, by Madabhushi Sridhar, a Professor at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University of Law, Hyderabad.) But so keen was the judge to uphold the sanctity of the law, that he chose a much lower standard for the sentencing by simply accepting at face value the fabrications of the police witnesses in the charge sheet, even when they were contradicted by their own depostions in court. After all, why respect a quaint Supreme Court standard when there is a much more forceful message to convey to those who dare to criticize the state's policy towards tribals, in what amounts to a war on the forest people of Chhattisgarh? Why bother with that pesky Fifth Schedule in the Constitution and all those inconvenient Directive Principles, when the very “development” of the state is at stake?

The Binayak Sen that sits condemned in jail, the butt of abuse by nationalist jackals with half a brain and an internet connection,  is not the tender, compassionate and learned Dada that I have known for as long as memories serve, the Ranka that our mother knows for sixty-one years, the affectionate Baba that his daughters have grown up with, or the constant life partner that our Boudi Dr. Ilina Sen has lived and suffered and triumphed  with for the last thirty seven years.  Nor is he the doctor who has empowered countless  patients to save themselves from malaria, malnutrition and other ravages. He is the creation of a paranoid state that feeds off the very terror that it creates by its policies. This paranoia has expressed itself through a prolonged,  wilful and vicious distortion of the judicial process. The tragic irony is that this is the very same process that Binayak must now trust with producing a remedy. 

The internet jackals are now feasting off our Boudi’s  anguish, howling at her desire to seek asylum abroad if she cannot get justice in India. Those who traduce Binayak by branding him a Maoist should be aware that both my younger brother, who is a European citizen,  and I who reside abroad, have repeatedly encouraged Binayak and his family to leave the country if they possibly could. Despite their world-wide network of friends and supporters, both Dada and Boudi have consistently refused to do so. They have always insisted that if justice is to be sought, it must be in India. 

We must cling tenaciously on to the same hope, knowing that we may be eventually disappointed. But we know with even greater certainty that even if the trial court’s verdict is overturned, the delivery of justice must remain dependent on a vigilant and educated citizenry, demanding the transparency and freedom from judicial caprice that is their right. This is precisely where I differ from those who warn us to shut up, since the law has spoken. They would rather have somnolent cattle for citizens, chewing  the cud of consumerism  while allowing justice to be outraged.

Ask yourselves who has been a more fervent upholder and believer in the law:  a state that repeatedy refuses to abide by its own laws and judicial standards, or an individual who has fought compassionately to maintain and extend our Constitutional protections to the weakest in our society? Who has the  more credible record in promoting peace: a state that fore decades wields the power of the gun against tribals who resort to violence as a last resort? Or a man who has constantly and publicly reminded anyone who would listen that violence solves no problems, and warned insistently that the prolongation of unremedied injustice inflames people to violence.

TWO POEMS FOR BINAYAK SEN - only in Hindi

Both poems are by Rizvi, as far as I could determine.

This one is recited by the Gandhian activist and founder of Vanavasi Chetna Ashram, Himangshu Kumar.

The second one is recited by the author himself.

 

 Diwaron se vicharon par jo ankush lag gaya hota, to Bapu dar gaya hota.
Yazidi zulm ke aage, Hussaini jeet na hoti
Krishna janm na leta, Vishnu mar gaya hota
Firangi surya na dhalta, Ye Bharat varsh na hota
Kabhi bhi satya ki khatir koi sangharsh na hota

Jahan par doctoron ki ek jhalak ka naam hai paisa
Jahan par zindagi aur maut ka sangram hai paisa
Wahin jakar Binayak ne dilon me dhadkane banti
Jagaya jeene ka jazba jalayi prem ki baati
Khilaye phool se chehre biyaban jangalon jakar

Basayi ujdi basti bhi usi ka ghar bana Bastar
Gareebon ki khushi ko dekh kar jalne lage afsar
Hua charcha to neta bhi lage aane wahan aksar
Andhere me jale deepak to bhoot bhaag jate hain
Bahane dhoond kar warna jale deepak bujhate hain

Binayak janta tha har kisi shaitan ki sazish
Police ki gundagardi aur gundaraj ki sazish
Kabhi majboor par goli kabhi sanghar ki sazish
Kabhi kursi bachane ki wahi sarkar ki sazish

Huye masoom jo ghayal to roya tha binayak bhi
Na jane kitni raton se na soya tha binayak bhi
Adalat par bharosa kar ke khole raaz jo usne
Hili kursi hua hadkamp phase usme vidhayak bhi

