Did children die in Gorakhpur hospital because of the noxious ‘commission’ system?

August 20, 2017

Photo credit: Free Press Journal

Even after the matter of death of 23 children on 10 August, 2017 at Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital, Gorakhpur had come to light, children continued to die there. In all 30 children died over two days — August 10-11 — and 60 children died over five days from — August 7-11 — indicating that the Yogi Adityanath government had little control over the turn of events.

Yogi says he has been working on the problem of death of children due to Japanese encephalitis since 1996-97 but if there is no improvement in the situation then responsibility must be fixed.

After becoming the chief minister he has said on more than one occasion that he is only a part-time politician. If this is the truth then it is inexplicable why he chose to become the Member of Parliament four times in a row. If he thinks he can’t give full time to his chief minister-ship then he must give up the post. In the Indian historical tradition there are not many instances when a monk or saint became a ruler. The role of monk or saint has usually been that of an advisor to the ruler.

Yogi says that nobody can be more concerned about the children in Gorakhpur than him. But merely a statement won’t do unless he is able to bring to end the high incidence of children’s deaths.

On the fourth day from the tragedy in Gorakhpur, Yogi made a statement that he cannot stop observance of Janamashtmi in police stations until offering of namaz on roads is stopped. He said that if people in the Kanwar yatra don’t create a din with whatever instruments they have, if they don’t dance, what kind of a Kanwar yatra would it be?

Minus the song and dance it may appear to be a funeral procession. He said if microphone is to be banned in Kanwar yatra it should first be banned in all religious places. No voice should be audible outside a religious place.

He asked the officials whether they can enforce such an order. He further said that if they cannot do this, then no ban would be imposed on anything. He made an appeal to people to shower flower petals on Kanwariyas.

How can we believe that even before the headlines about children’s death in Gorakhpur have disappeared from the newspapers somebody who is concerned about children will talk like this on a non-priority issue and that too in such an aggressive tone? Even after becoming the CM he is keen to flaunt his religious identity and wants it to be assertive. He is obviously more worried about the Kanwariyas than the children.

Maybe the people who don’t have children and more importantly have kept themselves aloof from living in close human relationships should not hold high executive offices. When they don’t have children and family how will they have empathy for the loss of children?
Only a person who has experienced family life will understand the difficulties of life better and will also be in a better position to come up with solutions. That is why problems for common poor and lower middle class people have increased under the Modi, Yogi regimes.

The Gorakhpur incident also offers a glimpse of what will happen if health care is privatised. The company which held the oxygen supply contract simply stopped the supply when payment was not made.

Private hospitals will not treat the poor because the reason for their existence is profit making. For the poor the only hope is government hospitals. Therefore we find more people keep coming to BRD Medical College even after knowing that there is a danger to their child and they are probably not going to get the best of facilities.

In a democratic country education and health care should remain in the government sector so that all citizens have access to good quality of these services. Privatisation of these sectors will be an anti-poor stand. The government should take complete responsibility for these two sectors and must make effort to provide to people high quality services in them.

Even after news of death of children made national headlines garbage strewn over floor in the corridors of the BRD Medical College could still be found. What can be a bigger mockery of the national Clean India Campaign (Swachch Bharat Abhiyan)?

A three member investigation team from the Central government declared that the deaths of children were not caused due to lack of oxygen supply. This has been a matter of debate since the very first day. Whether the children died due to stoppage in Oxygen supply or not, fact remains that the hospital owed close to Rs. 70 lakhs to the vendor who was contracted to make the supply, even though money was available with the hospital. Clearly it was an issue of commission not having been paid or a higher demand for commission remaining unfulfilled.

In this country payment and receipt of commissions is the primary mode of corruption and the Narendra Modi government, ostensibly committed to end corruption, has not even acknowledged the existence of this problem.

Part of the money generated from commissions is ploughed back into electoral politics. This is unaccounted or black money. If the practice of commissions is done away with, it will be the beginning of the end of corruption and the first visible sign will be clean elections.

It is blot on this country that commission rates have been set for every government department, office, scheme, project, etc. If one wants to be the beneficiary of one of the many government schemes a prescribed sum of money has to be paid. If some construction is to be done, then officials of development authority and anybody who has to give any approval will demand their share of cut.

Rates are fixed for movement of files from one table to another in government offices. If somebody has taken a government contract money will have to be paid to in-charge government officials. Different amounts are fixed for different works, departments, supply of items, for copying in examinations, people’s representatives of ruling party and higher level officials.

The bribe amount is also shared with colluding officials above and below. This system of commissions is still flourishing because it finances electoral politics. Does the Yogi or Modi government have the political will to strike at the roots of corruption in this country?

