Shankar Guha Niyogi – A Martyr

It was a murder by proxy – an unashamedly ghastly murder, which made mockery of our constitution, our government and our judicial system. Shankar Guha Niyogi, the legendary leader of Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha who fought against the state repression and for the upliftment of the adivasis of Chattisgarh, fell victim to the hired assassins of some influential people in Bhilai thirteen years back. Supreme Court after prolonged legal battle acquitted
the industrialists but sent the hired killer Paltan Malla for life–imprisonment.

He was killed on 28th September, 1991.Since early ‘70s Niyogi was raising his voice against the police atrocities in this district. The state machinary was instrumental in helping the industrialists to destroy labour movement in and around Bhilai.On 2nd August 1991 Niyogi was instructed by the BJP government at Bhopal to move out of the Durg district of erstwhile Madhya Pradesh. The Jabalpur high court granted Niyogi a stay on 9th August 1991 which eventually allowed him to continue his pro-labour & anti-liquor lobby activities.

Fearing his life and demanding justice, Niyogi went to New Delhi on 10th September. The President of India gave him a patient hearing on 13th and sought 15 days to look into the matter. A memorandum signed by 50000 people was handed over to President describing the sorry plight of workers and adivasis in the hand of industrialists & the police. Niyogi met P V Narasimha Rao, the then PM and L K Advani, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. In each of these meeting Niyogi handed over the copy of letters containing death threats he had been receiving perennially. But, all his effort fallen in deaf ear as he was eliminated just a fortnight later.

Three incidents caused enough suspicion in the minds of Niyogi’s supporters.

First, Niyogi was killed early in the morning on 28th September 1991. Within an hour, the BJP Chief minister Mr Sunder Lal Patwa called a Press conference to condemn the murder of Niyogi. Many of the journalists doubted how Patwa came to know of his death so early and even arranged a full-fledged press meet. Embarrassed, Mr Patwa declared a Rs 25000 award against the head of Niyogi’s assasins.

Second, CBI enquiry was delayed since the MP govt filed an appeal to CBI, which was incomplete and also sent through improper channel.

Finally, the memorandum submitted to the president was found vanished from the Rashtrapati Bhavan.It was handed over to the President by Niyogi himself.

While the Supreme Court verdict exonerating the Simplex Group & Kedia Group owners raises more questions than answers, the final word was probably uttered by another legendary figure of Narmada Bachao Andolan, Baba Amte.
He wrote hearing the death of Niyogi –

Oh Supreme Shame, comrades like him
Are dyed in their blood in this nation of Gandhi.
Bloodhounds – the mafia gangs, industrialists
And the petty politicians-
Have started using their pet card-
“Eliminate, exterminate Ye, those
Who oppose the regime”
In Chhatissgarh – Or, here, in the Narmada valley.

The last sigh whispered
On the banks of narmada,
“Civility invites civility; Justice invites justice”.
Niyogis do not die, they might succumb

Tributes for them would be – reason and Resolve.
To sharpen the struggle, to widen the horizon
Tirelessly, as Luther said, “Rest I rust”.

The unshed tear in the eye of Narmada
Thus remembers
Their comrade in resolute silence.

Kolkata
January 26, 2004

First posted on Yahoogroup ‘IndiaSeminar’

In response to ‘Heroes and charlatans’

Being one of the most vocal proponents of Hindutva ideology, Swapan Dasgupta finds it necessary to take up the cudgel on behalf of the backward looking ‘charlatans’ of sangh parivar & history, as usual, remained his favourite battleground. Dasgupta & his ilk first tried hard to capture the centrestage of history writing in India. When, the RSS “historians” dismal quality of history writing got exposed, like a bad workman, pamphleteers like Dasgupta started quarrelling with their tools i.e. the history writing itself. His columns in The Telegraph bear enough evidence of this new design.

Dasgupta questioned the “priorities & pre-occupations of the professional historians”, whose aim is to make history scientific. And, that, in Dasgupta’s opinion, robbed history of its glamour & splendour. This reveals a basic inadequacy in Dasgupta’s understanding since history is primarily based on facts. A historian can only choose his facts backed by evidence. Under no circumstances can he manufacture it, which unfortunately has become the priority & preoccupation of Saffron pamphleteers. Making history scientific is not to deny great individuals their rightful place in it but to discard the custom of fallaciously glorifying kings & queens in the history books. An historian is not only a mere chronicler of lives of Dasgupta’s ‘actual men & women’ but also an explorer of facts so as to offer a ringside view of social, cultural & political life of the bygone era. 

History, like every subject, has an academic core, which not only deals with form but also ponder over its content. However, historians aspire to accomplish something more as Eric Hobsbawm pointed out – “What goes into school textbooks and politicians’ speeches about the past, the material for writers of fiction, makers of TV programmes and videos, comes ultimately from historians.” Hence, novel by novelists on past occurrences is not in conflict with real history books by historians as both of them cohabited since time immemorial. An intelligent reader is capable of recognizing the raison d’çtre of their separate existence. Expecting an Amar Chitra katha reader to comprehend A.L. Basham’s Studies in Indian History & culture is as absurd as every Harry Potter fan finding Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind extraordinary. The real threat to liberal history writing does not originate from the academic left but from those who puts absolute & unquestioned belief of ‘their culture’ over evidence from carbon dating, mitochondrial DNA & archaeological analysis of pottery.

