Newsclick fir and farmers' movement

*Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM)* Revised Press Note released in the Press Conference held at Press Club, New Delhi on 20th October 2023. *Hail the Glorious, Patriotic Mobilization of Farmers by Samyukta Kisan Morcha* *Stop Spreading Canards Against Farmers’ Movement* *Withdraw False FIR Against Newsclick Accusing Farmers Movement as anti-national, funded by foreign and terrorist forces-* *Oppose Fabricated FIR Against Journalists and Demand Their Immediate Release-* *1st to 5th November 2023 Village Level Campaign Against False FIR and Modi Government’s Pro Corporate Policies* *6th November 2023 Call for All India Protest Day – Burn Copies of False FIR* *SKM to campaign in five poll-going states with slogan “Oppose Corporate, Punish BJP, Save Country”* *72 Hour Day and Night Sit-In struggle before all the Raj Bhawans in state capitals on* *26th- 28th November 2023.* The National Meeting of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha held today at New Delhi has expressed anger against the Narendra Modi led RSS-BJP government that had made baseless, dishonest and false allegations in the Newsclick FIR against the historic farmers’ struggle. The FIR accused the farmers’ movement as anti-national, funded by foreign and terrorist forces. Farmers’ movement was a committed, patriotic movement, drawing parallels with 1857 and the freedom movement against foreign loot. It correctly read the nefarious plan of 3 farm laws to withdraw govt support from agriculture and hand over farming, mandis and food distribution to Corporations led by Adani, Ambani, Tatas, Cargill, Pepsi, Walmart, Bayer, Amazon and others. The 3 farm laws were thrust on the country, the contract law legally bound farmers to grow what the Corporate would buy, would be contracted to purchase costly inputs (seeds, fertilizers, insecticides, fuel, irrigation, technology, services) and sell their crop to the company. The Mandi Act forbade Govt operation, Govt procurement and Price fixation (MSP) to allow a nexus of big companies to dominate crop trade at the lowest price with online networking and Private Silos. The Essential Commodities Amendment Act allowed freedom to hoarders and black marketeers. The farmers of India read through this subterfuge. They exposed the RSS-BJP – Corporate plan of depriving the people of India of food security, pauperising the farmers, of changing cropping pattern to suit Corporations and allowing free penetration of MNCs into India’s food processing market. They rose as one, rose as a wave in a turbulent ocean, surrounded Delhi and forced the stubborn Modi govt to relent. In the process the farmers braved water cannons, teargas shelling, road blocks with huge containers, deep road cuts, lathi charge, cold and hot weather. Over 13 months they sacrificed 732 martyrs. They lent voice to the most helpless and deprived sections of India as well as to the voice for justice in media and courts. This was a patriotic movement of the highest quality in the face of repression by a fascist govt serving interests of Imperialist exploiters. Indian farmers feed 1.4 billion people. They provide subsistence and work to 68.6% population. Govt investment in agriculture infrastructure, promotion of profitable farming, development of the life of village poor and facilitation and securing of modern food processing, marketing and consumer network under the collective ownership and control of peasant-worker cooperatives will bring revolutionary change in peoples’ economy. It will make India as well as people of India rich. However, in service of corporate and MNCs, Modi govt has launched another attack on farmers. It has used an undemocratic law, the UAPA, which allows the Govt to charge citizens of being terrorists, hence obviously anti national, without having to prove that charge for decades, as even bail is denied. They have used UAPA to charge Newsclick media house which wrote to support the farmers movement. Newsclick only did the duty that a true media should be doing- to report the truth, report the problems of the farmers and about the united struggle. The BJP Government is using the farcical FIR to spread a canard that the farmers’ movement was anti-people, anti-national and backed by terrorist funding routed through Newsclick. This is factually wrong and mischievously inserted to portray the movement in bad light and seeking to extract revenge for the humiliating defeat they suffered at the hands of the farmers of our country. Modi govt, after having withdrawn the 3 black acts, is moving again now to falsely charge farmers movement of being foreign funded and sponsored by terrorist forces! All this while RSS and BJP is promoting FDI, Foreign MNCs, big corporations into agriculture! They are deeply committed to condemn and ruin Indian farmers. SKM remains committed to saving farmers’ economy, preventing foreign loot and rejuvenating village economy to build a strong India. The SKM General body held at New Delhi express its deep anguish and protest and warn the Modi Government to immediately withdraw the false Newsclick FIR and demand immediate release of the journalists Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakraborty. SKM will organise village level campaign against false FIR and Modi Govt from 1st to 5th November 2023. Leaflets explaining the motive of the FIR and to rally the farmers to prevent the Modi Govt from throttling farmers’ economy to help corporate and MNCs will be distributed through door to door visit in the villages. 6th November 2023 will be observed as All India Protest Day and copies of the false FIR will be burnt at the Tehsil and district headquarters. SKM also decided to campaign in the five poll bound states with the slogans- “Oppose Corporate, Punish BJP, Save Country” The 72 Hour Day Night Sit-In struggle before all the Raj Bhawan at state capitals on 26th- 28th November 2023 will be organised with massive participation of farmers and workers also will join this struggle across the country under the banner of platform of central trade unions. *Media Cell | Samyukta Kisan Morcha* Contact: samyuktkisanmorcha@gmail.com 9447125209, 9830052766

Guru ka Bagh Satyagraha/ C.F. Andrews

It was a sight which I never wish to see again, a sight incredible to an Englishman. There were four Akali Sikhs with black turbans facing a band of about two dozen policemen, including two English officers. They had walked slowly up to the line of police just before I had arrived and they were standing silently in front of them at about a yard’s distance. They were perfectly still and did not move further forward. Their hands were placed together in prayer and it was clear that they were praying. Then, without the slightest provocation on their part, an Englishman lunged forward the head of his lathi [staff] which was bound with brass. He lunged it forward in such a way that his fist which held the staff struck the Akali Sikhs, who were praying, just at the collar bone with great force.

It looked the most cowardly blow as I saw it struck and I had the greatest difficulty in keeping myself under control... The blow which I saw was sufficient to throw the Akali Sikh and send him to the ground. He rolled over and slowly got up and at once faced the same punishment again. Time after time, one of the four who had gone forward was laid prostrate by repeated blows, now from English officers and now from the police who were under their control.... The brutality and inhumanity of the whole scene was indescribably increased by the fact that the men who were praying to God had already taken a vow that they would remain silent and peaceful in word and deed. The Akali Sikhs who had taken this vow, both at the Golden Temple and before starting and also at the shrine of Guru-ka-Bagh were...largely from the army. They had served in many campaigns in Flanders, in France, in Mesopotamia and in East Africa. Some of them at the risk of their own safety must have saved the lives of Englishmen who had been wounded. Now they were falling to the ground at the hands of the English officials serving in the same government which they themselves had served. ...I saw no act, or look of defiance. It was a true martyrdom, a true act of faith...

There has been something far greater in this event than a mere dispute about land and property. It has gone far beyond the technical questions of legal possession or distraint. A new heroism, learnt through suffering, has arisen in the land. A new lesson in moral warfare has been taught to the world.... It reminded me of the shadow of the Cross.

....It was very rarely that I witnessed any Akali Singh, who went forward to suffer, flinch from a blow when it was struck. Apart from the instinctive and slight shrinking back, there was nothing, so far as I can remember, that could be called a deliberate avoidance of the blows struck. The blows were received one by one without resistance and without a sign of fear. 

... A new heroism, learnt through suffering, has arisen in the land. A new lesson in moral warfare has been taught to the world... It was very rarely that I witnessed any Akali Sikh, who went forward to suffer, flinch from a blow when it was struck. Apart from the instinctive and involuntary reaction of the muscles that has the appearance of a slight shrinking back, there was nothing, so far as I can remember that could be called a deliberate avoidance of the blow struck. The blows were received one by one without resistance and without a sign of fear."

Andrews, C.F., Manchester Guardian, February 15 and February 24, 1924.

