Assassination | SabrangIndia

The assassin state keeps on killing: Does anyone care?

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 08:54:22 +0000

Image Courtesy:bbc.com

The latest victim of the alleged Assassin State’s long list of terror killings stretching back many decades is an Iranian physicist, Dr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The liberal icons of the western media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, et al, who reported this crime, failed to evince even an iota of disapproval, not to say moral outrage, at this act. In their ethical universe, literally anything done by Israel against its perceived opponents, no matter how dastardly, is justified. Hence, the slant given to the news story: Fakhrizadeh was a nuclear physicist and, worse, is alleged to have worked in Iran’s nuclear program. The juxtaposition of these two identities is meant to subliminally suggest to the reader that he had thus virtually signed his death warrant, so his assassination by Israel is not a big deal.

One can imagine the howls of outrage in the liberal media that would erupt if the situation was reversed, i.e. if an Iranian hit-squad (or one from some “Other-ed” entity) were to kill an Israeli or American physicist working in either of their country’s nuclear weapons programs. But then rank hypocrisy is the price that neoliberalism pays to US imperialism and its Zionist ally.

What is worth investigating is whether any of the scientific, specifically physicists, bodies have or will denounce this wanton murder of one of their fraternity. In the “bad” old days, such associations were quick to rightly oppose the restrictions placed on eminent Soviet scientists such as Andrei Sakharov. Are journals like the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists going to denounce this killing?

*The views expressed are the author’s own. The author is a physicist who worked many years on nuclear issues at a US national laboratory.

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Elegy For a Lost Friend: Gauri Lankesh (1962-2017)

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 06:29:35 +0000

An extract from Battling for India: A Citizen’s Reader

Artist Pushpamala N recaptures the many facets of Gauri Lankesh in a loving verbal portrait. What made Gauri such a force of nature, even more than her zest for life and fighting spirit, was her extraordinary integrity. She moved from English journalism to Kannada without altering her voice or message. Staying true to the journalistic values of her father, P. Lankesh, she ran her Patrike without advertisements, but also brought to it her own straight-talking style, wide-angle vision and open-hearted sympathies.

September 5, the day of her assassination, was a special day of remembrance for Gauri since she regarded her father as her teacher. It now becomes a day to remember her exceptional life.

I was preparing to leave Bangalore for three weeks when I got a call from a friend in Mumbai asking me to switch on the TV immediately, saying that Gauri had been shot. I thought Gauri had gone driving off on one of her trips and been shot at. She had always received threats since the time she took over the Lankesh Patrike. Within minutes of the news of her death, people from all over were sending messages and calling. Many of my friends, who had met her at my place, were also devastated. By the time we rushed to her house, journalists and other people had already reached there, and a crowd began to gather. In the sleepless nights after that evening, an absurd thought occurred again and again—of Gauri sitting at her desk at the office that night before the edition and calling out, “Stop press! Gauri Lankesh has just been killed, we have to cover that!

Neither her family nor her friends had expected such a great public outpouring of grief and anger at her death, or that she would become a global icon of resistance. We had not thought that she was so powerful. With us, she was more vulnerable, speaking of her struggles and always good for an argument or a joke. We used to pop into each other’s houses when we were depressed, to unwind. She could be brutally frank.

Gauri lived two streets away from my place, in a house built by her mother Indira, an astute businesswoman who owned a popular saree shop which had supported the family in lean times. Though we both grew up in Basavanagudi in south Bangalore, we only met when I moved into my newly built studio in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in 1996, after twenty years of having been away from the city. But I had known her father, P. Lankesh, since the early 1970s when, as a silly teenager just out of school, I used to hang around Central College with a disreputable bunch of older friends known as the “Chod” gang. The English department was famous. It had professors like the influential intellectual T.G. Vaidyanathan and P. Lankesh, the celebrated Navya (Modernist) Kannada writer, each with adoring groups around him. Later, becoming a new wave filmmaker himself, Lankesh had played the role of the rebel brahmin Naranappa in the first Kannada new wave film Samskara (1970), directed by Pattabhirama Reddy and based on the novel by U.R. Ananthamurthy, with Girish Karnad playing the good brahmin. It was a strong critique of caste, dealing particularly with the hypocrisy of the influential Madhava brahmin community (to which my family belongs). Though the censors had initially banned Samskara, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had revoked the ban. I do not remember much commotion from the brahmin community when it was released in 1970. My mother and her friends went off to see the film with a naughty air. I even acted in a play directed by Lankesh which had been staged in the Town Hall. It was the Kannada translation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, a comedy about a woman, Lysistrata, who persuades the Greek women to boycott sex with their men to force them to end the Peloponnesian War. A family friend, member of the Swatantra party, wrote a strong letter to the Deccan Herald that the play was obscene. Though I was only in the crowd scenes, my father was furious and that was the end of my theatrical career.

Lankesh left his job and started the first Kannada tabloid Lankesh Patrike in 1980, to the disapproval of his literary friend who thought it would vulgarise his writing. He was probably inspired by the popular success of his political column in the Kannada newspaper Prajavani. Lankesh was a Lohiaite influenced by the charismatic Karnataka socialist leader Shanthaveri Gopala Gowda. I think his decision came out of a desire to “go to the people” after the tumultuous days of the 1970s, a decade marked by widespread movements for social justice and protests against the Emergency. Bangalore was the hub of the influential Navya literary movement, new wave cinema and new theatre dealing with social issues. Prasanna had founded the left-wing theatre group Samudaya just before the Emergency, and it had been performing political theatre all over Karnataka. The local paper Deccan Herald had also become a leading opposition after K.N. Harikumar came back from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and took over aseditor in 1978. The actress Snehalatha Reddy, socialist and wife of Pattabhirama Reddy, who had played Naranappa’s dalit lover Chandri in Samskara, wasfalsely accused in the Baroda Dynamite case and jailed and tortured during the Emergency. She died soon after being released.