Lage nirdosh par POTA, aur hatyara bane CM
Hai apne desh ki ye reet abtak is tarah qayam
Usi hi shrinkhala me naam binayak ka bhi ata hai
Zulm dhaye jaate hain wo phir bhi muskurata hai

Chale jab zulm ki andhi na ghabrao na dar jao
Chalo mazloom ki khatir zara parcham to lehrao
Salakhen mom kar dalo maseeha hai salakhon me
Sikha do pyar ki boli sitam dhate ilaqon me

RABINDRANATH'S SONG FOR BINAYAK SEN

Here is my very awkward and somewhat literal translation of a song by Rabindranath Tagore that fits Binayak's situation perfectly...or so we hope! If someone can let me know the occasion for which the song was originally written, I would be grateful.

 

Say nothing to those who call you mad.
Those who throw dust at you today, thinking ill of you,
Will follow you with garlands at tomorrow's dawning

Say nothing to those who call you mad.
Those who today occupy their seats of power, puffed up in their pride,
Will descend from their thrones and bow their heads to you in love

Tomorrow morning.

 

 

 

BINAYAK SEN'S CONVICTION: THE GRAMMAR OF ANARCHY?

On December 24, 2010, Dr. Binayak Sen was convicted for sedition and various other charges at the district court in Raipur, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The 92 page judgment - of which I have just received a copy - could not possibly have done justice to the entire range of evidence brought by the prosecution, and the detailed counterarguments that were made by the defence team in the eight or so days before it was delivered.  Most of the defence arguments seem to have been ignored altogether.

Once again, we are left wondering whether our country is turning into something that its founders would - if our nationalist hagiographies are to be believed - scarcely have recognized: a kleptocratic republic in which the state and powerful institutions are the foremost violators of its laws.

When a state organizes the fabrication of evidence for someone like Binayak Sen, and the judge simply relays the opinions of the prosecution without considering the arguments and the collapse of the evidence in his own court, how is one supposed to retain any confidence in the system of justice that we have? I know we will have to use the same justice system to appeal against the sentence and seek bail for our brother. But just because a patient suffering from progressive brain cancer retains moments of lucidity, we do not conclude that all will be well with him. In fact, when we succeed in getting the patient to communicate, we might feel even more fortunate and grateful that we have beaten the odds. But even if Binayak is ultimately freed - a likely but painfully protracted prospect, I understand - it will not bolster my confidence in the system by even an iota.

First Wikileaks, then 2G, and now Binayak's sentence, have entrenched in my mind the near-conviction that the state in India, like states elsewhere, has been showing increasing signs of regressing towards the abandonment of consitutionalism. In his "Grammar of Anarchy" speech urging the abandonment of all forms of political struggle outside those prescribed in the constitution, BR Ambedkar also prefaced his remarks thus: "When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods."  We appear to be returning to such a condition, when constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectiives are being increasingly ignored and abandoned by both private corporations and agencies of the state, each in league with the other.

Apparently the normal "business-as-usual" workings of an electoral democracy aren't enough to stop the natural tendency towards the misuse of power. Until we have a vigilant and well-infomed citizenry, and a state that sees itself as their servant rather than their master, and unless we have mechanisms of accountability, transparency, responsiveness and popular participation embedded in the organs of the state, the degeneration of the state into a vast predatory machine extracting the national wealth for the benefit of a kleptocratic elite is a virtual certainty. Surveying the contemporary scene in India, Ambedkar would probably now say that the language of governance is being spoken in the Grammar of Anarchy.

The fragile and illusory security of our daily lives that we enjoy as members of the middle class has long been lost among tribals and dalits, among rural peasants and urban workers who are constantly abused by agents of the state in various ways.  Of course the picture of social anarchy is probably not yet universal, but we seem to be getting there with disturbing rapidity, despite occasional small and tenuous gains like RTI made after long and arduous struggles. Here too, one must invoke Ambedkar in the same prescient speech:

We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well....[meaning] a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. ....We must begin by acknowledging the fact that there is complete absence of two things in Indian Society. One of these is equality. On the social plane, we have in India a society based on the principle of graded inequality which we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty. On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has  laboriously built up. [Emphasis added]

If these arguments appear to be the febrile rantings of a disturbed mind, I am open to efforts to convince me I'm wrong. But until someone does,  I'm increasingly afraid of the future that we have left our children.