Hooliganism in Karnataka : Gandhiji

[ The correspondent had referred to a charity
show for Indians organized in Dharwad by a sympathetic(to non-cooperation movement) European lady. The original
idea of a play by Indian schoolgirls had been changed at the guardians' instance into a
programme of singing and recitations. During and after the entertainment a mob of
young men, instigated, the correspondent alleged, by non-co-operationists, had
stoned the organizers and guests. Source : Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi ]

HOOLIGANISM
The columns of Young India are open to all who have any
grievance against non-co-operators. ‘One who knows’ has sent to the
Editor a letter which I gladly publish. He has in a covering letter
giving his name pleaded for the publication of his letter. Such
pleading was unnecessary in connection with a matter of public
importance. If the facts related by the correspondent are true, they
reflect no credit on the young men of Dharwad. The correspondent
has connected the incident with non-co-operation. It is the fashion
nowadays to connect every incident of indecent behaviour with

non-co-operation. I wish that the incident had been brought to my
notice when I was at Dharwad. I would then have been able to,
investigate the matter and deal with it then. I may state that stones were
thrown at a meeting of Dharwad students that was held by me in the
open. One boy narrowly escaped being seriously hurt. And it was a
pleasure to watch the audience remaining unmoved in spite of the
stone-throwing. I was told too that stone-throwing at meetings was not
an unusual occurrence at Dharwad in connection with the
non-Brahmin movement. I state this fact only to show that Dharwad
enjoys the unenviable reputation for stone-throwing in a special
manner. I must therefore decline to connect the incident either with
non-co-operation or with any anti-European movement. Though the
correspondent’s letter is obscure on the point, it is evident from what
he says that resentment was felt at the idea of girls taking part in a
drama. The correspondent says that the drama was dropped “in the
nick of time at the desire of the guardians”. There must have been
persistence to provoke resentment.
But my position is clear. No amount of provocation could
possibly justify the hooliganism of the “mob of young men’. They
had no right to prevent the performance that was at last determined
upon, if the guardians of the girls did not mind it. The truest test of
democracy is in the ability of anyone to act as he likes, so long as he
does not injure the life or property of anyone else. It is impossible to
control public morals by hooliganism. Public opinion alone can keep
a society pure and healthy. If the young men of Dharwad did not like
a public exhibition of Dharwad girls on the stage, they should have
held public meetings and otherwise enlisted public opinion in their
favour. The movement of non-co-operation is intended to check all
such abuses. Non-co-operationists are undoubtedly expected, not only
to refrain from taking part in such violent scenes as are represented to
have taken place at Dharwad, but they are expected also to prevent
them on the part of others. The success of non-co-operation depends
upon the ability of non-co-operationists to control all forces of
violence. All may not take part in the programme of self-sacrifice but
all must recognize the necessity of non-violence in word and deed.
I am surprised that the correspondent in his covering letter
speaks of the hooliganism at Dharwad in the same breath as the
massacre of Jallianwala Bagh. He loses all sense of proportion when
he compares the cold-blooded and calculated butchery of innocent
men, who had given no provocation, with the undisciplined and
thoughtless demonstration of a “mob of young men”, who were

labouring under a fancied or real wrong. Both acts are worthy of
condemnation. But there is as much difference between the
programme of the Dharwad boys and the Dyerism at Amritsar as there
is between an attempt at simple hurt and a completed murder.
Young India, 1-12-1920
Gandhiji.

AIFRTE condemns central government’s move to dispense with SC/ST quota in faculty appointments in the IITs

Subject: AIFRTE condemns central government’s move to dispense with SC/ST quota in faculty appointments in the IITs.

"AIFRTE condemns the central government's blatant and unconstitutional instruction to the IIT to dispense with SC/ST quota in faculty appointments. We had cautioned that NEP 2020 with its promotion of so-called 'merit' and no mention of the reservation policy was headed in this direction. We demand immediate withdrawal of the instruction by the government. Reservation policy is a core basis of the principle of social justice and government must publicly re-affirm that it stands by this policy and will fully and sincerely implement it."

With thanks and regards,

Prof. Jagmohan Singh                                  Dr. Vikas Gupta

(Chairperson, AIFRTE)                              (Organizing Secretary, AIFRTE.                                    Dated: 21/12/2020

Visions of development :the inevitable need of alternatives : An article by Kishen Pattnayak

Click the title below - Visions of development :the inevitable need of alternatives : An article by Kishen Pattnayak

Out of this Earth,Revised new Edition: A Review by Aniruddha Jena

Samarendra Das & Felix Padel, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel (Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2020), xxxii + 776 pp.

Can Anthropology of Aluminium Companies Speak for the Adivasis? Epistemological Ruptures in East India Frontier

Introduction:

There have been a lot of follow up writings that have encapsulated and demystified the enormity and complexities of ideas, events, histories, experiences, and narratives that Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel encompasses. This review essay is an attempt to re-engage and revisit some of the key aspects and attributes of the new 2020 edition by Samarendra Das and Felix Padel.

Samarendra Das is an independent researcher, Odia writer, film-maker and activist. He is also closely associated with the Samajvadi Jan Parishad (Socialist People’s Council) -- a political outfit working with grassroots-level movements in India. Das is also a founder member of Foil Vedanta (www.foilvedanta.org), an independent grassroots solidarity organisation focused primarily on the British-Indian mining company Vedanta Resources PLC. Felix Padel is an anthropologist trained in Oxford and Delhi universities. His earlier work Sacrifice of Human Being (1995) looked at the colonial invasion of Kond territory from 1835. It is worth mentioning that the new 2020 edition has some new elements to it. The new edition contains 20 chapters with 808 pages while the 2010 edition was 21 chapters with 774 pages. In this edition, the authors swapped their authorship and this time the activist Das takes the first authorship. The new edition has 14 tables, 24 images, 6 maps, and 8 appendices that makes the book a treasure including the statistics and the list of mines. The 2010 edition came out after the Shah commission was set up to investigate the illegal iron ore and manganese mining situate in India. The book was brought to the Supreme Court’s attention during the landmark case on Niyamgiri. The reason Niyamgiri is best forested area of Odisha’s Bauxite Malis is the only mountain with its own special tribe, the Dongria Kond, who live only in the Niyamgiri range, and have preserved the forest on the mountain summits as sacred to Niyam Raja, the Lord of the Law (p. 64, 2010; p.73, 2020). After 10 years, the world is different, and mankind is witnessing severe and catastrophic environmental challenges in the form of global warming, hurricanes, epidemic, pandemic, flood, landslide, avalanches and more. Amongst the other threats, climate change in particular is the most pressing and urgent issue that the world is facing. The new edition is an updated version with more compelling details and records. It so adeptly presents the intricate linkages of mining-deforestation-climate change and that is one of the new additions which makes this new edition different from the 2010 edition.

Out of this Earth (OoTE) offers a detailed and overarching view of the aluminium industry worldwide, and also about its production, consumption, and distribution. The authors also focus on aspects like corporate financing, corporate and state nexus, sufferings and exploitations of local and indigenous communities in close proximity with aluminium factories and refineries. The book provides a close view about the trajectories of aluminium and how it became one of the most used metals in the history of mankind. Primarily, the study in this book is located in Khondalite Mountains in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, which is famous for rich deposits of minerals. The book raises some of the key fundamental questions about the political economy of industrialisation in general and the aluminium industry in particular. It also traces the growth and evolution of extractive industries and how these industries have continued to adversely affect innocent communities that are mostly neglected and side-lined by the state and its development paradigm. The authors add more essence to the fundamental questions that the Adivasis are grappling with and they held the Government answerable for that. The authors quote Bhagaban Majhi, a leader of Adivasi resistance to the Utkal Alumina project in Kashipur, Odisha:

“We have sought an explanation from the government about people who have already been displaced in the name of development. How many have been properly rehabilitated: you have not provided them with jobs; you have not rehabilitated them at all. How can you again displace more people? Where will you relocate them and what jobs will you give them? You tell us first. The Government has failed to answer our questions. Our fundamental question is: how can we survive if our lands are taken away from us? We are tribal farmers. We are earthworms [Matiro Poko], like fishes that dies when taken out of water, a cultivator dies when his land is taken away from him. So we won’t leave our land. We want permanent development.” (Recorded in the film Matiro Poko (Earth Worm, Company Man) by Amerandra and Samarendra Das (2005)

The book is not limited in its locational positioning to Odisha, India; it also recounts the histories and contemporary scenes of aluminium industry in other countries like Brazil, Australia, Guyana, Jamaica, Guinea, Ghana, and Iceland. The book is quite successful in providing a macro understanding of the aluminium industry and the inhumane and disastrous affect it has on marginalised and locationally disadvantaged communities. 