Based on Gandhi’s Harijan, the Lankesh Patrike was a powerful anti-establishment voice for the oppressed and marginalised, running on readers’ subscriptions with a strict policy against advertisements. It grew to have a huge readership. It was a mixture of political exposés and sensational tabloid writing mixed with a strong literary content, providing a platform to new voices. What Lankesh also did was to invent a new language, or maybe many languages, delightfully tweaking Kannada with the fluidity of a master. Film scholar Madhav Prasad says he used to wait to see the new edition in Kolkata for the sheer pleasure of reading the language. One cover had the title “Bam Gum Yuddha”(Bangarappa–Gundu Rao War). No one had used Kannada with such audacity.

When I moved to Rajarajeshwari Nagar, I was introduced to Gauri by our older friend, the ex-cricketer Balaji, a neighbour of the Lankeshes. His house had served as an intellectual adda in Basavanagudi where Lankesh used to go to play badminton every evening. Basavanagudi was the centre of Kannada literature and theatre. The Vidyarthi Bhavan café in Gandhi Bazaar had been the meeting place for two generations of writers. Prasanna used to have a running joke that the great Kannada Navodaya (Renaissance) writer Masti Venkatesha Iyengar was so lusty thathe had not one, but “two-two dosas” every day.

When I first met Gauri, she was a journalist for the Sunday magazine edited by Vir Sanghvi. We used to meet often. Rajarajeshwari Nagar was lonely and scarcely populated. Gauri and her filmmaker sister Kavitha would talk in a racy, slangy Kannada that was delightfully new to me. We had completely different sets of friends and would throw large parties. My then husband Ashish Rajadhyaksha and our group of friends, all old Bangaloreans who had returned, had just started the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society—CSCS. Gauri had been married to journalist Chidanand Rajghatta, but they had broken up before we met. Lankesh and Ananthamurthy were the yin and yang of Navya literature and their children were good friends. But after Lankesh attacked Ananthamurthy in his paper, there was a rift. Gauri was loyal to her father and I never met the U.R.A. crowd at her place after that. I remember that at one of her parties, I was dancing on one foot because my other leg was encased in plaster after a bad scooter accident, when Prakash Belawadi (now a leading Modi bhakt) came up to me and bemoaned that people did not use theirhands to dance. He demonstrated some fancy moves.

In 2000, when Lankesh suddenly died, there was a crisis and Gauri had to take over the paper as editor. The sisters adored their father. Though Kavitha had been Lankesh’s favourite and Indrajit, the youngest son, was his pet, Gauri was the only journalist in the family. She had recently moved to Delhi and was enjoying working in the new ETV channel for the first time as a television journalist. After Lankesh’s death, the family realised that the paper was broke and there were only a few thousand rupees—“just enough for his cards money”—in his bank account. The Lankesh Patrike, which had a readership of two lakhs in its heyday when Lankesh was known as a kingmaker, had lost out in the new era of 24/7 television. The family thought of shutting down the paper, but Gauri told me that if the paper had been shut down, the agents would not return the collections from the last issue and they would not be able to pay salaries. When her younger brother Indrajit was named proprietor, she chafed at the thought that she would have to work under him as the editor. Some years later, when they fell out over her activism, she began her own paper, the Gauri Lankesh Patrike.

Pushpamala N is a photo and visual artist based in Bangalore, India. She has been referred to as “the most entertaining artist-iconoclast of contemporary Indian art “. Her work has been described as performance photography, as she frequently uses herself as model in her own work. She uses elements of popular culture in her art to explore place, gender and history.

This is an excerpt from Battlling for India: A Citizen’s Reader edited by Githa Hariharan and Salim Yusufji and published by Speaking Tiger. Republished here with permission from the publisher.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Firing at the Heart of Truth: Remembering MM Kalburgi

Sat, 31 Aug 2019 06:19:05 +0000

Four years ago, academic and activist MM Kalburgi was gunned down at his residence in Dharwad by Ganesh Miskin & Praveen Chatur, both linked to Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindutva outfit. Kalburgi was a vocal critic of idol worship and superstition, which often got him locking horns with Hindutva groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which made Kalburgi the target of their campaign during the years following up to his assassination on 30th August, 2015.

Translated by Aniruddha Nagaraj and Ali Ahsan

Image courtesy Catch News

As a tribute to Kalburgi and to the countless other pens that will not be put down, ICF presents an impassioned Kannada poem on political killings, by poet-activist Huchangi Prasad.

You cowards —
firing at us who wield pens.
You murderers —
celebrating the cold-hearted killing of innocents.

Let the sparrows
build nests
at your gunpoints.

Your guns may have wounded us.
But we are not just bodies,
Mute bodies.

We are children of the earth,
our mother gives us life with every letter,
strength with every word.

Look, this is not blood we shed
but ink, fresh and indelible,
writing the history of truth.

Every drop of blood now reborn
into a thousand truths.

Listen — I know, you Great Devotees!
I know the sword that chopped Shambuka’s head.
I know who demanded Eklavya’s thumb.
I know the truth: I know that sword.
I know you who became a gun
to kill me.