Charlottesville is moment of truth for empowered U.S. Zionists (who name their children after Israeli generals)

August 19, 2017

For a long time, liberalism and Zionism have gotten along fine in America– just look at the Democratic Party and its love for Israel. But Charlottesville represents a crisis for liberal Zionists. When they condemn white nationalism in the U.S. and celebrate Jewish nationalism in Israel, the contradiction is obvious to all.

Wolf Blitzer

Just consider three prominent voices. Wolf Blitzer of CNN, the liberal Zionist group J Street, and blogger and Democratic Party thinker Josh Marshall.
–Wolf Blitzer has condemned the “racism and hatred” of Charlottesville and his show has served that good cause.

But Blitzer once published a book in which he promoted one piece of Zionist propaganda after another and denounced Palestinian views of the conflict as “spurious myths.” It is a “myth” that Arab civilians were “massacred” at Deir Yassin, a “myth” that Palestinian refugees “were the major victims of the 1948 war,” and a “myth” that “Jewish atrocities” caused the Palestinians to flee. From Blitzer’s book on the refugees:

The startled Jewish community declared: “We did not dispossess them; they themselves chose this course.”

Wolf Blitzer book of Zionist propaganda written for AIPAC denying there was a massacre at Deir Yassin.

These are all grotesque falsehoods or distortions of the truth to deny war crimes, typical of AIPAC, the lobby group Blitzer was working for when he put the book out. (Deir Yassin was an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem that Israeli militias cleared in April ’48 for strategic and nationalist purposes, killing over 100 Palestinian civilians; the outrage caused terror throughout Jerusalem.)

To this day, Blitzer frequently airs Israel’s defenders, rarely puts on its critics; and he attacked Jimmy Carter when he dared to say Israel was practicing apartheid.
–The liberal Zionist group J Street has taken a prominent role in condemning white nationalists.

Meanwhile, its president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, brags about his father’s “service” in the Irgun establishing the state of Israel — without noting that the Irgun was a terrorist Jewish militia, linked to the massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yassin and other ethnic cleansing operations.
–Josh Marshall of TPM has been a tribune of warnings about the real-and-present dangers of Trumpism: “a President driven by white racial grievance” has detonated a bomb of “white supremacist violence” hatred that will keep bursting.

Marshall is married to an Israeli and proudly named his son in 2006 after an Israeli general:

His full name is Samuel Allon Marshall. … The name means ‘Oak’ in Hebrew. And it was also the name of Yigal Allon, after whom he is also named, who was one of the founders of and later the commander of the Palmach, the elite commando unit of the Haganah, the predecessor of the IDF.

Yigal Allon was the general who carried out David Ben-Gurion’s more-or-less explicit orders to expel Palestinians from the incipient state of Israel in 1948. Famously he emptied Lydda and other areas near the Israeli airport of Palestinians. “IDF commander Yigal Allon asked Ben Gurion ‘what shall we do with the Arabs?’ Ben-Gurion made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ‘Expel them’”. [John Pilger, and Ari Shavit too.]

Josh Marshall is wired inside the Democratic Party and tries to maintain order over Israel inside the party. He does so by avoiding the issue as much as he can lest it divide the base, by pointing out Israeli atrocities only when they’re glaring, and when push comes to shove, characterizing anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism.

Marshall’s view is, We can’t divide over Israel because there are anti-Semites at the gate. He wrote during the Keith Ellison fight:

[T]ruly the last thing the Democratic Party needs right now is a toxic internecine fight over Israel. And equally important, we are in an era when real anti-Semitism has been rearing its head in the United States in a way it has not done in [many years].

I could go on to Jeffrey Goldberg, Brian Lehrer, Jonathan Chait, and Terry Gross (who disciplined Jimmy Carter for daring to say “apartheid”); to Time Warner (CNN) executive Gary Ginsberg who wrote speeches for Netanyahu, or Comcast (NBC) executive David Cohen who raised money for the Israeli army; to the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and People for the American Way.

I admire what these people are doing for our country during the rise of intolerance. But white nationalists have themselves pointed out that American Zionists in powerful positions have a reservation on liberalism when it comes to Israel. We only want what they want, a nation for ourselves, say those white nationalists. “I am a white Zionist,” Richard Spencer said on Israeli television yesterday. JVP’s Naomi Dann writes in the Forward today: “Richard Spencer Might Be the Worst Person in America. But He’s Right About Israel.”

American Jews need to get clear on the nationalism question. Are they for an ethnic state that seeks to shelter one ethnicity, even if that means driving out the minority and discriminating against that minority on an ongoing basis– and having government coalitions composed of parties representing one religious belief? Or are they against that kind of arrangement? If they’re against it here, they should be against it there, in what Cory Booker’s largest donor calls the “Jewish Homeland”– the country of Greater Israel, which is half Jewish and half Palestinian, with most of those Palestinians lacking all rights.

Charlottesville makes this conversation urgent because the hypocrisy of the Democratic leadership hurts resistance to intolerance. You can’t be righteously anti-nationalist in the U.S. and evangelists for Jewish nationalism over there.