Importantly, it is essential to indicate that being an Odia myself who hails from Odisha and considering my own background and growing up in a tribal dominated district like Keonjhar, I find this book quite compelling and absorbing for the people of Odisha. It is fascinating to see a work like this that takes the responsibility of being sincere and authentic to the Adivasis, their identities, values, and cultures.

Moreover, in terms of the theoretical and methodological groundings OoTE is an enriching volume. It goes beyond the traditional and conventional ways and means of doing research in tribal communities by practicing new ways and means that question the conventional anthropological and other sociological styles and patterns of engaging with local and indigenous communities and their lives and cultures. 

The book offers a bottom-up view of community life, culture and how industrialisation and the business interest of corporates have been affecting the social, cultural, geographical, economic and environmental ecosystems of local and indigenous communities. 

Primarily, drawing on empirical evidence from sites located in tribal spaces in Odisha, the book engages with various politically and economically disadvantaged indigenous communities in Odisha to understand how bauxite mining and aluminium production and refining have tremendously affected the social and cultural changes; and more importantly, how industrialisation in the name of so-called development of marginalised and underprivileged communities has been politically motivated; and local people’s best well-being has been economically side-lined and affected by the state and corporate nexus in a very strategic way.

Methodologically and theoretically, the book foregrounds itself in a robust space and it tries to promote indigenous ways and means of engaging with the tribal communities by employing methods of co-learning, co-listening, and co-narrating. While the book refers and cites global scholarship and literature, it is nevertheless very categorical about not falling in the trap of western methods and methodologies to carry out the study. The book also critiques the western and popular anthropological and other social sciences methods and methodologies and talks about the need for a method like Reverse Anthropology by substantiating it with holistic yet critical analysis that comes out of a true bottom-up approach. On popular development paradigms, the book offers staunch criticism of a development model that is embedded in the corporate-state nexus with invasive and destructive intentions, that hamper the indigenous communities and their lives. 

Furthermore, the book does an in-depth analysis of aluminium companies and how they affect human life by capturing some of India’s strongest and most successful people’s movements, like in Kashipur (for some years) and Niyamgiri, which succeeded in halting mining projects and keep community interests alive. Das and Padel also discuss that,

 “the extraction of mineral wealth from the tribal land from the consumerism and resource wars of the global elite provides a sharp insight into various forms of power; from overt economic and political power of the industrial-military complex, to the role of aid agencies, NGOs, and academics in obfuscating information to suit their own agendas, an finally, the ability of grassroots people’s movements to mobilise effective action against these huge odds.” (p.xxiii) 

The book promises to offer valuable insights about the global history of aluminium and it traces the evolution of aluminium as a metal and its importance in human life. In that process, the book successfully engages the complexities embedded in the state and corporate nexus, vested interests, and affected community’s response to the growth of aluminium industry. To start off with, the authors raise certain fundamental questions like,

“How well do we know our earth? How well do we understand how it feeds us, or what we are doing to it through mining? What is the real cost of mining, to our earth and to ourselves? Who really benefits from the extraction and processing of huge quantities of minerals and oil from its depths?” (p.xix)

The uniqueness of OoTE lies in its representation and narration of India’s Adivasis. Individuals’ voices are very prominent and the authors have skilfully positioned these voices as sharply intelligent and historically situated. As a result, these narrations and positioning of marginalised voices make for a holistic history of India’s people’s movement.   

Bringing in their own involvement with the people’s movements in different parts of Odisha and elsewhere against mining projects, the authors detail the hidden motives and agendas behind expanding and establishing aluminium factories and refineries in rich tribal lands. The book also uncovers the deep socio-economic inequalities entrenched in the state and corporate nexus that aim to mainstream and uproot the tribal communities from their own land. The book establishes how indigenous communities and their social, cultural, and economic ecosystems and infrastructures are close to nature and they have a tradition of co-existing with nature without disturbing and dismantling the ecological balance. Also, the book uses the excerpts of the documentary film Matiro Poko, Company Loka (Das &Das, 2005) made by Amarendra Das & Samarendra Das as evidence. The documentary film captures the trajectories of the resistance movements in the tribal spaces of Odisha. It is a documentary film made with and for the indigenous people of Odisha. It brings the speeches, songs, dances, gestures alive on the screen with the purpose of serving the indigenous people. 

Interestingly, the book also analyses the political economy of the aluminium industry and how international monetary agencies including the World Bank and Britain’s Department for International Development have influenced both local NGOs and state-level economic policies to support the aluminium industry.

Primarily, the authors have tried to bring to light the concealed history of aluminium from different parts of the world and the implications it has had on indigenous communities across the globe by historicising and unpacking the overall patterns of aluminium industries in India and elsewhere (p.xxvi).

The book quite efficiently documents the resistance movements of Kashipur and Niyamgiri to showcase how marginalised voices and their collaborative strength led to the success of people’s movements against the mining projects and their hidden motives that goes against the Adivasis culture and livelihood. It also introduces the idea of ecological racism and how it is playing out in protest sites. The authors ably narrate those stories to unmask the subjugation of the innocent Adivasis. The authors quote an intense conversation between Bhim Majhi, a founding member of the Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti along with his other fellow village members with the District Collector, showing a clear grasp of climate change and he responded. Their conversation reads:

They asked, ‘why are you opposing Sterlite Company?’ Majhi replied ‘We are resisting for our motherland, for our mountain. So we oppose Sterlite. We oppose the government. The summer is hot already, it will get worse if Sterlite comes. You won’t get rain then. The summer is so hard already, so we want them to stop.’ Then they say, ‘You are opposing us, can you compete?’ We reply, ‘It is not about winning or losing. We will resist, for our mountain.’ Then they ridicule us and say, ‘What are you Konds up to?’ What do you know about these things?’ (p.167)

This book is an ambitious project that aim to provide a panoramic view for readers to analyse and understand the connections between the aluminium industry, cartels, governments, banks, debt bondage, politics and their impact on the Adivasis (indigenous tribes) of Odisha. The book also exposes an unholy alliance of police, mining companies, politicians and Journalists, which whitewashes and silences public debates to favour the aluminium actors. Also the book changed the site of intervention and gazed at the focus of power and materiality using the political economy framework and anthropology. It also avoids fetishsizing decolonisation to not become redundant like many other works that have only added to the redundancy in the name of so-called rigorous academic scholarship.

Summary:

In their ambitious and motivated attempt to unpack the hidden histories of bauxite mining and the aluminium industry globally, Das and Padel offer a critical understanding of the complex world of aluminium production, starting from identifying a bauxite mining site to factories, consumption, and distribution. The study also takes into consideration all those possible embedded systems, networks, and nexuses to make sense of the events that actually happen beyond the eyes of the communities that get affected in the process. The book describes the unprecedented plundering of resources in some of the best kept natural resources in states like Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh. While doing so, the authors also provide a detailed and extensive account of the atrocities, disparities, inequalities and extraordinary challenges that local and indigenous communities face due to bauxite mining and installation of aluminium factories and refineries. What the book also looks at the state and its administration’s role in facilitating and building a favourable environment for rapid industrialisation at the cost of natural resources and indigenous communities and their livelihoods. While trying to engage and comprehend the global complexities involved in bauxite mining and aluminium production by transnational corporates, the book presents fascinating details of how big names in the extractive industries, multilateral aid agencies, and policymakers who live in cities like New York, Washington or London for that matter, decide the fate of indigenous communities without even analysing and forecasting how extractive industries adversely affect indigenous lives in a disastrous and dreadful way.