Finally, dumbing down is a very different kind of threat not just to history writing but also to every serious social & cultural activity. To promote history & its analysis as easy fun sends wrong signals & attracts people to history for the wrong reasons. Real history is much more challenging and therefore fascinating. But, like classical music or quantum physics, worth the effort. The so-called ‘science through game shows’ could not thwart the declining interest in basic scientific research in India as students who were promised lot of ‘entertainment’ fled off once they face the reality. Dasgupta’s creation of non-existent philosophical problems with history writing is actually a smokescreen for further mischief by the saffronites. These are ‘pseudo-intellectual’ attempts to destroy the role of scientific evidences in history writing, to blur the distinction between fact & fiction and above all to indulge in fantasy & fanaticism while manufacturing Indian history.

 

Kolkata, September 12, 2005

written in response to the article ‘Heroes & Charlatans – http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050909/asp/opinion/story_5217251.asp

 

 Debt : ‘Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder’ by Richard Dawkins, 1998 ;     Boston : Houghton Mifflin

In Response to ‘Bye Bye Nanny State’

Mr Swapan Dasgupta in his column “Bye Bye Nanny State dated 13.03.2004, craftily chosen words to give undue credits to his all-time favourite BJP government for the liberalisation of Indian economy.
In the penultimate paragraph, Mr Dasgupta writes “That economic model ran out of steam by the mid-Seventies, although it was another three decades before it was formally junked”. Nothing can be more untrue than this. It is, in fact , the Janata Party government which was dominated by erstwhile Jan Sangh members driven out Coca Cola in late seventies and abused MNCs operating in India in every possible way. The Statement of Economic Policy of the Janata Party’s Working Committee (1977) took a much tougher stand vis-à-vis foreign capital when it harped on the theme of self-reliance and did not envisage foreign collaboration in areas where adequate Indian skills and capital are available. The statement specifically urged, “The provisions of FERA must be rigorously enforced in the sector of consumer goods industries. The foreign firms should be asked to carry forward the process of Indianisation.Their production capacities should also be frozen at the existing levels.”
On the other hand, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru clarifying his government’s position in the Constituent assembly, had said, “The object of our regulation should be the utilization of foreign capital in a manner most advantageous to the country. Indian capital needs to be supplemented by the foreign capital not only because our national savings would not be enough for the rapid development of the country on the scale but also because in many cases scientific, technical and industrial knowledge and capital equipment can best be secured along with foreign capital.”  

Pandit Nehru assured the foreign interests that they would not be subject to restrictions or conditions not applicable to similar Indian enterprise, that they would be permitted to earn profits subject only to regulations common to all and would continue to enjoy existing facilities for remittances of profit and that in the event of their nationalisation, they would be paid fair and equitable compensation and given reasonable facilities of the remittance of proceeds.
The entire process of liberalisation started when the manifesto of the Congress (I), the party which eventually won the 1991 General election, explicitly stated the need for a drastic policy change seeking to liberalize Indian economy from the shackles of bureaucratic tangles. This for the first time in the history of independent India, any political party expressed its strong determination to abandon the four decade long economic model. In fact, there was considerable amount of scepticism in the RSS top brass about the new economic policy of P.V.Narasimha Rao government which they expressed from time to time. Mr Dasgupta writes” For the past six years, the National Democratic Alliance government has attempted to change the philosophy of governance from state intervention to state facilitation. Beginning with the progressive dismantling of the licence-permit-quota raj that marked the Congress’s shortage economy and stretching to the cautious privatization of the public sector, the trend is towards the rollback of the state.” The choice of word is such that it might lead a reader to believe that it is the NDA government which supplied the philosophy.
And Mr Dasgupta suffers from selective amnesia when he talks of euphoric middle class and shining India. The GDP growth delivered by Atal Behari Vajpayee is lowest since 1991 which is 5.62% far lower than P.V Narasimha Rao’s 6.40%. Public debt has gone up from 52.7% in 1999-00 to 63.3% in 2002-03. Across the country, there are 41.6 million people – four times the population of Belgium – registered at unemployment offices. According to UN report, there is an increase of 19 million people in India who do not even get two square meals a day from 1999 to 2001. If we are talking about a surging stock market, which might be a short-lived and synthetic phenomenon, India is definitely shining. But going by the same yard-stick was India shining while Harshad Mehta was reigning?
That 75 lakh people, more than the population of Switzerland, had applied for a mere 38,000 lowly-paid jobs in the Indian Railways, is no longer a matter of concern for de-facto spokesperson of BJP like Mr. Dasgupta at times when the country is on a fast track information highway. When the country is plagued by poverty, unemployment, corruption at every sphere of life, the government is shamelessly projecting a cosmetic image spending taxpayers’ money for its narrow political purpose.
In the mid 1980, the sale of Banita, a minor girl from Kalahandi in Orissa, had shocked the nation. Unfortunately, two decades later, the pro-government media pundits of shining India is refusing even to notice the cries of a one month old baby who was sold by her mother for a mere Rs 10 in the same state. Is this called ‘shining on’?
IIT-Kharagpur , 14th February, 2004   

  Note:  This was written in response to an article published in The Telegraph on Friday, Feb 13-2004 http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040213/asp/opinion/story_2888680.asp