This is not just good liberal philosophy. It’s the best policy to fight anti-Semitism. Israel’s status as a human-rights abuser is now its global reputation; and Jews and Jewish organizations who blindly defend it are hurting the reputation of Jews. Tony Klug explained this at J Street a few months ago. The Palestinian conflict is now defining the Jewish reputation around the world and making Jewish life in other countries “precarious.”

if Israel does not end the occupation sharply, and if organized Jewish opinion in other countries appears openly to back it, there will indeed almost certainly be a further surge in anti-Jewish sentiment, potentially unleashing more sinister impulses.

To stem those “sinister” forces, Klug said American Jews must pressure Israel to end the occupation or give Palestinians equal rights. Pretty much what happened in the South, a long time ago….

Liberalism and Zionism (as it has worked out anyway) are incompatible. That is why we’ve seen many liberal Zionists turn quietly into non-Zionists in recent years. We see this in the surging membership of Jewish Voice for Peace. Tom Friedman and Ayelet Waldman both seem to be on the road away from Zionism. Jeffrey Goldberg is in the halfway house. Deep in their hearts, they know that we are in a different age from the mid-20th century, and that Zionism is an untenable ideology in an era in which the country is seeking to solidify minority rights and other progressive achievements. They need to say so out loud.

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.

Striking in al-Ándalus: why Islamic State attacked Spain

August 19, 2017

Despite its (relatively) low body count and primitive execution, Thursday’s terrorist attack in Barcelona shocked many local and international onlookers. The Islamic State (IS) group was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, in which a van was deliberately driven into pedestrians on Barcelona’s famed Las Ramblas strip. At least 13 people are dead, and around 100 have been left injured.

Spain terror attack
Spain plays a relatively inconsequential role in the fight against Islamic State. Reuters/Sergio Perez

The location and targeting of the attack deviates from IS’s previous efforts. These have typically focused on punishing countries directly involved in military operations against it in Syria and Iraq.

But how reliable are its claims of responsibility? And why was Spain chosen, given its relatively inconsequential role in the fight against IS?

The validity of IS’s claims

Verifying the culpability of terror attacks can traditionally be a tricky affair. Given that organisations that engage in terrorism are doing so from a position of weakness, there is always an incentive to lie in order to bolster mystique and inflate the image of threat.

But in this regard, IS seems to differ from previous groups. It has typically been reliably truthful in what it claims to have been its actions.

One Australian example of this can be found in the 2014 Lindt Cafe siege. The perpetrator, Man Haron Monis, proclaimed he was acting under IS auspices. But despite this declaration, and the potential propaganda victory it could bring, IS resisted such advances and distanced itself from the incident.

While IS would go on to posthumously praise Monis’ actions, it never made any explicit claims to having organised or directed them. No pre-existing relationship was found in the subsequent inquest.

This incident, along with many others, seems to indicate that while IS claims a butcher’s bill of heinous activities, it doesn’t tend to overtly lie about them.

Such a policy, while initially appearing counter-intuitive, maintains IS’s perception as a trustworthy source of information. This is particularly important in recruitment efforts, and makes it difficult for governments to challenge the IS’s claims in counter-propaganda.

For IS, maintaining a twisted sense of chivalrous virtue remains paramount.

Spain and the clash of civilisations

The Barcelona attack also reflects IS’s view of the world as a civilisational clash.

Described as a “reluctant partner” in the anti-IS coalition, Spain has resisted entreaties to join military efforts. Instead, it has opted for what it sees as a less risky role – providing logistical aid and training to local Iraqi forces, as well as preventing homegrown attempts to support IS abroad.

Spain’s limited role in the fight, particularly in contrast to other terror victims such as France and the US, might lead one to expect it to be relatively low on IS’s hit list.

But in terms of IS’s conflict narrative, Spain represents just another manifestation of a hostile Western civilisation in a state of war against the Islamic community. This leaves it more than open for reprisals.

At a spiritual level, Spain also holds a special place in IS’s mythology. Once a part of the Islamic empire, al-Ándalus, as it is known in Arabic, is seen by many IS ideologues as a natural territorial part of the end-state caliphate and currently under direct occupation by infidels.

Shock and bore

Terrorist reprisals like this attack are likely to intensify temporarily against Western targets throughout Europe and further abroad over the coming months and years, as the IS is systematically deconstructed on its home turf in Iraq and Syria.

IS remains heavily dependant on an image of defiant dynamism and a commitment to challenge the international status quo, which it claims subjugates the chosen community. As its ability to function as a “state” continues to decline, it will increasingly seek to maintain such a mystique through acts of spite against those that have prevented it from achieving its goal of a “caliphate”.

Despite a likely future increase in terrorist attacks, IS also risks a growing public disinterest and apathy toward its activities.