Listen — lies are not termites
eating away at truth.
Guns cannot destroy it either.
But these pens, these countless pens,
How they grow, tall, strong,
like a gigantic tree of many truths.

Read the original here.

Huchangi Prasad is a writer and activist. He currently teaches at the Government First Grade College, Davanagere, Karnataka.

Poem © Huchangi Prasad; translation © Aniruddha Nagaraj and Ali Ahsan.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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De-Coding VD Savarkar’s ‘Hindutva’

Sun, 18 Feb 2018 09:46:44 +0000

                                                                                      Image Courtesy: Wikipedia. Wikipedia: Standing: Shankar Kistaiya, Gopal Godse, Madanlal Pahwa,
                                                                                       Digambar Badge. Sitting: Narayan Apte, Vinayak D. Savarkar, Nathuram Godse, Vishnu Karkare

Vinayak Damodar Savarkarwas a key intellectual who formulated the concept of ‘Hindutva’ or ‘Hinduness’. His ideas influence the activities of all the formations affiliated to the RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS), the ideological guru of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), a political party and other bodies collectively known as ‘Sangh Parivar’ (‘Sangh family’).

VD Savarkar, had designated Muslims as the main enemy of the Hindu people and advanced the idea of their violent extermination (see his book Hindutva: Who is a Hindu, 1928). A believer in violence to achieve his perceived national goals,Savarkar did not hesitate to participate in the conspiracy to assassinate his philosophical and political rival, Mahatma Gandhi, in 1948.

Savarkar’s work is addressed in two important works: ‘Savarkar and Hindutva’ by AG Noorani, 2002 and ‘Age of Anger: A History of the Present, 2017 by Pankaj Mishra. We rely on the historical account provided by Mishra.

Unlike his fellow Gujarati MK Gandhi, VD Savarkar did not believe in non-violence. He wanted Hindu society to be politicised and ‘Hindudom to be militarised’. He identified the Muslims as the main enemy and target of the Hindus and advocated violence against them. He was a participant in the plot to assassinate Gandhi who was perceived as soft on Muslims and Pakistan. The descendants of Savarkar rule India today. His portrait adorns the wall of India’s Parliament.

The process by which his ideas evolved throws a fascinating light on Savarkar’s impact on increasing structural violence, which contributed to the demolition of the Babri Masjid (even threatening the Taj Mahal) and helps explain the phenomenon of increasing physical violence against Muslims in the country today.

Image Courtesy: Forward Press

Top intellectuals in radicalising West Bengal in the mid- 1800s, were deeply influenced by the Italian thinker thought of Giuseppe Mazzini. His books were best sellers. Mazzini’s Young Italy arose in Calcutta in the 1870s providing a ready platform for budding nationalists. By the late nineteenth century, many Hindus who came from high castes, constituting the educated elite, believed that Hindus constituted a great nation by default and India was their sacred land. These educated intellectuals marginalised by the colonialists embraced a radicalism of the right. They became vulnerable to the thought of Mazzini. They gave birth to the idea of a form of political Hinduism that organized and militarized the Hindus. From these intellectuals emerged the men who assassinated Gandhi, and whose intellectual progeny now rule India.

Savarkar, whose ‘intellectual spurs were almost all European’, was born a Brahmin in Nasik in western India. After studying in Fergusson College Pune (with the support of a family friend whose daughter he agreed to marry) went to England on a scholarship and fell under the spell of the Italian thinker Giuseppe Mazzini. He abhorred conventional religion and going beyond his guru decided to make Hindu nationalism an ‘ideology of hate and violent revenge’ learning from Wagner’s Germany. He wrote ‘Nothing makes the Self-conscious of Self so much as the conflict with the non-self. Nothing can weld a people into a nation and nations into a state as the pressure of a common foe. Hatred separates as well as unites’.

In his book on the 1857 Indian Mutiny, he wrote carefully described European women and children being slaughtered by Indians militants. Violence for Savarkar appeared to have been a form of emancipation. He felt the Hindus needed to have proper enemies against whom to measure their manliness. He developed a lurid narrative of Muslims humiliating Hindus. He also played up the virility of the Muslims, which made them irresistible. He felt the Hindus were overly philosophical and politically fractious. Hindu ‘Self’ needed to learn from Muslim ‘non-self’. Trying to work up hatred as a categorical imperative, Savarkar who had met Gandhi in London, felt his nonviolence ‘sinful’. Much of his life was defined by his dislike of Gandhi, ‘a crazy lunatic’ given to babbling about compassion and forgiveness. He spurned Gandhi’s vegetarianism and felt that only a fool would attempt to fight the British Empire without eating animal protein.

Savarkar had a range of friends from expatriate Indian revolutionaries in London who partook of the general trend of assassinations in Europe and America believing in Mazzini’s dictum that ‘Ideas ripen quickly when nourished by the blood of martyrs’. One of his upper caste disciples assassinated a British official in the first act of terrorism in India. In 1909, he inspired a murderous assault on a senior British official in London. Gandhi who arrived in the British capital a few days later condemned the killing as ‘terrorism legitimised by nationalism’.

Savarkar’s path diverged sharply from that of Gandhi after 1909. He was arrested in 1910 for his involvement in the murder of a British official in India. After two months in a draconian prison in India, he started writing mercy petitions to the British- an exercise which came to light only decades later.