Meanwhile, hold them, if you have any, ever closer to your heart. The encircling and deepening gloom makes the "affirming flames" and "ironic points of light" even more necessary.

PS: See also an earlier post titled Alternatives to Naxalism.

SYNERGY OF BARBARISMS

The publicity blitz accompanying the release of Tony Blair's book has several levels of irony. 

Firstly, it is an ironic comment on the state of international politics that the heads of states of two of the major liberal democracies in the world have waged war with the ostensible purpose of bringing democratic freedoms to Iraq and Afghanistan, and have enjoyed complete immunity for the enormous destruction and mayhem that they have wreaked in both countries (to say nothing of ancillary attacks in other countries like Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia in pursuit of a vague and quixotic "war on terror"). It is even more ironic that according to the standards that their countries' laid down at Nuremberg in 1945, these heads of states would qualify to be charged and tried as war criminals. And it's more ironic still that the supposedly democratic world seems powerless to bring these criminals to account, thanks to the complicit silence of the mainstream media in educating the public about their criminality, and their stenographic repetitions of, and indeed outright support for, their mendacity, racism and violence. 

That's what enables Blair to make millions as author and speaker strutting about the globe, dispensing advice and admonition to all and sundry on the self-proclaimed righteousness of his psychopathic stance as leader of a supposed democracy. His tawdry role as Middle East "Peace" Envoy coincides precisely with the further consolidation of the occupation and destruction of the Palestinian people by a succession of psychopathic Israeli regimes spurred on by the self-appointed inheritors of the Western Enlightenment tradition. Meanwhile, all attempts to hold Blair to account for his criminality founder on traditions of politeness and propriety (or hypocrisy) in western political discourse. 

The trouble with this kind of criticism of current versions of Anglo-American "liberalism" is that it is often confused with support for the thoroughly odious Islamic extremism that it has nurtured (but not always created) in various parts of the world. To criticize the Israeli occupation of Palestine or the US/NATO invasion and occupation and destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq is - through some kind of intellectual legerdemain - too often taken as support for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the Taliban and various terrorist outfits emanating from Pakistan. Few seem to notice that this aggressive "liberalism" of neocons like Blair and Bush and their ideological soul-mates is supported ideologically and financially by the no less odious Christian and Jewish extremists - who are the Christian and Jewish mirror images of the Taliban in the US and Israel. Apparently, colonialism and racism and apartheid are somehow respectable in these "liberal" circles, including - sadly but predictably - among the Hindu right in India, as long as it appears in the guise and shape of Zionism in Israel. 

The barbarism of the neocons (in which I include all those who think it's a good idea to wage wars in other countries in the guise of a global war on terrorism, but actually to defend their interests against threats both real and imaginary) and the barbarism of extremist groups using the garb of religion to further their own egregious aims both nourish each other with the oxygen of publicity, and hog the attention of the media, distracting the public from far more urgent and important struggles to make the world a more liveable place. Thus it comes about that successive US regimes have persuaded their public that the Taliban in Afghanistan  are a serious enough threat to the US to warrant invading that country and waging a war there for nine years costing thousands of lives both Afghan and US, and billions of dollars in resources. Thanks to the media, few Americans apparently care that the effect of this war has been to entrench the Taliban more firmly in power and destroy any prospect of a peaceful life for millions of Afghans for the foreseeable future, enrich the military and other contractors and the armaments industry, all at the expense of the health, education and well-being of current and future generations of American citizens. 

Notice what is happening in Pakistan: the US is aiding and arming a pseudo-democratic (but effectively military) regime in Pakistan in the guise of enlisting its support against terrorism, while this aid is being spent by the Pakistani regime on fighting an internal civil war which is designed to create more terrorists (including the heroic predator drone strikes on civilian populations from the safety of Kansas and West Virginia). Both donor and recipient have developed incentives to continue this killing spree in the name of fighting the very terrorism whose flames are being fanned by their actions. Consider the synergy between the military-industrial-congressional-thinktank-university-media complex in the US/NATO countries and the military-jihadi complex in Pakistan, and follow the money. Ask yourself who is gaining by all this. Notice similar synergies developing elsewhere, e.g., in the alleged Peace Talks between a Palestinian quisling and his US and Israeli masters while ordinary Palestinians continue to lose their homes to settlements, and keep getting killed for reasons which only rarely pose a threat to Israeli citizens. The war on terror has expanded, not shrunk, because it has evolved into a political project to keep people in a permanent state of insecurity in which they would feel  compelled to support policies to protect them against imagined terrors. 