The book is structured in five parts, each of which deals with different aspects of bauxite mining, aluminium production, local resistance, global complexities, the state-corporate nexus and so on. Part I of the book, entitled “White Metal: Green Mask”, provides a detailed and extensive account of the global history of aluminium and how it has become the most consumed metal of late due to the change in global economic order and human lifestyles. This section also offers a descriptive idea about the Konds and Khondalite of Odisha and how local resistance movements in places like Kashipur and Lanjigarh of Odisha brewed up to resist bauxite mining and aluminium production and refining. Going ahead, Part II, entitled “Niyam Raja meets the World-Wide Web: Aluminium’s Social Structure”, demystifies the global complexities involved in understanding the overall social structure of aluminium. This part also maps the entire trajectory of aluminium by looking at the global histories and mining laws in India and elsewhere. While focusing on aluminium in India, the authors particularly emphasise events and developments that occurred in Odisha and how certain acts, laws, and enforcements were made to ensure the entry of global aluminium actors into the indigenous lands of Odisha is a hassle-free affair. Analysing and critiquing the aluminium model for development, empowerment, and prosperity in Part III, the authors present quite a rigorous description of how aluminium is waging a war-like situation in the contemporary age, or what the authors so interestingly and evocatively put it as ‘Aluminium Age’ (p.7). Apart from that, this section also offers a concrete understanding about the ‘Investment-Induced Displacement’ of indigenous communities, their livelihoods and culture. In this section, the authors strongly point out that the biggest impact that extractive industries have on the communities is what can be termed as ‘cultural genocide.’ Moreover, the political-economy of bauxite mining and aluminium industries is also covered in this section. In Part IV, the authors’ argument shows the corporatisation, NGO-isation, and culture of appropriation by large corporate interests quite articulately. This section talks in detail about the role of big money players and aid agencies in facilitating the big aluminium corporates to get their aims achieved at the cost of culture and livelihood of local and indigenous communities. Also, this section looks at how the local level NGOs are deployed with a hidden agenda that is sponsored by the corporates to appropriate and brainwash the indigenous communities to get their things done in the name of development, upliftment, and empowerment.  In the last part of the book, the authors are consolidating all the key arguments and summing up in an absorbing way by giving empirical accounts of the movements that eventually tasted success in their fight against big aluminium corporate giants. Primarily, in this section key questions of movements are asked and addressed to understand resistance movements in a more nuanced way. Key questions like:

      “To what extant are the movements against mining projects separate global and local, and to       

       what extent do they form a single movement? To what extent are they ‘indigenous’? What 

       different stream can be identified as inspiring them? (p.621)”

The authors also quite efficiently position these mining resistance movements in the larger scholarship that is available in their field. This section also juxtaposes that these people’s movements against mining projects have a strong and complex lineage which sought inspiration from social thinkers and intellectuals like Marx, Lenin, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Rammanohar Lohia, Kishen Pattnayak, and many others. These movements thrive on the values of cooperation, cohabitation, and coexistence with nature. And lastly, the authors round off the book with the stimulating sense of sacredness and how indigenous communities have a greater bonding with the idea of being sacred. For them, nature is everything and everything that is important and necessary for them to be able to survive is actually blessings of nature. Nature is the ultimate thing that they look at and for. Their lives and livelihoods revolve around the idea of nature and it is sacred to them. Alluding to this assertion, one the Padayatra (Foot March) conducted from 17-22 May 2013, passing through every village on the mountains to share information and strategies, Dongria leader Lodo Sikaka spoke to the crowds consisting of five thousand Dongria and Kutia Konds and he affirmed that: 

“They are saying they would mind 10 km away from the peak. We will not allow mining even 100 km away from it! For the forestland, for fruits, trees, air and water—for everything Adivasis worship the soil. It is our given right. They are saying Adivasis have right to up to two feet of soil, not up to 10-20 feet. Government is saying Adivasis worship for the forest and not for the soil. What do we worship for? Forest or soil? We of course worship for the soil. Our gods and goddesses are everywhere: here, there, in the trees—everywhere!” (p.190) 

So the very nature of extractive industries to extract minerals and natural resources underneath the soil goes against the values of the indigenous communities and they feel agitated when their faiths and values are neglected and side-lined for corporate interests. In the last section, the authors quite extensively focus on these ideas and aspects of indigenous communities and their resistance movements against the mining projects to save their mother nature.

Critical Discussion:

The book explores the intricate details about the geological and economic implications of extractive industries in general and aluminium production and trade in particular. It critically analyses the geology of bauxite mining and aluminium production, distribution, and consumption helps in developing a more nuanced understanding about the complicated and embedded agendas and models involved. In this new edition also, the authors are very particular in substantiating their arguments by providing much important statistical details and references to make their arguments and analyses sound and reasonable. 

The book also argues about the business interests involved in the commodification of aluminium and how it has espoused deep-rooted inequalities and exploitations in the name of development and empowerment. The authors are strongly critiquing this industry model of development because of its lack of understanding of the indigenous communities and their cultures and livelihoods. It also emphasizes the inability of this model to make sustainable efforts to ensure that indigenous communities can continue their peaceful co-existence with their nature. In one of their previous papers, Padel and Das critically analyse the hostile effects of mining projects and metal factories resulting in gross disparity in tribal communities. They also reject the whole rhetoric of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainable mining’ as these ideas have not contributed anything to the indigenous communities in reality. The authors echo the observations of P. Sainath who claims that there are huge amounts of money being pumped into the tribal areas in the name of ‘tribal development’, but unfortunately, it doesn’t make much difference to the lives and realities of the tribal people (Sainath, 1996). One of the harsh and extraordinary impacts that is less talked about and researched is related to the rich ethnic cultures of tribal societies and how these are being killed and vanishing in the name of mainstreaming and development (Padel & Das, 2010). 

Moreover, the book is critically positioned in a space that encourages and urges for decolonising of our relationship with materiality. The book is a strong advocate of respecting tribal lives and their social structure as it details the atrocities being faced by the vulnerable communities in the name of aimless development. The authors also claim that it is not the development of the poor and marginalised, it is actually a false rhetoric which justifies and fulfils the business interests of the big corporates. This book is speaking to a global audience of readers by giving important general scenario about the exploitation of bauxite in Jamaica, Brazil, Australia, Guyana, Guinea, Ghana and Iceland. At the same time the book zeroes in on the particular details of the happenings and development of resistance movements that occurred in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. The authors record and narrate the convoluted details of the state and corporate sponsored disparities and socio-cultural inequalities quite sharply and in the words of Joan Martinez-Alier, this whole exercise and efforts by the authors is termed as Environmentalism of the Indigenous and the Poor (Martinez-Alier, 2002).

The authors are strong proponents of the idea of Reverse Anthropology (Kirsch, 2006) because of the fact that the authors are not very content and convinced with how the so-called conventional anthropologists and the rigidity in the field of anthropology have failed in providing a holistic understanding of the indigenous. The authors establish that Reverse Anthropology is justifying and summarising the methodology part of this book. The authors argue that many studies have been conducted that aim to offer critical details of how indigenous communities and their social structure and cultural values are devastated by mining project. But according to the authors these studies need to go further deep into the societies in order to understand the prevailing phenomena. They also assert that it is very much essential to understand the idea of Social Construction of Knowledge and Realities (Berger & Luckmann, 1971) in order to decipher critical details of tribal societies.