His prison library in the Andaman Islands, Savarkar had the complete works of Mazzini. He deployed his reading in Mazzini to write his book ‘Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?’ The book defines the idea of modern Hindu nationalism. He says in the book: ‘Hindutva embraced all the departments of thought and activity of the whole being of the Hindu race’. He said: ‘Hinduize all politics and Militarize Hinduism’. He sought to achieve his aim by identifying Muslims as the enemy within. They were undeniably alien to India: ‘Their holy land is far off in Arabia or Palestine. Their mythology and godmen ideas and heroes are not the children of this soil. Consequently, their names and their outlook smack of foreign origin’.

Savarkar was politically eclipsed by Gandhi who spoke of Muslims and Hindus during the 1920s and 1930s. Gandhi drew his political imagery from popular folklore, which made him more effective as the leader of the Indian masses than any upper caste Hindu politician who relied upon textual Hinduism and ill digested bits of European political theory.

(This is an excerpt from KS Subramanian’s essay ‘Babri Masjid 1992-Gujarat 2002-Kashmir 2016: How the Sangh Parivar has wrecked India’s secular social fabric by sustained anti-minority violence’. For more excerpts, watch this space.The author is a senior, retired member of the Indian Police Service-IPS)

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India Erupts in 12 City Protest on October 2 & 5: Gauri Lankesh Assassination

Sat, 30 Sep 2017 11:46:51 +0000

Mutliple Locations all over the country will see protests, both on October 2 and 5 centred around the Assassination of Journalist, Free Thinker and Activist Gauri lankesh. October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi will have journalist organisations lead the protest. October 5 is the First Month Anniversary of Gauri Lankesh’s Assassination.

The very night of her death a protest first began at her home and continued at the Town Hall, Begaluru. A week later on September 12, 2017 a powerful 25,000 strong protest was held at Bengaluru at the Central College Grounds. Since then over the past month, in 147 talukas of Karnataka’s 30 districts proetsts have resounded from every corner.

‘Stand up for Gauri, Stand up for freedom, Stand up for harmony’: Delhi a Meeting at the Press Club has been Called at 1 p.m.

‘Those who killed Gandhi killed Gauri’: Mumbai a meetng of journalists has been called at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh from 4 to 6 p.m.

Tamil Nadu, Oct 2: The suicide of Anitha has rightly triggered a lot of agitation in Tamil Nadu which in turn has diverted the attention of the progressive
sections from Gauri Lankesh’s murder issue.Programme by Mass Liberation in Chennai and Thanjavur.Similarly the release of joint Statement as well as a homage meeting
by varied organisations together is likely in Chennai

Jharkhand

October 2: All concerned and conscious citizens are assembling at the Gandhi memorial in Ranchi to renew their resolve to fight against forces that are intent on tearing the society apart.

West Bengal

October 2: One hour sit-in program with little more than 100 people at 3 pm at Salt lake, Kolkata.

Protests on Oct 5:

Delhi :A protest rally and march has been planned by citizens and mass organisations from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar on October 5. Over 400 people from Karnataka will participate. Placards, banners, slogans etc getting ready.

‘March for democracy’* in Delhi on October 5, to say ’Mr.PM, speak out atleast now, your ‘parivar’ must be controlled. Ideological killings must be stopped’

Nearly one month after the brutal assassination of Gauri Lankesh, the fiery anti communal, anti caste and anti patriarchal activist, journalist and friend to many, the continuous demonstrations for justice in Karnataka and around the country have not stopped. On October 2, journalists are protesting before Gandhi statues around the country. October 5, which marks one month after her killing with impunity for both the killers and the twitter friends of PM Modi who celebrated her death, there will be major citizens’ uprisings all over the country. If you are in Delhi please come to Mandi house at 1 pm on October 5 and march for justice and democracy!

Mumbai: Silent Protest at Marine Drive by Citizens and Presentation of Memorandums to Collectors in 23 Districts. ‘I am Gauri’ Pens have been produced and will be distributed that day.

As for other states it is an encouraging picture as well

Tamil Nadu

Oct 5: There is a hall meeting jointly organised by Madras Union of Journalists, Ilam Thamizhagam or young Tamilnadu movement led by
Vinod, Manidhi a women’s Forum Women led by Com. Selvi and Tamilnadu

Student Front
Meeting may also take place in Thirunelveli, a southern district,organised by the Joint Action Committee of various organisations.

Kerala

October 5: Solidarity [Jamaate Islami youth wing] will organise a large meeting They will have big Rally with an expected participation of 2500 on Oct 6

In Trichur a Joint rally and programme is planned
In Cochin several groups together are organising a programme

Nov 18: Joint Anti Fascist convention in Trivandrum keeping this context in mind

Andhra Pradesh

October 5: In Vijayawada a big programme is being organised jointly

Telengana

October 5: In Hyderabad a major event is being organised jointly

Maharashtra

October 5: A joint protest meet in Mumbai and Pune

Orissa

October 5: Programs will be held in Bhubaneshwar, Bethampur, Puri, Baleswar and Phulabani [kandhamal district] of odisha jointly by different left organisations, rationalist organisations, and progressives, intellectuals, artists etc

Gujarat

There have been many protest meetings and memorial meetings and Gauri killing mentioned in various public meetings in Gujarat. Last week in
the village Mithi Virdi near Bhavnagar about 4500 people had gathered to celebrate their victory against upcoming nuclear power plant. There too, Gauri was introduced, remembered and a respectful silence was observed followed by a song by Loknaad, a People’s Cultural Organisation

West Bengal

There were immediate protest meetings in Kolkata on 6th September at Ranuchhaya Mancha in which many struggling groups participated. There was a big rally in Siliguri on 15th September A long big rally was held in Kolkata on September 20th in which struggling groups, different left parties and ‘Rights activists came together Student and Youth wing of CPM and other Left Front parties also organised a rally separately.