As one commentator has written, the banality and nontheatrical nature of IS’s approach to terrorism – particularly in contrast to al-Qaeda’s keen eye for spectacular symbology – has left many onlookers less than impressed and far from terrified.

Ben Rich, Lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies, Curtin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Media today is disconnected with 75% of the population

August 19, 2017

The harrowing issues of 75% of the population rarely end up making the headlines in our mainstream media.

The Media, which is often regarded as the fourth pillar of the democracy, is today, completely devoid of a labour correspondent or an agricultural correspondent. The harrowing issues of 75% of the population rarely end up making the headlines in our mainstream media. The greatest example of this in the contemporary context is the media’s approach to the water crisis in the country. “Mainstream media is never going to cover the class and caste distinctions of water,” says Sainath

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

When Charlatans Become Ideologues – The Real ‘Prisoners of the Binary’

August 19, 2017

I often find myself in a bind over whether or not to respond to supposed RSS ideologues, given that they simply trade in lies and hatred with the supreme arrogance of ignorance. One such is the upcoming star on the RSS horizon, a gentleman called Rakesh Sinha, who like the rest of his pack (led by the supreme leader) is currently engaged in a cheap attack on the outgoing Vice-President, Hamid Ansari. His piece in the Indian Express today (linked above) is an instance of a combination of all these things. So, why should one bother about such a character? Why take him and his discourse seriously? Well, someone had better respond because, because, for one thing they are in power, and are going to teach generations of students that valorous ‘Hindus’ like Maharana Pratap won all the wars, though by some magic, ‘Muslims’ continued to rule for about 8 centuries! For another, there are enough gullible types who really think these people ‘have a point of view’, which should be debated.

Rakesh Sinha

As we have repeatedly seen, their ‘having a point of view’ has nothing to do with debate. It is to be enforced by gangs of gorakshaks, anti-romeo squads, hoodlums deciding what will or will not be taught in universities and schools, what will be written, how people should dress and love – and when nothing works, ‘win’ a ‘debate’ like Arun Jaitley claimed they did, by simply arresting the opponents and slapping sedition charges on them. Given this, I do not really address, in person, the ideologue, Rakesh Sinha, who has now made it a fine art to pick up some phrases from the toolkit of what is understood as ‘postmodernism’ by many. Wasn’t it postmodernism, one can hear them say, that said all viewpoints are equally valid and ‘everything goes’? Wasn’t it postmodernism that challenged the hegemony of Western thought, its logocentrism, its Rationalism (with a capital R) from within that very tradition? Wasn’t it postmodernism again, that by decentering West’s logocentrism, actually gave these RSS-type creatures the gumption to claim that their utterly unsubstantiated viewpoint about the past too was as valid as that of historians who struggled with evidence, painstakingly putting together texts, artefacts and procedures of dating in order to produce a plausible account of the past?

The answer to all these questions cannot be an unambiguous one. If some of these effects did come to the fore once the heavily guarded doors of theoretical and philosophical knowledge were opened, we must certainly attend to the challenge posed by them. But that does not and must not thereby lead us to an unthought return to the ‘Enlightenment legacy’. In fact, it can be argued that in many instances, it was the way modern Western thought rewrote the history of thought (excising Arab, Persian, Chinese, India, and African entirely from that history) in the world, relegating entire cultures to the domain of the ‘irrational’ and the ‘backward’, that constitutes the single biggest factor behind the emergence of what Nietszche would call the man of ressentiment (or resentment) that is, KB Hedgewar, MS Golwalkar, Mohan Bhagwat, Narendra Modi, Rakesh Sinha…

In a very profound sense, these characters, the resentful slaves, are the most direct product of colonialism – its mirror image, as it were. The pathology of nationalism that colonized and the pathology of the nationalism of the colonized share one thing in common: they draw sustenance from each other and live off each other, just as Nazism and Fascism (pathologies of the first kind) always inspired the Golwalkars, Moonjes and Hedgewars (pathologies of the second kind). That is why , notwithstanding Rakesh Sinha’s apparent critique of ‘the West’, Hindutva in all forms shunned struggle against the British. Their utter failure of nerve and intellect in the face of the power of colonial assault, made them turn their resentment against another target – the ‘Muslim’ – no longer the ruler, but reviled by Christiandom (and Western colonialism) since the time of the Crusades. The rising Hindu/tva intelligentsia imbibed all its intellectual nourishment in terms of the villainization of Islam, directly from colonial/ Christian sources. It is worth keeping in mind that the Hindu intelligentsia of the precolonial (that is, say the Mughal) period, be it Tulsidas or the Navya Nyaya philosophers like Raghunatha Shiromani (to name just two out of a galaxy of flourishing Sanskrit and vernacular thinkers), showed little or no trace of the anxieties about Muslim rulers that their descendants of the colonial period display. Not even about the Babri Masjid, which so troubles Rakesh Sinha’s tribe today!