The book is very critical of how traditional anthropological orientations interpreted tribal societies during anthropology’s own primitive years in the nineteenth century as an academic field of enquiry. The authors argue that unfortunately the early anthropological studies and observations depicted tribal and indigenous societies as ‘primitive’ and the so-called industrial society as ‘civilised’. But with time, anthropologists have woken upon to this realisation that tribal societies may be less-developed in material terms and division of labour, but they may be more developed in many other terms like social structure, culture, language, and in their relationship with nature. The authors also concede that tribal societies reject the ideas of oppression and exploitation and thrive on shared living, equal relationship, and cooperative labour. The authors also assert that predominantly, studies in anthropology, history, and sociology about mining mostly address issues and themes like migration, tradition, and belief systems, division of labour, and social structure and control etc. In some ways, these studies have essentialised mining communities that have affected the tribal societies in an unbelievable way. It is because of this narrow and very canonical orientation that the existing scholarship is suffering from colour and caste blindness. Instead, the authors argue that studies should question the issues and politics of race embedded in the underdevelopment of tribal societies (p.21). In order to overcome this canonical orientation, the authors are recommending Reverse Anthropology to ensure that the subjects of research should actually take the centre stage and they should start questioning the researchers in order to ensure that the entire exercise is a process of co-learning and conscientization (Freire, 1970). Conscientization helps the subjects of our research to become critical of the process and they will be empowered in their own ways to make sense of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions of the happenings around them in the name of research and development.

In terms of their methodological and theoretical moorings, the authors are very particular about their ways, styles, and templets of articulating the ground realities, observations, and narratives. This work also problematises the embedded ethnographies and how these canonical and top-down studies take knowledge out of the communities by essentialising their indigenous identity. For those kinds of exercises the authors use ‘Extractive Capital’ or ‘Extractivism’ for “extracting knowledge for the communities to engage with Extractivism.” Exposing the gaps in earlier ethnographies, the authors claim that extracting knowledge from the communities and not giving it back is what the hallmark of traditional ethnography. While one the contrary, this book is extracting knowledge out of Aluminium companies and sharing it back with the communities for their greater good. It is also important to mention here that both the authors are non-indigenous and have played a critical role in engaging with the communities to make sense of being indigenous, its meaning and value. 

Throughout the book, one would sense how empathetic the writing is towards the realities of indigenous communities and their lives. It is the methodological and theoretical positioning of the authors and their orientations which have helped in making sense of the complex veracities hidden in the extractive industries in general and bauxite mining and aluminium industries in particular. This position also help the authors in understanding the deep social, cultural, and communication inequalities (Dutta, 2011) embedded in the state and corporate nexus that facilitates the big mining corporations in consolidating their existence in indigenous lands of India and elsewhere.

Moreover, the use of interesting and robust methods, metaphors, narratives, and concepts, like Matiro Poko, Company Loka, Kagaz (Paper), Dharna, Andolan, Niyam Raja, Karma, Dharma, narrative analysis, oral histories, participating in protests/resistance movements, drafting protest poems and songs with communities, creating protest/social movement media like wall magazine, attending annual general meetings and court proceedings, travelling to and meeting with national and supranational institutions, considering rich archival data, in-depth interviews with key stake holders, content analysis of various government reports, acts, laws, annual reports, and newspaper articles have made this book enriching in terms of the research.

Lastly, it would be justified to suggest that OoTE is a seminal text. It intrigues with its unique positioning of research and the important lessons it imparts about the adversities that is caused by the frequent occurrence of resource extraction in indigenous lands in all its globalized complexity and local perversity. One of the key lessons of the book is that it exposes the modern-day imperialism in a thought-provoking way. 

In general, the book is a true exposition meant for researchers and students in the field of anthropology, sociology, history, and communication and media studies. OoTE would also serve as a necessary reference point for those who are working on ideas and themes like politics of development, anthropology and political economy of extractive industry, tribal identity and culture, indigeneity, mining, social movements, and social inequalities. Other general English speaking readers will certainly find it richly insightful and informative.

References:

Berger, Peter L., and Luckmann.  1971 [1966]. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London:Penguin.

Das, Amrendra and Samarendra Das. (2005) Matira Poko, Company Loko [Earth Worm, Company Man in Kui/Odia with English subtitles].

Dutta, Mohan J (2011) Communicating Social Change: Structure, Culture, and Agency. New York: Routledge.

Freire, Paulo. 2005 [1970] Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, USA: Continuum.

Kirsch, Stuart. (2006) Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and Environmental Relations in New Guinea. California: Stanford University Press.

Martinez-Alier, Joan. (2002) The Environmentalism of the poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Padel, Felix. 2010 [1995]. The Sacrifice of Human Being: British Rule and the Konds of Orissa. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Padel, Felix & Das, Samarendra. (2010) Cultural Genocide and the Rhetoric of Sustainable Mining in East India, Contemporary South Asia, 18:3, 333-341, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2010.503871

Padel, Felix & Das, Samarendra. (2010) Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel, Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan.

Sainath, P. (1996) Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts. Delhi, London: Penguine.

Abuse of power against democratic movements

The All India Forum for the Right to Education (AIFRTE) is fully aware of the threat posed by the Covid-19 crisis to the health and socio-economic well being of the Indian people in particular those who suffer chronic under-employment and unemployment.  As such, the AIFRTE and its member organizations, like all other democratic people's organizations, have been in the forefront of activities aimed at ameliorating the conditions of the people in these difficult times and have united with the rest of the country in facing this challenge.

However, AIFRTE is deeply troubled by the Government of India (GOI) having embarked on an extremely reprehensible course of action. The Covid-19 crisis is being used as a subterfuge for imposing, in a completely unconstitutional and undemocratic manner, policies that will have a far reaching impact on the civil rights of the people and on the character of Indian society.

The direct and shameless abuse of power, using the colonial anti-sedition law and the recently amended Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) - which targets as terrorists individuals who are not affiliated to a declared terrorist organization -  against students, teachers, academics and public intellectuals and civil liberties and human rights activists, has now reached outrageous proportions. All right to dissent is being crushed. Peaceful protestors and activists are being booked and arrested during the Covid-19 `lock-down' which prevents all democratic forms of protest, and are being held without the possibility of trial under prison conditions that are an extreme health hazard because of the pandemic. We note in particular arrests of organizers of the Jamia Co-ordination Committee (JCC) which has played an inspiring and  leading role, following the ruthless attack by the police  on the Jamia Milia Islamia campus, in defending the constitutional rights of people and demanding the repeal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

We are outraged by the fact that victims of the state-sponsored riots in north Delhi are being charged with instigating the violence that has destroyed their homes and livelihood. Everywhere the story is the same. Peaceful struggles, whether against massive fee-hikes on university campuses or powerful democratic resistance against the blatantly anti-constitutional CAA, have been viciously attacked.  

Compelling evidence of the role of right-wing hindutva forces and identified leaders, including ministers of the ruling cabinet,  in instigating violence with police protection and backed by the ruling party and government is shamelessly ignored and brushed aside. Either no action at all is taken against them or else they are immediately released on bail on minor charges. However, peaceful protestors are charged with trumped up heinous crimes and incarcerated under draconian laws.

The ruling regime is thus not only continuing but is intensifying under Covid-19 lock-down the strategy used against democratic activists and intellectuals in the Bhima-Koregaon case.  The recent arrest and incarceration of Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautum Navlakha on Ambedkar Jayanti (14th April 2020) despite the clear threat of the Corona virus to the lives of these senior citizens with co-morbidities is a brazen assault against defenders of civil liberties.

Unfortunately, the highest judiciary appears to have caved in before this concerted attack and has repeatedly failed to protect the citizens. The result is that the regime is acting with increasing impunity as seen in the inhuman arrest and incarceration in solitary confinement of the pregnant research student Safoora Zargar for participating in the anti-CAA protests. Similarly, Police searched the house of Kanwalpreet, state secretary of Delhi AISA and confiscated her mobile phone, warning her of dire consequences because of her participation in `illegal' activities.

Another recent action of the Delhi Police which functions under the Centre reveals the level to which this harassment has sunk. Mahesh, a unit secretary of Parivartankami Chhatra Sangh (PACHHAS) has been subjected to false cases under sections 188, 269, 270 and Disaster Management Act 51. He has been charged with instigating protest on social media by observing hunger strike in his own home on 23 April 2020 as part of a country-wide daylong hunger strike in solidarity with migrant workers and students. The demands of the strikers were testing of stranded workers and students for infection, provision of facilities to take them home and immediately providing ration and financial help for the stranded across the country.