I would predict that the politics of the 21st century will be characterized by the Synergy of Barbarisms rather than by the Clash of Civilizations. But the synergy of barbarisms cannot be broken by a counter-alliance of another set of barbarisms, but by an alliance of civilizations. Between the extremes of ideologies there is the silent majority of mostly apathetic, but mostly decent people who care principally about their own futures and that of their children and their own communities. Yet they feel powerless and insecure in the face of vast political and economic issues when these become their own private problems. The violent faces of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism do not represent the vast majority of such people, many of whom are the adherents of these religious traditions. Nor do their religious texts speak unambiguously about the need for compassion, kindness and mercy in dealing with suffering engendered by the different problems that beset our world today. But they provide a narrative, language and symbolism for what are essentially worldly (secular) conflicts born out of the confusion and insecurity that economic, historical and political forces beyond their control have created. These anxieties are felt in different forms and for different reasons both among powerful elites as well as among powerless and marginalized masses. These threats and fears then present opportunities for neocons to exploit  "Pearl Harbour" moments of insecurity to disseminate perceptions of threats to so-called security or "national interests" that will help them initiate invasions and killing sprees in the name of peace, security, democracy and development. In reality, all that improves is the wealth of those invested in this permanently elusive, but ultimately destructive, search for security. 

Yet there is enough in various religious traditions to propel a search for peace and justice and a better world that secular ideologies, with their absence of any sense of the sacred, have so far failed to provide. There is a need for ordinary people (civil society) to get together across national boundaries to commence dialogues aimed at peace. Let's talk, eat, make music, worship together; visit each other's homes, help each other out in times of distress. Let's not wait for governments to do these things, because the indications are that the only things they are interested in is arming each other against threats that they themselves manufacture, or are manufactured for them, to keep us frightened and pliant. Therefore it is absolutely imperative that foreign policy be taken away from the stranglehold of states - most of which often behave as if they have an incentive to continue the killing and destruction. Let's re-read all significant texts, re-assess all sources of wisdom. Let's use them to build traditions of dissent that will use the oldest civilizational narratives known to humanity to stop the killing and destruction and live in peace with justice. Yes, let's use religion as a political resource, but to renew, rebuild and heal our civilizational inheritance, not destroy ourselves with our barbarism. 

THE TOUCHING FAITH OF LEFT LIBERALS IN THE STATE

Here is a good example of the kind of implicit and unqualified faith placed in the state by apparently left-leaning liberals. 

Sadanand Patwardhan appears to be a blogger with an interest in Chhattisgarh. Recently, he published the following open letter on the Chhattisgarh Net Yahoo group (membership required) from one Arun Agarwal to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with an introductory comment of his own. 

Unfortunately, we are not told what Agarwal's sources of information are. [My inquiries on the internet about Agarwal himself lead me to a PIL activist based in Bangalore, who has filed a petition in the Bangalore High Court urging that the state government be restrained from signing any further MoU's with private mining companies.] How does he arrive at his estimates of the private theft of public assets, and how does he compare the performance of the private companies with NMDC if the private balance sheets are not publicly available? However, having read elsewhere of loot on a similar scale from public resources, I do tend to give some credence to Agarwal's story. 

More substantively, I agree with Agarwal's contention that the extractive industries ought not to be in private hands, since they are essentially profiting from land-based wealth that, according to the Constitution and the Supreme Court judgment that Agarwal cites, is held by the state in trust on behalf of the public. But why this faith in a state that has done so little to protect the interest of the forest tribes and other poor (as Patwardhan himself notes), but has been so anxious to sell off national assets to private interests in the name of development? 

Instead of looking to either state-owned enterprises or private corportations, why not consider innovative forms of ownership and control that will give the people living on the land where the natural resources exist the dominant measure of control over their use and disposition, and a stake in their extraction so that the country as a whole could benefit? 

Of course, the immediate objection I can hear is: what do scheduled tribes living in subsistence forest-based economies know about modern methods of mining? What do they know about returns on investment, cost benefit calculations, project management, global pricing of natural resources, and other sorts of knowledge that have paid such rich dividends to the enterpreneurs and investors? 