Present day Hindus are probably the strongest opponents of Marxism. They are horrified at its doctrine of class-struggle. But they forget that India has been not merely the land of class struggle but she has been the land of class wars. – B. R. Ambedkar, Philosophy of Hinduism.

And of course, what was imbibed from the source/s of these anti-Islam narratives relayed through colonial-Christian sources, fitted very well with the fears and anxieties of new intelligentsia (one belonging to what Sinha calls ‘more subaltern than any other group or idea’). That this group, in colonial times, was upper caste despite its cultural marginalization, is a matter the likes of Sinha do not want to be reminded of. And what precisely were the fears and anxieties of this section that drove them to readily digest the anti-Muslim propaganda of the West? The perceived threats to their own social position from the now restive Shudras and Atishudras or Panchamas who welcomed the openings provided by the advent of colonialism. As their hegemony and dominance collapsed, and the Shudraatishudras made strategic common cause with colonial power, the need for Hindu consolidation began to be felt more and more. Hindu consolidation however, was sought to be achieved without displacing the virulent upper castes from their pre-eminent position in society. The fear of the virile Muslim man out to abduct innocent Hindu women and to procreate at rates that would marginalize effeminate Hindu men (a fear still very rampant). came in very handy. He was the villain the Shudratishudras, especially the Dalits should be afraid of, in the new discourse of fear that took hold of the late 19th century and early 20th century intelligentsia.

Having said this, perhaps it is also worth responding to a couple of formulations that Mr Sinha makes. His central contention is that calling ‘cultural nationalism’ (a code word for Hindutva) illiberal betrays Hamid Ansari’s pandering to the ‘western notion of nationhood’. The way Sinha goes about enumerating all the activities of the RSS (except for engineering ‘riots’ or murdering Gandhi) – for instance, its running of schools and ‘1,60,000 social projects to empower the poor’, it seems as if the scale itself is enough to make the argument that the RSS upholds the civilizational legacy of what we know as India. So let us get this out of the way first: it says nothing about anything. At best, all of Sinha’s arguments can be arguments for majoritarianism.

What is really interesting (and intriguing for those who do not understand how a convoluted RSS mind works), is the way he goes on to tell us about nationalism – Indian and Western. Some day, it will also be necessary to do a proper study of what one can only call Hindutvaspeak – which is but another form of Brahmanspeak. Its hallmark is that it never talks directly, it always says something when it means another. But that is better left for another occasion.

What is truly mind-boggling, as I said earlier, is the sheer scale of ignorance of history and scholarship, not to speak of the ‘tradition’ in whose name the RSS and Sinha speak. So he tells us that the Western notion of nationalism is based on the idea of ‘otherness’ which is missing from Indian idea of nationalism. So what is the Indian idea of nationalism? Sinha leads us back to the prithvi sukta of the Atharva Veda, where it is proclaimed that ‘the earth is our mother and and we are her sons.’ From this Sinha concludes (and wants us to believe him) that “humanitarian concern is at once embedded in India’s cultural nationalism and ‘otherness’ is largely missing from its narratives.”

In conclusion, let us note a few things:

There is only one quote that Sinha has produced that he thinks allows him to make a sweeping generalization about ‘otherness’ missing from Indian cultural nationalism’s narratives. We might suggest a reading of Manusmriti, for instance, among many others that expound on the varnashramadharma, for a robust discourse of otherness. Ambedkar’s quote as the epigraph to this post is meant to underline precisely this point, as well as to underline that much of the Hindutva rant against ‘the West’ is utterly misplaced.
Second, Sinha is either blissfully unaware or deliberately misleading when he makes the above deduction, that this idea as well as that of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which generations of Hindu intellectuals of the non-Hindutva kind, have used, underlines the fact that the world is a family. There is no question in this understanding of the territoriality of a nation called India – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh along with all other parts of the world are part of the world that the Atharva Veda talks of, NOT the territorial, Hindu tinged entity called India. In that sense, it is Hamid Ansari who truly inherits the mantle of the Atharva Veda idea, not the resentful men of the Sangh.
Now, what is it that makes the likes of Sinha and RSS read into the Atharva Veda the territorial boundaries (including say the Macmohan Line) that were created by British colonialism? What except the fact that they are colonialism’s disavowed children? Their anti-Islamism, as much as their idea of India, is derived from the colonial project, with a little bit of fantasy (Akhand Bharat) added to it, that has been the hallmark of all nationalisms – namely expansionist fantasies of colonizing neighbours.
RSS nationalism is then a direct product of the colonial project.
Lastly, Sinha believes that the ideal of ‘One People, One Nation’ that refuses to recognize the existence of any religious or any other minority, is an Indian idea. Any primer on fascism and Nazism would have told him that such is not the case. It is the ambition of every nationalism and the pathology of every fascism – and Western in its inspiration from the beginning to the end. That the idea of ‘One People One Nation’ has always been behind the idea of the elimination of the Jews in Germany for instance, is something Mr Sinha would do well to update himself on. In India, all those who rejected the Western idea of nationalism – Tagore and Gandhi foremost among them, rejected the idea of ‘One People, One Nation’ and celebrated the plurality and diversity of India. In a different way, so did Ambedkar.
The Sangh has always been a surrogate of Western imperialism and that is something that should never be lost sight of.