Madhya Pradesh

On October 5: Different left organisations mainly CPM, CPI and Red star are likely to organise protest meetings in different places in MP
mainly Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur etc and even elsewhere. Planning meeting is being held tomorrow.

Forum against the killing of Gauri Lankesh: An appeal

Dear Concerned and Conscious Citizens,

The assassination of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh has evidently rung a strong alarm. Though the chain of resolve to condemn and resist the dastardly act exhibited across the nation is encouraging, much more needs to be done to counter the terror acts and save the precious dissident democratic spaces from the onslaught of fascist forces.

The assassination of Gauri Lankesh, two years after a similar horror was perpetrated on scholar M.M.Kalaburgi in Karnataka, we believe, is not an isolated act. Murder of rationalists in the very same fashion in Maharashtra had given the warning signals much before. And these killings are inseparable from the chain of killings of Daliths and Muslims in the name of ‘cow protection’, ‘religion’ etc. It is the dangerous continuation of the spread of right wing ideology which has started in 1990s.

Being a founder member of Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike [The Communal Harmony Forum, Karnataka], Gauri Lankesh was actively involved in the resistance against reactionary forces along with other progressive sections of Karnataka who had responded pro-actively and consistently to counter the growth of such trend in the society. Many are the earnest, serious and brave attempts being made across India by very many organizations, groups and even individuals to expose and oppose the dreadful forces who are a threat to a unified and just society. Yet the above assassinations and other developments clearly demonstrate that whatever has been done is just not sufficient to counter their terror. The major concern is the limited spread of the organized resistance among wider and diverse Civil Society Institutions in Karnataka and entire India in fact.

It has often been pointed out that, in spite of land slide electoral mandate garnered by right wing forces, nearly two third voters showed their opposition to rise of the authoritarian right wing. Yet the practical efforts to identify the discrete oppositional bases and to mobilize such civil society dissidence to consolidate a formidable coalition of left, liberal and democratic forces have been slow and desperate. But after the killing of Gauri Lankesh a stronger reaction has come from different quarters of the society which include Artists (including ‘main stream’ cinema), Journalists, ex-civil service officers, legal fraternity including former judges, Academicians, Religious heads (especially the Viraktha Basava tradition Swamijis of Karnataka), LGBT community etc and more serious resolve is shown by diverse streams across the nation, as never before. Youth and students formed the major chunk of the different mobilisations against this killing. These facts are clearly underlined by any number of ongoing protests, spontaneous outpour of common people into the streets and a whole shower of creative and angry resistance in social media. This amply demonstrates that, the ‘Optimism of Will’ to resist divisive forces is alive and uncompromisingly rising the voice of dissent. The Symbolic Black we wore for mourning has transformed in to ‘The Black of resistance’.

Hitherto history indicates that, wherever it may be, a severe blow to any fascism and dictatorship could be dealt only through the widest possible united front of all who firmly stood to oppose it. The ascendance of rightist elements not only in India but world over forewarns us of the grave risks to all democracy and harmony. As Dickensian saying goes “It is the time of despair, it is the time of hope”. So, NOW is the time to respond to our inner call. NOW is the time to cease and weave a network of fraternity to halt right wing terrorism from sowing and spearheading desperation, death and destruction.

We earnestly appeal to all citizens who have shown the courage to say NO to perpetuators of terror, to come in clusters and build a broad, democratic coalition to rescue Freedom and Democracy from onslaught of Right Wing Fascism. We appeal to every individual and collective, all those who think and feel for the future of humanity as a whole, to come forward and support the voice of Unity for a harmonious and Vibrant Society.

As the first step in this process, we request one and all to join hands in the All India decentralized but coordinated Dharna in front of Gandhi statues/memorials or such other public place on Oct 2nd to condemn Gauri’s killing. Secondly, we request that people be mobilised in every state for the centralized rally in Delhi on 5th Oct, when it would be exactly one month from the date of killing. Already existing initiatives to hold protest meetings within the state on the said date may be held accordingly thus strengthening the protest voice. Elsewhere and also in addition to intrastate protests it will be good to organise a section of the people for the central rally as well, to the maximum extent possible.

The immediate necessity to pursue this joint effort is to:

Demand that the police investigation primarily focuses on the most probable killers and the real political actors behind them as is the normal procedure. The most probable killers here are obviously only those who were Gauri’s main adversaries, the most retrogressive forces which had threatened to kill Gauri and which have justified and celebrated her killing. And the state government in Karnataka expedites action in this direction by all means.
To insist above all that it is the utmost responsibility of the offices that are supposed to safeguard the constitutional values to discharge their duty impartially. But unfortunately the present dispensation in the centre is unashamedly upholding and supporting the forces which are destroying communal harmony and democratic values that are entrenched in our society. Hence it is all the more necessary that ‘we the people of India’ apply moral and political pressure on the prevailing regime, such that an unbiased enquiry is conducted not only to arrest the criminals behind the acts but also the extra constitutional forces behind them.
The programme in Delhi thus is very necessary and important to exert pressure on the central government, to reach our voice to those in the higher echelons of power, who are willfully acting deaf and dumb in this vital matter that has moved the entire country. And this calls for the direct participation of all conscientious well-known citizens of our land in the forefront of the rally, to lend a stronger voice to that of the assembled people.