This goes to the heart of the development debate: who benefits from this knowledge, and at whose cost? Why have not systems of knowledge been created that factor in the benefits to the people who live on the land from which the wealth will be extracted? The Indian state, despite constitutional obligations to the contrary, has throughout its history been wedded to a model of development that has prioritized the enrichment of the few at the cost of the bare subsistence of the many - never with as much dtermination as since the so-called neoliberal "reforms" of 1991, which has pulled some people out of poverty, accelerated the enrichment of the already wealthy middle and investor classes, and pushed many more down to levels of destitution that rival some of the poorest African countries. 

The question of ownership and control of national assets therefore ought to be at the forefront of social innovation if the country has to break out of the narrow range of choices along the state-private sector continuum. But from what I can tell, this is not part of any public debate or discussion. The increasing immiserization and polarization of Indian society into the rich and poor is apparently no one's urgent concern. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friends,

The following letter from Arun Agrawal argues with remarkable cogency & with what appears to be firm hold over facts in favour of a policy that would entrust mining solely to public sector and have it rescued from the clutches of crony capitalists & robber barons. He cites the recent Supreme Court judgment over the Ambani Vs, Ambani fight for Krishna Godavari Natural Gas pricing to buttress his case. If his facts are correct about the mining practices of NMDC, then one would have to admit he makes a case that is iron clad. 

Its important deficiency is that it doesn't address the special needs of tribes & other poor, who would be dispossessed of their ancestral lands & livelihoods as they always have been since legends & histories took hold of human imagination, and therefore have to be compensated first with the lion's share of any "development" of mining that takes place in their territory, and part of that share has to go to them upfront even if that means sacrifices have to be made by rest of the Indians in the short run.

Secondly, it also doesn't account for the feasibility (or its absence) of over extending the current development model, which the policy changes he has advocated will still serve but for the hopeful removal of robbing & corruption that is currently rampant in the system, and the needs of harmonising human desire for "progress" with the limitations imposed by nature.

Having said that, kudos to Agrawal for a brilliant case.

Sadanand

From Arun Agrawal

To

The Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, 

Govt of India 

South Block,

New Delhi

6th August 2010

Re:Nationalisation/ Resumption of Iron Ore Mining valued at over Two Trillion

Dollars

Dear Hon'ble Prime Minister,

I write as a citizen, one among the 125 crores, for whose beneficiary

interest you are the trustee in chief, for the minerals resources in general

and iron resources in particular. 

That these resources are covered by the doctrine of public trust has been

clarified by the Supreme Court in RNRL vs RIL and others, (better known as

Anil Ambani vs Mukesh Ambani) . The court held: Our legal system - based on

English Common Law - includes the public trust doctrine as part of its

jurisprudence. The State is the trustee of all natural resources which are

by nature meant for public use and enjoyment. Public at large is beneficiary

of the seashore, running waters, airs, forests and ecologically fragile

lands. The State as a trustee is under a legal duty to protect the natural

resources. These resources meant for public use cannot be converted into

private ownership. This doctrine is part of Indian law and finds application

in the present case as well. It is thus the duty of the Government to

provide complete protection to the natural resources as a trustee of the

people at large.

It would therefore not be wrong to conclude that the doctrine of public

trust extended to natural gas also covers another natural resource - iron

ore- a resource that India is richly endowed with and probably is the

single largest source of mineral wealth. The Supreme Court further held that

it would be ideal for the PSU to handle such projects exclusively. In the

words of the Supreme Court: It is relevant to note that the Constitution

envisages exploration, extraction and supply of gas to be within the domain

of governmental functions. It is the duty of the Union to make sure that

these resources are used for the benefit of the citizens of this country.

Due to shortage of funds and technical know-how, the Government has

privatized such activities through the mechanism provided under the PSC. It

would have been ideal for the PSUs to handle such projects exclusively.

From the foregoing it would not be wrong to conclude that the natural

resource iron ore is covered by the doctrine of public trust, that the

ownership control and distribution of the iron ore should be done in a

manner so as to best subserve the common good ( Article 39(b) ) and that it

would be ideal for the PSU to handle such projects - exploitation of the

resources exclusively by the State. 