Courtesy: Kafila.online

It was Bangla Mata, not Bharat Mata in Bankim Chandra’s Original: Netaji Grand Nephew

August 19, 2017

In actual fact, Bankim’s Vande Mataram originally referred to Banga Mata not Bharat Mata says Dubara Bose, Netaji’s grand nephew in his new book

A recent release by Sugata Bose, presently Trinamool Congress MP and grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, has traced the history of Vande Mataram. He says in his book that when top Bengali litterateur Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay first composed the national song “Vande Mataram”, his reference was to “Bangamata or Mother Bengal”.

Explaining that “there is no specific mention of Bangamata or Mother Goddess”, Bose, who is a politician and a scholar, says, the national song’s reference to the “magic number of seven crore refers” essentially “to Bengalis”.

Hence, the song, translated by Bose into English, reads, “Seven crore voices in your clamorous chant,/ twice seven crore hands holding aloft mighty scimitars,/ Who says, Mother, you are weak?” Bankim’s hymn to the Mother, says Bose, was “originally written and printed in 1875 as a filler for a blank page in his journal “Bangadarshan (Vision/Philosophy of Bengal)”.

“It was inserted into Bankim’s novel ‘Anandamath’ in 1882 and set to music and sung publicly for the first time by Rabindranath Tagore at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1896”, says Bose in his book “The Nation as Mother: And Other Visions of Nationhood”, published by Penguin Viking.

Abanindranath Tagore’s Bharatmata
Sugata Bose, 59, who is currently Gardiner Chair of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University, is also Director of the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata, a research center and archives devoted to the life and work of his grand uncle Netaji. He also serves as MP from the Jadavpur Constituency in West Bengal.

Coming to perhaps the earliest “visual evocation” of Bharatmata, Bose says, it “came in 1905 with Abanindranath Tagore’s painting ‘Bharatmata’, adding, “Visualised as a serene, saffron-clad ascetic woman, the Mother carried the boons of food, clothing, learning and spiritual salvation in her four hands.”

However, points out Bose, “A conscious creation of an ‘artistic’ icon of the nation, Abanindranath tells us in a memoir that he had conceived his image as Bangamata and later, almost as an act of generosity towards the larger cause of Indian nationalism, decided to title it ‘Bharatmata’…”

However, at the same time, Bose says, “The name Bharatavarsha for the subcontinent as a whole was commonly used in the political discourse of Bengal, certainly since the Hindu Mela of 1867”, adding one of the “earliest literary evocations” of the concept of Bharatmata was in a poem by Dwijendralal Roy.

Roy’s poem, as translated into English, reads, “The day you arose from the blue ocean, Mother Bharatavarsha,/ The world erupted in such a joyful clamour, such devotion, Mother, and so much laughter.”

About 50 years later, suggests Bose, the consciousness of “Bangamata” continued, as reflected in the newsmagazine “Millat” (Nation), in an editorial on April 11, 1947, where it accuses the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha of “together raised a sharpened pickaxe to slice ‘Mother’ into two”, referring to the partition of Bengal – “Banga-bhanga”.

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
In fact, “Millat” Bose quotes “Millat” at accusing Congress “for half a century”, talking “big” and preaching “many high ideals”, wondering, “What had happened to them so suddenly that having taken off their mask they were dancing on the same platform with the Hindu Mahasabha?”

Bose says, Bankim got the credit of “Vande Mataram” as having been written in praise of Bharat Mata first by Aurobindo Ghose, who argued in 1907, “It was thirty-two years ago that Bankim wrote his great song and few listened; but in a sudden moment of awakening from long delusions the people of Bengal looked round for the truth and in a fated moment somebody sang Bande Mataram.”

DD blacks out Tripura CM:After Demonitisation Comes De-independence?

August 18, 2017

On this Independence Day, the ModiGovernment has yet again made it clear that in our country, none except one person, has the independence of speaking one’s ‘Mann kiBaat’. Not even the democratically elected chief-minister of a state.

Before the Independence Day, the DD Tripura had recorded a speech ofManikSarkar, the CM of the state, which was to be telecasted on 15^th August in their channel. But a day prior to the scheduled telecast, the PrasarBharti sent a letter to the CMO Tripura, saying that the speech was not in keeping with the “sanctity and solemnity attached with the occasion” and that they will be showing the speech only if the CM agrees to reshape it to suite their line.