Under these hostile circumstances the GOI has introduced a series of ordinances and regulations regarding working hours and conditions, salary and pension structures, the education system and widespread digital surveillance under the pretext of improving the public health system. As usual the GOI finds it unnecessary to even inform the people, let alone debate these issues and follow democratic conventions and procedures in implementing them.

 AIFRTE is deeply concerned and disturbed by these measures all of which must be exposed and resolutely opposed. The GOI  is exploiting the Covid-19 crisis for crushing all dissent.

At the same time it has failed to act to protect the health of the people against the virus. The lock-down, unplanned and imposed in a sudden four-hour time-span, caused enormous hardship for the people and a humanitarian crisis of disastrous proportions for lakhs of migrant workers who are the real builders of the country. Instead of strengthening the healthcare infrastructure and protecting healthcare workers, a political farce has been set in motion by calling upon citizens to bang utensils, light lamps and finally have the armed forces shower petals on hospitals instead of saving the migrant workers trying to walk back home across the country from hunger, exhaustion and even death.

AIFRTE appeals to all member and fraternal organizations, and all democratic individuals across the country to unite and raise their voices against this fascist authoritarian regime even as they unite to provide support and relief to the working masses for whom the Modi Government has shown neither concern nor respect.

 

Prof. Jagmohan Singh                                                 Dr. Vikas Gupta

(Chairperson, AIFRTE)                                              (Organizing Secretary, AIFRTE)

(On Behalf of AIFRTE’s Presidium)

Parliament vs People

We have long been accustomed to think that power comes only through Legislative Assemblies. I have regarded this belief as a grave error brought about by inertia or hypnotism. 

A superficial study of British history has made us think that all power percolates to the people from parliaments. The truth is that power resides in the people and it is entrusted for the time being to those whom they may choose as their 

representatives. Parliaments have no power or even existence independently  of the people. It has been my effort for the last twenty-one years to convince the people of this simple truth. Civil Disobedience is the storehouse of power. 

Imagine a whole people unwilling to conform to the laws of the legislature, and prepared to suffer the consequences of non-compfiance! They will bring the whole legislative and executive machinery to a standstill. The police and . the military are of use to coerce minorities however powerful they may be. But no police or military coercion can bend the resolute will of a people who are out for suffering to the uttermost. 

Quarterly Estimates of GVA at Basic Prices in Q2 (July-September) of 2019 - 20 (at2011-12 prices)

The basis of calculation has changed. As per pre-2014 calculation it is around 2.5%. Extremely scary.

Political, Economic & Social Resolution : Samajwadi Jan Parishad, 12,13 October,2019

Samajwadi Jan Parishad

National Executive, 12 &13 October, New Delhi

Political, Economic & Social Resolution 

Having grabbed power with larger majority for the second tenure, BJP and RSS have started implementing their real and larger agenda in full speed. The signals were loud and clear with Amit Shah taking over as Home Minister at the Center. We all know that this right wing formation has only two objectives – first to polarize Hindu votes by propagating hate and all sorts of canards against minorities in general and Muslims in particular, to remain in power and second – to hand over all national resource to select crony-capitalists in order to accumulate massive wealth for their leaders and Party. Welfare of millions of starving, malnourished and jobless Indians has never been concern of BJP and their allies. 

     Due to pedestrian and ill-conceived economic policies deployed by NDA during their last tenure the country has started heading towards an imminent slowdown. To divert attention, Article 370 and 35A were abolished in Kashmir and all Kashmiris were made hostage by the Army, a situation never seen in the history of democracies. This move was aimed at evoking emotional aggressive nationalism of a section of population and effort to bury the burning economic issues at hand. SJP is of the view that policies of capitalism are unable to deliver results of growth, employment etc. at national and international level. Therefore BJP Govt. is aggressively taking forward divisive agenda of NRC & Temple construction and probably constitution amendment. All these steps are taking the nation towards an unprecedented crisis. 

       We have been regularly deliberating about series of deceptions by the government like handing over govt enterprises to select capitalist friends, electoral frauds, massive one-sided deployment of money in elections, taking full control of all democratic institutions even the judiciary. Therefore, we will not elaborate further on these issues here. Even more disturbing signals came from Supreme Court where Habitus-Corpus cases related to Kashmir were not given ant importance. All these signals indicate that Indian Democracy and our Constitution is under attack and this issue is the most challenging contemporary matter at hand. New provisions brought in UAPA is meant to suppress all dissenting voices against government. Thus, common man is now even deprived of his basic right to protest against injustice. They are either confused about magic shows being played daily before them or they are scared of repression. A simple criticism of government action is converted in sedition case. 

    This has also been demonstrated repeatedly that none of the so-called opposition party has a vision, leadership, organizational structure or plans to steer out nation from this miserable collapse. It is therefore incumbent upon SJP to come forward with alacrity and devotion to fulfill the purpose of our formation as an alternate political entity.   

      It’s worthwhile to note here that the present ruling outfit has gained its strength by manipulating our democracy through communal and castiest interventions on a large and obvious scale. In the process, the liberal traditions of Hinduism, multi-cultural ethos of India and our long-standing Sufi traditions are being replaced by medieval, feudalistic, Hinutwa bigotry. At the same time BJP has been pitching various castes against each other for their electoral advantage while the castes which gained political prominence via reservation plank are oblivious of this divisive game plan and the fact that all round privatization and capitalistic economic / administrative policy is eliminating employment scope in public and govt sector. Privatization of govt run schools, institutions and transfer of existing units to private business houses via PPP model, government is disowning its primary welfare responsibility while farmers are being lured by advancing petty doles. Land, forest, water resources, mines, all are being handed over to private businessmen. On the other hand, artisans and self-employed are losing their livelihood in the hands of market forces and manufactured goods. Agreements signed with World Bank and WTO have already heavily and adversely impacted our farmers and local producers. Further to this an agreement with RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), a group of ten ASIAN countries comprising of Australia, Japan, South Korea, India among others, is likely to be signed in November 2019 which will further bring misery to our farmers and forest producers. It’s shocking that government is not revealing the details of proposed agreements. We have to fish out information from web sites of other countries. SJP condemns such secretive approach of government in dealing with matters of larger public interest and demands public declaration of all related documents.  

    The results of gross mismanagement of economy and administrative set up of country during last five and half years are now showing their impact all around. Economy is in doldrums, GDP growth rate has tumbled down to an eleven year low of 5% while the government is tom-toming a 5 Trillion Dollar economy by falsifying and hiding statistics.  While the fact remains that India’s growth rate is now lower than that of Bangladesh and Pakistan and prominent economists have gone to extent of affirming that real rate in close to negative. 

    SJP advocates limiting personal income and imposing upto 70% personal tax in higher slabs. Simultaneously inheritance / wealth tax should be reintroduced and indirect taxes should be minimized to increase the purchasing power of common citizens in order to improve the economy.  

    India’s legal and criminal justice system is in shambles.  Poor innocent citizens and Adivasis in particular are being detained and lodged in jails for years together without proper investigation or legal proceeding which has become worse than even colonial era. SJP also protests demanding proof of identity at the time of casting votes when the photo identity is available with polling officers and agents. 

   Social Economic and Caste Census – SECC 2011 was conducted during UPA II and data is ready but this government has put it in cold storage for more than four years now. On the other hand, citizens are being harassed and terrorized in the name of NRC in many states. The rumor of putting non-NRC citizens in detention camps in Assam is not acceptable to SJP. Rather we suggest such persons should be allowed to remain in their houses. SJP also demands that India should take lead in facilitating free movement of people residing in Indian Subcontinent in line with vision of Dr. Lohia in order to facilitate universal brotherhood and peaceful social political climate in the region .

Proposed by Prof @Mahesh Vikram

Unanimously adopted.