The reason for privatizing oil industry, as stated by the Hon'ble Court,

was shortage of funds and technology knowhow. Neither of these reasons are

applicable to iron ore. The PSU engaged in exploiting iron ore is the sixty

year old NMDC. It is 90% government owned. The operating profit margin for

the last three years has been 78%,78% and 80.5%.( after treating royalty

payment of 5% of turnover as expenses for the year 09-10). It has no

debt and has not paid a rupee as interest in the last eight years. It has

reserves of over 14,000 crores. Its one rupee share was recently subscribed

for Rs300/- when the government diluted its stake from 98% to 90%. It

neither needs money from the government nor the bank to make fresh

investments, and is financially and technologically capable of mining the

entire iron ore of the country, In other words it fully meets the mandate of

the Constitution and the Supreme Court judgment, in the above mentioned

case, to exploit the natural mineral resource of iron ore for the benefit of

the people of the country. It is ironic that while iron ore worth Rs 100

crores is being pilfered and looted by private interest each day in a cosy

crony capitalistic relationship, NMDC is looking for fresh investment for

iron ore in Australia! Add to that the proposed allotment of iron ore to

private barons worth trillion of dollars for petty royalty and not to NMDC,

the tragedy of a poor nation suffering at the hands of corrupt politicians

is complete. Unlike private miners NMDC does not indulge in slaughter

mining. It has the best equipment and their method of exploiting of the

minerals are not only better than any private miners but better than that of

the captive mines of SAIL and Tisco.

Both the conditions for privatization applicable to the gas sector, as

stated in the Supreme Court judgment, is not applicable in case of iron ore

There is no other company in the entire private sector which has a higher

operating profit margin than NMDC. It is also among the top ten companies in

terms of market capitalization. In contrast, the private sector companies

engaged in mining of iron ore are over mining , under invoicing the price,

mining without license or mining plan, under reporting their turnover,

paying a small fraction as taxes or royalties (1.5 %), generating large

amounts of profits in cash for pay-offs to various interests. The annual

loot from iron ore by private miners is around 50,000 crores and involves

around 150 families in a relationship which can be best described as crony

capitalism.. If their balance sheet is made public - which it should as they

are dealing with property belonging to the people- it will show that their

profitability ratios and efficiency is one fourth that of NMDC. More

important, almost all the profit goes to the private miners. The amount of

profits on account of illegal mining runs into tens of thousand crores each

year.

For every Rs 100 that NMDC earns, Rs 90 belongs to the government while for

every Rs100 that the private miners earn less than Rs 5 comes to the

government as royalty and tax. The illegal profits of the mining industry

has been used to purchase political power either by the miner barons

themselves or by the politicians who allot the mines. Every state is heavily

into illegal mining and most of them have non congress governments. The

sterling record of NMDC, the 60 year old PSU, engaged in the mining of iron

ore is being contrasted with that of the private sector to show that there

no justification for the government, which is a trustee of the mineral

wealth, not to nationalize ( in fact the mines are owned by the government

and therefore technically cannot be nationalized) / takeover the iron mines

leased to the private barons and earn thousand of crores for the benefit of

the people of the country on whose behalf the mines are held in trust by you

as the Prime Minister of the country. It cannot be the case of the

government or the private sector that the best of the companies in the

public sector cannot be better than the worst of the companies of the

private sector and there must be privitasation of national mineral resources

belonging to the people of the country because the government should not be

in the business of business especially if it is a profitable business and

the profits are used for the benefit of the people. 

Let FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM and more important Federation of Indian Minerals

Association (FIMI ) who have hundreds of crores to lobby for policies in

their favour, show to the people of the country as to how the private miners

match upto even 30% the performance of the NMDC in terms of profitability,

price realization, royalty payment and income tax payment. This also

includes private steel mills who have been allotted captive mines. The

reason for addressing the issue of nationalization of the iron ore mines

urgently is the attempt made by the BJP government in Karnataka ( a government

by, of and for the mining lobby) to appropriate the entire iron ore wealth

of the State to private interests in perpetuity. The Government of

Karnataka has signed MOU's with various companies (ArcelorMittal , Posco,

Brahamani Industries, Hazira Steel, JSW Steel, Bhushan Steel) for setting up

steel plants of 6 million tonnes capacity each, at the Global Investors meet

on June 4 and June 5. In addition to the MOUs, other applications for

manufacture of steel pending with the government would take the total

capacity to be set up in the State to over 60 million tonnes. The proposed

production signed by GOK in a few months is in excess of the total existing

steel capacity of the country set up in the country in the last hundred

years starting from the first steel plant of Tisco set up in 1907. The

reasons for the iron rush of the state (which surpasses the gold rush) is

two fold : all the profit of iron ore of the state goes to private coffers

and not to the people, and to preempt policy and the provisions of the new

law relating to the allotment of the iron ore. The iron ore lobby knows that

the loot cannot continue indefinitely and it cannot suppress its production

and profits indefinitely. The only way to retain their standalone mines in

the future is to make them as suppliers to the integrated steel plants.