We once again appeal to each of you and all of you to join us on
OCTOBER 2 in respective state and on OCTOBER 5 in Delhi and thus ‘Stand up for Gauri, Stand up for freedom, Stand up for harmony’
The common slogan shall be: ‘Those who killed Gandhi killed Gauri’

Related Articles:

1. Has Gauri Lankesh, in her Martyrdom propelled India to Rethink and Rebuild democracy?
2. #IAmGauri: Thousands Protest in Bengaluru Demanding Justice
3. Gauri Lankesh: Living for Justice

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Gandhi’s Murderers are Alive and Killing, even Today

Mon, 30 Jan 2017 07:57:07 +0000

The world today needs Gandhi's twin doctrines of satyagraha and ahimsa more than ever before

January 30^th 1948 will remain etched forever in the conscience of the nation. On that fateful day at evening prayer, Mahatma Gandhi fell to the bullets of his assassin Nathuram Godse, in Delhi. Godse represented the fascist, fanatic, fundamentalist and ‘feku’ forces, which abhorred the values which Gandhi espoused all his life and particularly the idea of an inclusive, pluralistic and secular India. These forces unfortunately are still very alive in India and in several parts of the world today!

There are certainly those who disagreed with Gandhi during his lifetime and there are many who disagree with his philosophy and his methodology even today. Nevertheless, few will be able to contest the fact that Gandhi was a man of principles who lived and died for a cause. His life was frugal and exemplary and unlike several politicians today, he did not care leave alone crave, for the privileges and the trappings of power.

In his lifetime, he internalized and propagated two cherished values: truth (Satyagraha) and non-violence (Ahimsa). This twin doctrine is today more than ever needed, as sizeable sections of India and other parts of the world fall easy prey to falsehood and hate; to divisiveness and violence.

Gandhi believed in the spirituality of inclusiveness. For him, the Hindu Scriptures ‘the Bhagvad Gita’ and Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” (particularly the section on the ‘Beatitudes’) had to be read and meditated upon simultaneously since he was convinced that they resonated with one another. He refers to this in his autobiography, My Experiment with Truth.

There was plenty of violence and bloodshed in the run –up to India’s independence. Gandhi truly desired an undivided India, in which Hindus and Muslims would live in peace and harmony.

The world today is in a turmoil as never before. In ways both subtle and direct; through discriminatory policies and executive orders; through manipulations and coercions, we witness the gradual break-up of our world, even as hasty and unwanted walls are built to keep people out.

In October 1946, he spent weeks in Naokhali (today in Bangla Desh) literally bringing to a halt, in a non-violent way, massacres and mayhem between the two communities.

On August 15 1947, as India celebrated her independence, there were no celebrations for Gandhi; he was back in Calcutta with his protégé Abdul Ghaffar Khan. He encouraged people to be non-violent and peaceful; he himself prayed, fasted and spun yarn. Those actions of his had a profound impact on the people- peace was restored.

When C Rajagopalachari, the first Governor- General of Independent India, visited and congratulated Gandhi for restoring peace in the city, Gandhi said he would not be satisfied "until Hindus and Muslims felt safe in one another's company and returned to their own homes to life as before." He sincerely cared for those who were forcibly displaced.

On the day Gandhi was assassinated, Pandit Nehru, India’s Prime Minister in an emotional address to the nation said, “the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere!” He was just stating a fact.

Darkness continues to envelop a good part of the world today; the very forces that murdered Gandhi continue to murder all that he epitomized. True there are some hypocritical gestures like usurping the place of Gandhi at the spinning wheel, for a picture on an official calendar. Gandhi never subscribed to showmanship nor was he arrogant. He fought against sectarianism and racism and would have left no stone unturned today to take sides with the refugees and other forcibly displaced people of the world.

Indian Catholics will observe a “Day of Peace” on January 30^th. Significantly, in a message for the Fiftieth World Day of Peace (celebrated officially on January 1^st 2017) entitled, ‘Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace’, Pope Francis emphatically states that, “violence is not the cure for our broken world.”

He calls for a new style of politics built on peace and non-violence, and at the same time for disarmament and the eradication of nuclear weapons. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan are referred to in this message as icons of non-violence and peace. We certainly have much to learn from them.

We need to do all we can to prevent the triumph of these forces who are inimical to the cherished ideals and values of Gandhi, the Apostle of Nonviolence. We must cry halt to their murderous march now!

(Fr Cedric Prakash sj is a human rights activist. He is currently based in Lebanon, engaged with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in the Middle East on advocacy and communications… Contact: cedricprakash@gmail.com)

The post Gandhi’s Murderers are Alive and Killing, even Today appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Balraj Madhok: A Pracharak-turned-Crusader against His Own ‘Parivar’

Wed, 04 May 2016 06:34:45 +0000

Balraj madhok Image: indiatvnews.com

The former Jan Sangh/RSS leader is no more. But he leaves behind his memoir with sensational allegations of “degenerate behaviour”, palace intrigues and “criminal conduct” on the part of some of the leading lights of the sangh parivar in the "pre-planned murder" in 1968 of a stalwart from their own stable: Deen Dayal Upadhyaya

With Balraj Madhok's death on May 2, 2016 the era of old guards of Hindutva politics comes to an end. An RSS pracharak till the end, he received handsome tributes on his demise from RSS leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself a senior pracharak. He described Madhok as a "stalwart leader of the Jan Sangh (predecessor to the Bharatiya Janata Party). Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong & clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation & society. [I] had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions".