Hitlerism in GermanyHow Long Will It Go On? By Ram Manohar Lohia, Ph.D (Berlin)

(Mr. Lohia has just returned from Germany after a stay of four year», during which he took- a course in Political Economy, History and Philosophy in the University of Berlin. His thesis for the Doctrate Degree of Philosophy, which he eventually took with honours was "The Taxation of Salt in India," dealing with its historical as well as it its financial and political importance. In Berlin he was for sometime the Secretary of the "Hindustan Association of Central Europe)

The process of complete organisational crippling of the Opposition in Germany can be said to be almost complete now. With the cleansing of the State machinery of all "non-national elements and the suppression of all Communists and Republican associations like the Reichsbauner and the "Iron Front,” based on even the faintest military lines, and, in view of the opposition press being muzzled or almost non-existent, it is legitimate to conclude that Hitler has succeeded in depriving the Opposition of even the most elementary organisational basis.

The newest political event in Germany of Hitler being armed with absolute dictatorial power serves to dispel any misgivings about his position in his own "nationalistic block." The national question, therefore, that at the present stage of German political development arises in everyone's mind is: How long? Is Hitler going to have a long, possibly interminably long, lease of power?

An attempt at an objective examination of the question must necessarily take account of the reasons that raised Hitler from being "the last of the seven" in a beer-group of Munich to the Chancellorship of the German Republic and the, leadership of a party of 17 million voters, in, the course of little more than 10 years. Do these reasons still hold good? Are the factors that raised Hitler to power still a live-force in German politics?

POST-WAR MOOD OF DEPRESSION

Hitler's own words uttered some time ago ''I am a trumpeteer who aroused the nation to a realisation of its downfall and consciousness of its strength” give us a clear idea of one of Hitler's chief helping forces- The German defeat in the World-War, the humiliation of the Treaty, Reparations and territorial annexations coupled with alarming industrial depression and unemployment served to create a general disaffection and put the nation in a ''messaic" mood. The rickety, compromising, unsteady nature of German Governments after the War they were all "coalition governments between the Catholic Centre, religious, liberal and capitalistic and the Social Democrats supplied sufficient propagandist ground. Hitler saw his chance and seized it. He used the catchy phrase glorious German history" ''national pride and honour" "our wonderful industry and technique” ''the superiority of the Germanic race” and very clever shouldered the Communists and the Socialists whom he classed together as the 'red" or Marxist pest, with the responsibility, for all German ills. The petite bourgeoisie, which forms a great part of the population, was attracted, and embittered against the ''Reds". A very widespread desire for a strong national government and a unified German people took hold of men's minds and the "Reds" became the scapegoats, “traitors’’ the hindrance to the Germanic glory.

PROMISES FOR ALL

This general feeling was strengthened by practical promises. Germany was promised the abolition of the Reparations the recovery of German territories annexed according to the. clauses of the Versailles Treaty. and equality of military status with other nations. Unemployment was to be banished altogether and every German was promised bread and work, In fact the National Socialist anthem suggests a general rejoining of the masses and says, in glory of the Swastika flag-"the day of bread and freedom dawns." The best way of symptomising these promises is to quote a rather caustic Opposition saying prevalent all over Germany. ''The house-owner is promised high rents, and the tenant low, the industry promised high profit and the worker, better wages and living conditions and so on.”

CAPITALIST HELP

Financial help from capital and heavy industry and Herr Thyssen and Hugenberg controlling iron and coal industries of Germany being in active sympathy with Nazis, has been of the greatest assistance to the party. It can be safely presumed they are going to be so in the future, too. For though the National Socialist programme should have Socialism in it, on the basis of its name, it contains instead the assurance that, private property shall exist under Nazi regime. Only that it should not be misused for profits sake and so go contrary to the nation's welfare. But that is just a piece of unforseeaable advice to be used or unused at the employer's wishes. Such other reasons as the lure of a military uniform to the German people and the use of beautiful military trappings by the Storm Troopers may also have tended to increase the party's ranks. How far are these forces still active? Can it be said that the promises are - now losing, or will in the near future - lose, their catching strength?

NO LAURELS THROUGH FOREIGN POLICY

We may first enquire into the factors of the general foreign and internal policy penned and pursued by the Nazis and their capacity to satisfy the masses in this regard. Reparations were abolished even before the Nazis came into power. Recovery of lost territories is a tougher question and it is difficult to imagine how the Nazis are going to regain control of the Polish Corridor, separating West Prussia from East Prussia which nevertheless they have batteried with their most formidable effectives. A propagandist chart disclosing the infinitely superior strength of the Polish military position in comparison to the German on the Eastern Front could be noticed even on the walls of the Decanate of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Berlin which, while it expresses the desire and the psychological preparedness of the Germans to acquire the Corridor, also gives us to understand that a war-like complication is absolutely necessary. Germany cannot afford the luxury of a war. The only course in which the Nazis can gain laurels of foreign policy is therefore an international agreement concerning a general or limited military service of the German Youth. Some psychological success may also be attained by such an event, as the return of the Ex-Kaiser to Germany, as a private man of course, not on account of its political but its news importance—a pure chauvinistic sensation.

"MARXISM MUST BS KILLED"

The field of foreign policy being thus limited, Hitler's dynamic force, to is naturally transferred to the internal questions of the establishment of a strong authoritative Government and the complete incapacitation of  the "Reds." The buccaneering art with which Hitler dealt, and is still dealing with the Opposition is not in the least astonishing; it is an unavoidable development of the German political phase. The mass of voters who cast their votes for Hitler have one supreme obsession. "Marxism mast be killed." Every single act of political repression of the Opposition serves, therefore, to reach two ends at a time. It means the stabilisation of Hitler in power and the continual restoration of the confidence in the leader by the exhilarated and pleased masses.

It was one of my most common experiences that otherwise educated and cultured German students expressed their glee even upon personal assaults by the Storm Troopers on their adversaries. This political stunt may be expected to be of great use to Hitler and be of the utmost importance to the consideration of his power. The only hope for the Opposition, in this case lies in the eventual fiasco of the economic programme of the Nazis. This is a subject about which nothing ran be prophesied in present world depression.

25 March, 1933, The Hindu.

Shri Kamal Krishna Banerjee's letter to Shri Naveen Patanayak,CM; Odisha.

Sri Nabin Pattanayak

Hon’ble Chief Minister

Orissa

                                                                             18.10.2018

Sir

      On 15^th October Raigad  police arrested leading member of Niyamgiri Suraksha Samity - Sathi  Dhadi Kadraka from Muniguda and brutally assaulted him. To lodge protest against such undemocratic and unruly act of your police,  National Vice- President of Samajwadi  Jan Parisad Satihi  Lingraj Azad has convened a peaceful demonstration on 23^rdOctober at Raigard.  But Police  constantly putting pressure upon Satihi  Lingraj Azad to postpone the programme  on 23^rd October. Even S.P of the  neighbouring district  Kalahandi  called Satihi  Lingraj Azad at PS and put pressure on him to  postpone 23^rd October program. These kind of arm twisting act of your police administration is not only undemocratic, abuse of power but also violates the fundamental right of assembly and freedom of expression.

         You are aware that Niyamgirii Suraksha Samity  has all along  organised various kinds of movements in a peaceful democratic manner to protect interest of the Adibasi community of Nyamgiri Hills from the attempt of the  Vedanta Company  to take over Nyamgiri hills for boxite mining.   

      You may recall that by the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court  opinion of the Adibasi inhabitants was taken. At that time despite all kinds of harassment, allurement and fear let lose by the Vedanta Company with the active aid of the state and central govt. and also ignoring the call of the Maoist to boycott opinion poll not a single vote was given in favour of Vedanta Company.

 

        It seems that Vendata Company again appears in the scene and Orissa police is acting at the behest of the Vedanta Company to destroy the peaceful democratic struggle of the innocent Adibasi of Nyamgiri Hills to save their life, livelihood  and environment in and around the Niyamgiri Hills from the clutch of the ill famed Vedanta Company.