Hence the brilliant scheme to assure the steel barons of fifty percent iron

ore from captive mines on payment of token royalty of 1.5% and fifty percent

from privately leased. It is a win- win situation for everybody. Steel

producers get 50% raw material for free and the standalone mine owners get

to keep their mines and profits. Why the hurry? It is because the new MMRD

Act to be taken up by Parliament in the current session, compels competitive

bidding but exempts existing applicants from the provisions of competitive

bidding. Hence, the need to preempt the operation of the law.

60 million tonnes of steel capacity will require 3000 million tonnes of

iron ore valued at 15 lakh crores [15 trillion rupees, or 300 billion US dollars] 

at current international prices. The benefit of the iron ore will go to the steel 

producers and the private miners and the true owners of the mine-the people- 

will have to make do with the pittance of royalty of 1.5 %. These resources are of the value of over

15 lakh crores at current prices and belong to the people of the country and

cannot be made over to the likes of Mittals, Posco etc on payment of 1.5%

of market value as royalty. It will be a total betrayal of public trust

mentioned in the abovementioned judgment of the Supreme Court. It cannot be

the case of liberalization that when people buy steel capitalistic

principles are applied and they are made to pay international price, but

when the capitalist requires raw material socialistic principles are applied

and they are given the iron ore for almost free. It is pertinent to note

that no steel producers except TISCO, SAIL,JSPL, JSW Steel (in part through

MML a PSU) have captive mines and the rest of the producers purchase their

iron ore from NMDC and some of the private mine holders.. The NMDC price is

30 to 40% cheaper than international price. In spite of the purchase of iron

ore from NMDC, the steel manufacturers make substantial profits because

steel price is linked to international price and price has been decontrolled

and removed from the list of items on essential commodity list. Essar Steel

has steel capacity of over 5 million tonnes, purchases ore from NMDC and

makes substantial profit. If the iron ore is nationalized then the steel

production will not suffer on account of paucity of iron ore. It is a bogey

that the steel producers who have sighed MOUs with various State governments

- Madhu Khoda style- will raise against nationalization (apart from the

usual foreign investment will suffer) because of their MOUs for captive

mines. There will be no scarcity of iron ore because SAIL and Tata Steel,

JSPL and JSW Steel (in part) account for 25 million steel production for

which they have captive mines. NMDC current capacity of 30 to 35 million

tonnes of iron ore is sufficient to take care of another 20 million tonnes

of steel capacity which leaves a deficit of iron ore for around 10 million

tonnes. Steel production of six million tonnes is from scrap, imported and

domestic. The balance ore for 5 million tonnes can be easily provided from

the mines taken over by the government as these mines produce over 100

million tonnes of iron ore and the balance exported for profits to the

government. On economic consideration alone there is a strong case for

nationalization of the iron ore industry. The legal and the constitutional

consideration make it obligatory, more so when you are the chief trustee for

the mineral wealth.

However, it is the political consideration which should be of the greatest

concern to the Congress government. The BJP has reportedly amassed a war

chest of 10,000 crores for the next election through its rule in the mine

rich states and proposes to spend 30 crores in each of 300 constituency. For

thirty crores, three lac votes can be purchased at the rate of Rs 1000/vote

and with 7-8 lakh votes cast per constituency it will be victory for the BJP

and curtains for the Congress. Unfortunately it is the survival of the

corruptest. (sorry for the word which does not exist in the English

dictionary for obvious reason). The manner in which the valuable mineral

resources have been plundered in various states is the greatest economic

scandal of India which includes the period under which it was under colonial

rule. The British had to conquer the country to exploit its mineral resources, the

present day robber barons have to merely pay a small bribe to do so (refer

Madhu Khoda). It may be considered inappropriate to point out to the

greatest living Indian economist of our times, that the situation in India

is no different than that of African nations which are resource rich nations

with poor people. Should we then derive satisfaction from the fact that the

developmental index for eight of our states - mostly mineral rich states- is

worse than the 22 nations of Africa for similar reasons? 

I, therefore beseech you to do right by the people and the constitution

of the country and takeover all the iron ore mines in the private sector.

If you will not do it, who will?

Like the bank nationalization, it will be your legacy to the nation for

which the coming generation will be grateful.