Before coming to the question as to whether this can be done or not, let’s ask if this the ‘co-operative federalism’ that our Prime Minister refers to every time he speaks? Because what we see here is not co-operation but an untowardcompetition taking place. A communal outfit like the RSS is trying to compete with democratically elected governments to curb the constitutional provisions and make the country run in their terms. And what is even more horrifying is that some of the central governmental agencies and autonomous organizations, running out of tax-payers’ money are brazenly siding with the RSS, in this ‘competition’.

If anyone would have felt that ManikSarkar has made any provocative or unconstitutional statement in his speech, which infringes upon the Indian Penal Code, then one could have used the constitutional provision to take action against him. But what right do the sarkaribabus, including the CEO of the PrasarBharti have, to take policy decisions to the extent of trying to censor the head of an elected government?

After this issue emerged in the public domain and questions started to get raised, apologists of the government tried to put up a feeble defense saying that it might have been an act done by one or few ‘over enthusiastic staffs’ working for DD Tripura, and that the central government cannot be blamed for this. However had that been the case, then as one would expect, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry would have come up with a clarification statement, apologizing for the incident and condemning the so-called ‘over enthusiastic employees’ for showing this unconstitutional audacity of trying to censor an elected Chief Minister.

This time the PrasarBharti had a problem in broadcasting the Tripura C.M.’s speech as it contained certain statements which, they felt, were not in keeping with their ideas. But as one would remember, in 2014, soon after NarendraModi assumed office, this same PrasarBharti went out of its way to broadcast the VijayaDashami speech of the RSS chief Mohan Bhawat. And Mohan Bhagwat clung to the opportunity to do what he does the best. He propagated hatred. Throughout his speech he went on from spewing venom against the Minorities and Dalits to giving lessons to women living in this country as to how to live a ‘sanskari’ life. Clearly, the present policy makers of the PrasarBhartifind communal bashings and hate speeches more worthy of being givena platform to than voices advocating plurality, inclusivity and human rights in this country.

The Supreme Court judgement on basis of which the PrasarBharti was formed clearly read, “It should be operated by a public statutory corporation or corporations, as the case may be, whose constitution and composition must be such as to ensure its/their impartiality in political, economic and social matters and on all other public issues. It/they must be required by law to present news, views and opinions in a balanced way ensuring pluralism and diversity of opinions and views.” So what we see here is not only a violation of that judgement but also a major departure from the basic idea of having a free broadcasting media like the PrasarBharati. Now we know that any voice not falling in line with the dominant narrative will not be allowed to use the common broadcasting infrastructure of this country.

ManikSarkar, one of the longest-serving Chief Ministers of India is accepted across political lines as someone who indubitably epitomizes sense, sanity and honesty in Indian politics. If this voice of sanity is stifled by forces desiring hegemonic control, thenalong with it, the silent majority who strive for peace, national unity and harmony in this country are momentarily stifled. And if they become convinced that the democratic system has become non-functional in this country that does not augur well for the development of motherland.

And finally, there’s not much disagreement on the fact that PrasarBharti’s actions reflect the Central Government’s intentions. So if they cannot accept some of the statements of ManikSarkar, it means that the government at the center is finding them unacceptable. And what exactly are those statements? They are the ones in which the CM of Tripura had asserted the need to protect the Idea of India. A bunch of bureaucrats trying to teach an elected Chief Minister what is to be said is outrageous. But what is more alarming is the fact that PrasarBharti found those parts of the CM’s address ‘unacceptable’ which spoke of combating the politics of communal genocide and upholding the secular values enshrined in the Indian constitution. The Modi government not being comfortable with ManikSarkar’s speech yet again asserts the fact that at present the Indian Constitution is not in safe hands. After all, why does the CM of Tripura have to be censored if he speaks of India being a pluralistic and diverse society? What is wrong if a chief-minister urges upon the people of his state to unite and safeguard the secular fabric of the society? Why should a Chief Minister not say that killing human beings in the name of protecting cows is unacceptable? So if the Central Government thinks that something is wrong in these statements, then it yet again tells the people of India that something is seriously wrong with the Central Government.

(The author is MemberDYFI, West Bengal State Committee)

Florence Nightingales of Kerala Fight for Better Wages & Win

August 18, 2017

The recent success of the Nurses Union which is not affiliated to any trade unions or any of the political parties to make its strggle for better wages in Kerala is unprecedented. In the last 25 years, no trade union has been able to achieve such a substantial margin in salary revision. In the neo liberalization era more and more agitations are taking place independently, not under the leadership of established trade unions.

Representation Image

During the neo liberal era, primary and secondary sectors were over thrown and the service sector became the most preferable field for the capitalist mode of production. In a society where agricutural production has been stagnant and its income is low , the speculative culture within the services has been dominating the ‘growth economy. This transformation is now predominant in our country.