        We strongly condemn such illegal act of your  police appeal to you to restrain the Raygard Police from creating any obstruction for holding peaceful demonstration of Nyamgiri Surksha Samity to be held on 23^rd. October.

 

Yours sincerely

Kamal Krishna Banerjee

National President

Samajwadi  Jan Parisad

Jalpaiguri (West Bengal)

India.

जरूरी डबिंग, 'ये दिल और उनकी निगाहों के साये'

जयदेव द्वारा संगीतबद्ध प्रेम परबत का यह गीत बहुत लोकप्रिय हुआ था।
इस फिल्म की सभी प्रिंट्स जल गईं।ऑडियो को दूसरे गानों पर बैठाया गया है।मधुमति में दिलीप कुमार और वैजयंतीमाला के गीत के साथ गजब बैठ गया है।
https://youtu.be/IWxji7I-JP0

Satyagrah

LETTERS

Satyagraha

A.G. NOORANI warns us of being “unsafe and unhistorical to cite the Gandhian precedent before independence” (“Gandhi's no to satyagraha”, August 26). Noorani has tried to establish that both Gandhiji and B.R. Ambedkar were against satyagraha in the post-Independence era. Gandhiji was perhaps more conscious of the dangers of being misunderstood and misrepresented by his readers and others. Books of his original writings carry a note “To The Reader” originally written by him in his journal ( Harijan, 29-4-1933, page 2). It says: “ I am not at all concerned with appearing to be consistent…. When anybody finds any inconsistency between any two writings of mine, if he has still faith in my sanity, he would do well to choose the later of the two on the same subject.”

To be “safe” and “historical”, I would like to start from Gandhi's martyrdom so that nothing remains later than that. Gandhi gave Pyarelalji a new draft Constitution for the Congress that he had prepared the previous day. “The struggle for the ascendancy of civil over military power is bound to take place in India's progress towards its democratic goal.” The draft contained this prediction. We can easily imagine the nature of the struggle that Gandhi had imagined. It would have been fought through peaceful and pure means. Gandhiji observed a fast (a mode of satyagraha) on Independence Day. He was asked whether he would leave politics after August 15, 1947. Gandhiji replied, “In the first instance there is no freedom approaching the Kingdom of God. We seem to be as far from it as ever. And in any case the life of the millions is my politics from which I dare not free myself without denying my life work and God. That my politics may take a different turn is quite possible. But that will be determined by circumstances ( Harijan, 17-8-1947, page 281).

His last two post-Independence fasts, in Kolkata and Delhi respectively, were in the wake of communal violence after Partition. Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel were in the saddle of power. Noorani is known for his writings on communalism and should not deny Gandhiji's contribution through these two fasts and ultimately by his utmost sacrifice. Gandhiji's speeches and writings on satyagraha have been sanctified by his righteous practice and suffering the consequences of breaking unjust laws. Moreover, they are written for all time. His incisive logic is unanswerable.

Gandhiji has made it amply clear that he believed in the supremacy of the people. In his famous booklet “Constructive Programme: Its meaning and place”, he elaborated his vision in clear terms: “The truth is that power resides in the people and it is entrusted for the time being to those whom they may choose as their representatives. Parliaments have no power or even existence independently of the people. Civil Disobedience is the storehouse of power.”

Ambedkar delineated how fundamental rights can be effective. He said: “Rights are protected not by law but by the social and moral conscience of society.” The social and moral conscience of the Indian people protected these fundamental rights when they got an opportunity to choose between democracy and dictatorship in the 1977 general elections. In spite of all the infighting in the Janata Party, its government should be remembered for the historical amendment it made to the Constitution to make “internal emergency” next to impossible.

The right to undertake civil disobedience, or satyagraha, in any parliamentary democracy by a citizen is a fundamental right. To criticise this right is to negate the basic democratic system.

Aflatoon
Varanasi

https://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2820/stories/20111007282012600.htm 

BANK OFFICERS` BODY FILES PIL AGAINST AADHAR LINKAGE

ALL INDIA BANK OFFICERS’ CONFEDERATION
(Registered under the Trade Unions Act 1926, Registration No.:3427/Delhi)
State Bank of India Officers’ Association
04th Floor, SBI Administrative Unit, No. 86, Rajaji Salai, Chennai- 600 001
Phone: 044-25227170 Tel/Fax 044 25227170
E-Mail: aiboc.sectt@gmail.com

Date: 26.10.2017

PRESS RELEASE.

BANK OFFICERS` BODY FILES PIL AGAINST AADHAR LINKAGE

In the recent times, we have seen an overdrive of threatening to freeze existing bank accounts unless the customers link to Aadhaar. They are also refusing to open new bank accounts without Aadhaar, citing GSR 538(E), the amendment to the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005 under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 (15 of 2003)(PMLA), on June 1st 2017.
Linkage of Aadhar with the bank accounts and other financial transactions is a clear case of the violation of basic human rights of the citizens of this country. In spite of this, the Govt of India made mandatory the unique identification project (UID Project) through Rule 9 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Rules, 2017 as amended by the Prevention of Money Laundering (Second Amendment) Rules, 2017 for the purpose of opening and maintaining bank accounts and for carrying any financial transactions.
As per the amended rules, an Aadhaar Number has been made mandatory for opening of bank accounts; making any financial transactions of and above Rs. 50,000; and foreign remittance to be credited even to small accounts. Further, the existing bank account holders have been directed to furnish Aadhaar Number before December 31, 2017 and non-compliance of the same will result in the concerned bank accounts being ceased. Consequently, every citizen is being compelled to possess an Aadhaar Number for not only opening of a new bank account, but also for maintaining the existing bank accounts and making transactions through such bank accounts.

Further, it violates the right to privacy which is now recognized as an essential part of life and personal liberty. The Supreme Court of the country has also upheld the same in its landmark judgment which says that ‘Privacy’ is a fundamental right of every individual. By compelling the citizens to surrender the core biometric information, it has violated all three principal aspects of privacy viz. Privacy of Person, Privacy of information and Privacy of choice. Moreover, the said provision has been enacted without legislative competence rendering it void ab initio, being ultra vires in nature as being a subordinate legislation, it could not have changed the otherwise consensual scheme of Aadhaar Act into a mandatory scheme thereby overturning the entire legislative policy of Aadhaar. The provision has also exceeded the mandate of its parent sections under the PMLA Act by mandating ceasing of operation of non – Aadhaar holders’ bank accounts. This is not the end; the provision also violates the Article 14 of the Constitution of India as forcing every individual to surrender his core biometrics unfairly equates him to a criminal. Ceasing operations of legitimate accounts also unfairly equates legitimate funds to crime proceeds which are to be attached under the PMLA Act. To worsen the situation further, linking of Aadhaar and Bank accounts defeats the object of the PMLA Act itself as it allows real money launderers to launder crime proceeds by executing identity thefts. Such thefts are highly probable considering the nature of information and its storage.

Thus, making Aadhar compulsory is illegal and would virtually convert the citizens into "slaves" as they would be under the government's surveillance all the time; apart from violating the citizens' fundamental rights granted under the Constitution as they would be coerced to give sample of their fingerprints and iris.

The All India Bank Officers Confederation, the largest officers' organization having membership of around 325000 officers is in opposition to the move of the Govt. for making Aadhar Card mandatory to citizens rather than being voluntary. When the matter is subjudice in the  supreme court, the urgency of the Govt. in its implementation is uncalled for and against the true spirit of democracy. Taking all these factors into consideration, the undersigned along with Mr. M.G. Devasahayam, retired IAS and Mr. Samuel Rajappa, Former Resident Editor, The Statesman have filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the Union of India and Unique Identification Authority of India in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. We sincerely believe and are quite hopeful that with the good wishes of all the people, we will be successful to thwart the ill-motivated steps of the Govt. of India and the Hon’ble Supreme Court would uphold the spirit of the fundamental rights of our compatriots and we will not have to remain as the slaves to the Govt. by virtue of mandatory aadhar for all.

(D. T. Franco)
General Secretary
9445000806
ngcfranco@gmail.com