It is intriguing that Madhok is now being confined to his leadership of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS). He was undeniably a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organisation relied for initiating major Hindutva projects. This reductionist attitude of the present RSS leadership towards his contributions to the organisation suggests an attempt to hide Madhok's role as a chronicler of the alleged degeneration in the higher echelons of the sangh parivar through the 1970s and ’80s.

Born in 1920 in Gujranwala (now in Pakistan), Madhok had emerged as a prominent RSS organiser by 1942. As RSS pracharak he was in-charge of Jammu & Kashmir state in pre-Partition days, a responsibility he shouldered till 1948 when he was ordered to leave the state by the Sheikh Abdullah government. In Delhi, he edited the English organ of the RSS, Organiser and founded the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) the student front of the RSS in 1948.

Next, he teamed up with Shyama Prasad Mukherji to launch the political wing of the RSS, Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS) in 1951 in which he held the crucial posts of all-India secretary of the BJS (1951-1965), president, Delhi BJS (1954-1963) and finally the party’s national president (1965-1967). It was during his stewardship that the party made significant gains in the general elections of 1967 by reducing Congress to a minority in several states. He was elected twice to the Lok Sabha (1961 & 1967) from Delhi.

Alongside his hectic political life, Madhok was a prolific writer, known for his controversial political tracts. He was the one primarily responsible for articulating Hindutva’s “Indianisation” theory in 1969 as a “solution” to the problem of religious minorities, especially Muslims.

Madhok also penned his autobiographical account in three volumes. The first two volumes, Zindagi Ka Safar–1 and Zindagi Ka Safar–2, were published in 1994. It is only 9 years later that the third volume in this series, Zindagi Ka Safar –3: Deendayal Upadhyaya Ki Hatya Se Indira Gandhi Ki Hatya Tak (Life’s Journey-3: From the Murder of Deendayal Upadhyaya to the Murder of Indira Gandhi) saw the light of day.

This last volume was full of shocking allegations and explosive facts concerning RSS, covering political happenings between 1968 and 1984, starting with the mysterious death in February 1968 of the newly-appointed president of BJS, Deendayal Upadhyaya and ending with the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi.

The issues and controversies raised in the third volume of Madhok's autobiography had long been in the public domain. But the revelation of shocking facts in his memoirs concerning the pre-planned murder of Upadhyaya – a prominent BJS leader, thinker and ideologue of the RSS – triggered a huge controversy. Madhok made the sensational allegation that those behind the “conspiracy” and its subsequent “cover-up” were none other than some BJP/RSS leaders, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nana Deshmukh. Madhok even held the former RSS leader Balasaheb Deoras, who later became its sarsanghchalak (supremo), guilty of shielding the above duo in their alleged misdemeanors and worse.

If Madhok's autobiography is to be believed, the RSS top brass had already reached its nadir of degeneration by the late 1960s. The most significant aspect of his memoir was that Madhok published it during his lifetime, while he was still saw himself as a swayamsevaks/ pracharak.

In the foreword to his third volume, he wrote: “I have tried to present the prominent incidents of this stormy era, my experiences and their influence on me, Jan Sangh and life of the nation with factual and objective narration and evaluation. Being a student of history I have always kept in mind the universally accepted principle of history that ‘facts are sacred’ though there may be different interpretations of the same.”

Madhok was of the firm view that Deendayal Upadhyaya’s murder on February 1, 1968, was the harbinger of a vicious rising storm which derailed the Jana Sangh. Before unfolding the mystery of Upadhyaya’s murder he raised a few questions: "Why was he murdered? Who were the people involved in the conspiracy? The aim and goal behind this conspiracy is still shrouded in mystery. But all this will (surely) be unveiled as circumstantial evidences about his murder are quite revealing.” (p. 14-15)

Madhok’s autobiography aimed at “exposing the conspiracy behind Deendayal Upadhyaya’s murder” by meticulously putting together facts as if preparing a legal document. While dealing with the identity of the murderers of Upadhyaya, he made the following significant statement: "One thing is clear. Behind the murder of Deendayal Upadhyaya was neither the hand of communists nor any thief… He was killed by a hired assassin. But conspirators who sponsored this killing were self-seekers and leaders of Sangh/Jan Sangh with a criminal bent of mind." (p. 22)

The autobiography proceeded to detail a concerted attempt by the alleged conspirators to keep facts under wraps: “The needle of suspicion points directly towards those jealous self-seekers who conspired in the murder of Deendayal Upadhyaya. While they are reaping benefits exploiting his name, they do not want the truth of his murder to come out. However, as a student of history I believe that the blood of Deendayal Upadhyaya will be avenged, history will do justice to him and those who conspired to kill him will be subjected to a curse.” (p. 15)

The pracharak was absolutely non-hesitant in pointing fingers towards Vajpayee and Deshmukh as the “main conspirators” in the murder of Upadhyaya. He categorically stated: “Information gathered from difference sources points the finger of suspicion in the murder of Deendayal Upadhyaya towards them.” (p. 23)

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Balraj Madhok & other leaders

According to the autobiography, Upadhyaya’s murder was engineered by those who were kept out of leading positions by the BJS president. It is to be noted that after taking over as president of the BJS from Madhok in December 1967, Upadhyaya had denied important posts to Vajpayee and Deshmukh. According to Madhok, Upadhyaya was murdered because, “he was constantly striving to ensure that ill-reputed people get no promotion in BJS, so that the organisation’s reputation is not tarnished. Because of this some characterless, self-seeking people saw him as a stumbling block in their path.” (p. 145)