Kerala has a robust and excellent system of health care. Within the national human development index, it is the state which is at the very top. Its literacy, zero population growth, low mother and child mortality rate and high life spans are the cumulative result of a very systematic health care network throughout the state, achieved through a public health care system with dedicated health workers.

Kerala is also blessed with an efficient nursing staff, working all over the world. In Kerala, It is prestigious for a middle class family to have girls opt for nursing as a career as the choice opened several opportunities. They were well paid and this income resulted in the family’s economic status improving. Since the1990s, the area of health care has transformed slowly and oriented towards the health industry. (State’s health and educational institutes were merit oriented until the self-financing institutes were born by 1995) Self-financing Educational institutes are today working as business hubs. The attarctive advertisements and lures of these hubs meant that more and more health workers were rendered jobless and were working at lower income benefits (salaries) Due to the international economic crisis (since the Gulf war), opportunities in the Gulf and other foreign countries were lost and unemployment became a reality.These national and international factors made health workers rendered unemployed and those who remained withn, were much less paid.

Today, welfare oriented health care is missing in Kerala. Limitations of Public system are increasing and business oriented super specialty hospitals are attracting even the middle class. People are encouraged to undergo more and more health checkups and take more medication. Though the state population is only 3% of the national population, the sale of medicines in Kerala is around 10%. This leads to iatrogenic diseases.(disease by over medication). Scanning centers are mushrooming everywhere.

In the last 25 years the average health expense of a Keralite has increased from Rs 85 to Rs 10000. This is not a good signal. 10 lakh families have been thrown into BPL category due to the highly expensive private hospital treatments. Health education is also very expensive. Fees for a medical student in 1990 was Rs 750 is now increased to 6.5 lakh. This is not an exceptional case.

Compared to other states organised labour is well paid here. Traditional labourers in agro, small scale industry, construction etc are being protected. Since literacy is cent percent, un skilled labour is on the decline.This causes the migration of labour into Kerala from outside. Kerala is the highest consumer state in India. Glittering multi plex malls for gold, cloth, home appliances are visible across the state, open at all hours, with neon lights. But the workers at these malls are poorly paid. Unaided schools and hospitals are not an exception either. This is largely because of the lack of organised workforce in these sectors. Besides 90% of the working force consists of women. Trade unions themselves are usually male dominated and have not been successfully in extending organisations within the service sector.

Kerala has an attractive policy of Minimum Salary for sales girls under the Shops and Trade act, specific to this state. Despite this, however, employees are being cheated. Political parties are unable to take up these issues with powerful chains. This policy requires that a minimum salary of Rs. 86oo to a sales girl is a must (this is, by the way less than the wage in Kerala for an unskilled worker). The policy, on paper guarantees 100% extra wages for over time duties and also demands that if any such establishment employs more than 50 girls in a mall/ shop, accommodation facilities are to be provided. Besides, provident fund, gratuity annual bonus etc are ensured by the Shops & Trades department. But these rules are violated by many business groups.

In the private hospital sector, treatments are expensive but all health workers except senior doctors are poorly paid. Nurses, who play a key role in patient health care –and enter the profession after successfully completing a 3.5 to 4 year course, after which they register with Nursing council, do not get commesurate wages.

Nurses in Kerala are less paid than welsewhere though the Keralite nurse is oft preferred for her patience and sensitivity. There have been many attempts to fight against the odd working conditions. But family situations, gender and the lack of trade unionism were their hurdles. The managements of Hospitals (as well as schools) are mainly generation business groups like NRIs, religions, monks and political parties. They are good with politicians and beaucrats and many of them are pseudo philanthropists and well placed in the public sphere.

Most nursing students are studied with the support of educational loans and are unable to pay bank loans as well as for the lively hood. Three years ago, the state government had appointed a commission to declare the minimum salary of nurses ( Dr.Balaraman Commssion) . The commission proposed that a hospital shall pay a minimum salary of 12800 rs for a nurse with other social allowances, overtime etc. but even this recoomendation was not implemented on time.

So, nurses have begun agitating for a demand of minimum Rs 20,000 rs + as allowances. The Supreme Court made an observation indicating that the minimum salary of nurses should be Rs 20000. Even then, hospital managements were not ready to listen and, at the last stage of the agitation, the state government took the initiative to bring both parties to a settlement. This was a huge success of the Nurses Union which is not affiliated to any trade unions or any of the political parties. In the last 25 years, no trade union has been able to achieve such a substantial margin in salary revision. In the neo liberalization era more and more agitations are taking place independently, not under the leadership of established trade unions.

The Victory for the Nurses in Kerala for their minimum rights is an impulse to other workers who are being deprived of a dignified wage in all sectors.

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Florence Nightingales of Kerala Fight for Better Wages & Win

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