With sincere regards

Arun Kumar Agrawal

(angrywal@hotmail.com)

HOW TO DESTROY YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM THROUGH OVER-MEDICATION

No, this is not a little disquisition on human physiology. 

In his farewell speech in 1961, US President Eisenhower warned against the insidious influence of what he called the "military-industrial complex" (on the advice of his staff, he abandoned his original intention of calling it the "military-industrial-congressional complex"). Not only have his warnings obviously fallen on deaf years in the nearly fifty years that have passed, but the military-industrial complex has now grown in size and scope to include the congress (as Eisenhower already feared), think tanks, universities, media, and now, as the Washington Post has revealed, also the intelligence. 

In the last ten years, according to this Washington Post report, the so-called "war on terror"has now spawned a self-reinforcing and self-justifying intelligence industry with no accountability, no reality checks, and no quality control - just like the so-called "defence" contractors and private military and intelligence firms that have fattened themselves, often on on no-bid contracts, from the boundless opportunities for killing and destruction. If ever you needed evidence to see how utterly futile, counterproductive and self-destructive the so-called War on Terror has turned out to be, this is it. 

Now that no one seems to know what the heck is going on, no one is responsible for the big picture, or connecting the myriad dots into some sort of pattern, what is to prevent one of the private contractors from starting its own false flag operation, or from purveying intelligence deliberately designed to promote a self-aggrandizing agenda? It's not as if there are no connections between some of these contractors and the most extreme political forces in the US, including some who see themselves as bringing forward the second coming of the Messiah. Think Dick Cheney with KBR, Erik Prince with Blackwater/XE...doubtless there are others I am not aware of. Besides, it's very likely that the loose networking and the information overload will allow in just those firms and individuals who are likely to have such an extreme agenda. 

So, after spending billions trying very hard to (over)protect themselves, the US government now probably feels more threatened than ever - according to the FICKLE logic described by Ray McGovern in his analysis of the intelligence snake-pit in which the US government finds itself. 

Why do I worry about this? Because India boasts of a special alliance with the US, which ties its fortunes to the fate of the US. Now another partner in the eternal war on terror wants to muscle in and create another "special relationship" with India. Almost the entire British cabinet is soon coming to India, and will be feted and dined by the country's business celebrities. But what are they coming for? According to The Telegraph: 

Cameron hopes to secure contracts worth £1 billion (Rs 7,200 crore) for the British defence industry. His team will seek to press British interests in India’s $11-billion (Rs 51,364 crore), 126-aircraft fighter procurement contest.

Six manufacturers are in the running for the lucrative deal, with EADS, the consortium that includes British aerospace company BAe Systems, offering the Eurofighter Typhoon jet. Britain also hopes to sell India 57 more hawk jet trainers, in a deal worth £500 million (Rs 3,600 crore), in addition to the 66 fighters BAe is already contracted to provide.

So much more urgent to keep the killing machine well-fed than fighting the genocidal levels of deprivation and poverty that "shining India" now manages to register! This is a small indication that India is likely to go down the same self-destructive path as its partners and allies like the US and the UK of devoting more and more resources desperately needed elsewhere in feeding the killing machine. Feeling safer already? 

There will still be people who will deride my thinking as simple-minded, soft-headed, or bleeding-hearted. The next terrorist attack from across the border, they will claim, will not induce hysterical demands for opening new schools or for feeding the hungry, but for bombing the country that sent the terrorists back to the stone age. In the present climate of self-induced paranoia, they will probably sound convincing. But they will fail to convince anyone by their arguments - if they have any - that their allegedly more "realistic" solution of continuing to throw billions into the bottomless pit of the war in terror now will make us any more secure in the future, let alone bring about a world we would all want our children and grand-children to live in. 

So...to return to the medical metaphor suggested in the title...have we already medicated ourselves beyond repair? Ultimately, there is no there is no better way to build long-term immunity against terrorism than to disinvest from the industries of destruction, and re-invest in rebuilding vibrant, creative and dignified societies in which everyone has a stake: through promoting learning and creativity, improving public health, protecting the environment, rebuilding the infrastructure, creating jobs for those who can work, and a support system that ensures that people who can't are still able to live in dignity and with respect as members of society. What's more, there is every indication that we are running out of time to adopt this solution. But governments will not do it by themselves: they are mostly the doctors who have been prescribing the wrong medicines because they stand to gain from our helplessness and dependency. It is for people to draw on their instincts for survival to either change their governments, or opt out of the systems that keep us scared, angry and hungering for peace and justice.