In identifying who these “characterless, self-seekers” were, Madhok minced no words. According to the autobiography, he was all too familiar with them during his own stint as BJS president before Upadhyaya: “Some time back when I was the president of Jana Sangh, Jagdish Prasad Mathur, in-charge of the central office who was staying with Atal Behari at 30, Rajendra Prasad Road, had complained to me that Atal had turned his house into a den of immoral activities. Every day new girls were coming there. Things were getting out of hand. So as a senior leader of Jana Sangh I have dared to bring to your notice this fact, he told me. I had some information about the character of Atal, but I did not know that the situation had deteriorated so much. I called Atal to my residence and in a closed room inquired from him about matters raised by Mathur. The explanation he offered further confirmed the facts conveyed by Mathur. I suggested to him that he should get married, otherwise, he was bound to get a bad name, and the reputation of Jan Sangh too would suffer.” (p. 25)

As a close and keen observer of developments in BJS in the immediate post-Upadhyaya period, Madhok was astonished to find that a dominant section of the RSS leadership was bent upon making Vajpayee president of BJS. This was happening despite the fact that Madhok did bring all these facts to the notice of the then sarsanghchalak of RSS, MS Golwalkar. According to him the meeting took place in Delhi in early 1970. “After listening to me he [Golwalkar] kept quiet for some time and then said: ‘I know of the weaknesses in the character of these people. But I have to run an organisation. I have to take everybody together, so like Shiva I drink poison everyday.’” (p. 62)

The autobiography went on to relate developments akin to palace intrigues. "It has been the tradition of Jan Sangh that if the president expires before completing his term, the senior vice-president is given the responsibility for the rest of the term. So I thought that Shri Pitamber Das or principal Dev Prasad Ghosh will be given this responsibility. Atal Behari Vajpayee was nowhere in the reckoning (Atal Behari Vajpayee kisi ginti maen nahin thaa). I was stunned when informed that Sangh leaders wanted to make Atal Behari Vajpayee president”.

“Immediately after becoming president, he removed Jagannath Joshi from the important post of organisation in-charge (sangathan mantri) and appointed Nana Deshmukh to this post. Thus two persons who were direct beneficiaries from the murder of Shri Upadhyaya were those whom during his tenures as BJS general secretary and president he had adopted a conscious policy of keeping away from important posts.”(pp. 16-17)

Madhok made serious allegations against Vajpayee and Deshmukh holding them responsible for thwarting any probe in the “murder” of Upadhyaya. According to him, whatever public posture RSS might have taken over Upadhyaya’s death, Vajpayee treated it as a simple accident. When Madhok confronted Vajpayee on the issue, the latter is claimed to have retorted: “Deendayal was a hot-headed (jhagdaloo) person; he might have picked a quarrel with someone in the train and in the scuffle got pushed out and died. Do not call it murder.” (p. 16)

Madhok goes on to narrate how both Vajpayee and Deshmukh allegedly tried to mislead the Justice YV Chandrachud Commission of Enquiry which was constituted to uncover the truth concerning Upadhyaya’s death. “When the Chandrachud Commission started the enquiry, I was informed that BJS president [Vajpayee] has given the whole responsibility of presenting Jan Sangh’s case before the commission to Deshmukh. So from the Jan Sangh side only those would appear as witnesses who have been hand-picked by Deshmukh and without his permission no other member of Jan Sangh could appear as witness. I was expecting that I will surely be presented before the commission. But I did not figure in the list of witnesses prepared by Nana Deshmukh… In such a situation the Chandrachud Commission failed in unraveling the mystery of this murder. From the attitude which was adopted by Vajpayee and Deshmukh in relation to the enquiry commission and from the kind of witnesses presented I can only conclude that instead of unveiling the truth they were interested in a cover up.” (p 19)

As mentioned earlier, Madhok also pointed fingers at Balasaheb Deoras, who became the RSS sarsanghchalak in 1973 after Golwalkar’s death. “After becoming BJS president, the stature of Shri Deendayal Upadhyaya grew further. Some felt that he might become the next sarsanghchalak of RSS. This possibility was unacceptable to some of the self-seeking Sangh people, especially Balasaheb Deoras. They started feeling that due to Deendayal their chances of further advancement might be jeopardised. Possibly, this is the reason that after the murder of Deendayal, he not only took direct interest in making Vajpayee president of Jana Sangh but also helped in covering up the murder of Deendayal. He wanted me to stop talking about it as a murder and describe it as an accident like him. But I was not ready to hide a fact witnessed by my own eyes and verified.” (p. 21)

The autobiography highlighted the allegedly degenerate personal and political life of Deoras. Referring to the Emergency days of 1975, Madhok states: “Sarsanghchalak of the Sangh, Shri Balasaheb Deoras was held under MISA. In contrast to the life of struggle and idealism of Shri Golwalkar, he was fond of good living. That is the reason why he wrote two letters, on August 22, 1975 and November 10, 1975, to Indira Gandhi for reconsidering her attitude towards the Sangh and lifting the ban on it. He also wrote a letter to Shri Vinoba Bhave requesting his help in removing the misgivings Indira Gandhi had about the RSS." (p. 188-189)

According to Madhok, Vajpayee and company continued to make all kinds of efforts to finish off his political career. They even succeeded in expelling him from the primary membership of BJS in 1973. Madhok was bitter about LK Advani who allegedly was a puppet in the game. Madhok wrote that his expulsion was “an immoral, unconstitutional and criminal act. In this, Sarkaryavah of the Sangh, Balasaheb Deoras and some other parcharaks including Madho Rao Mulay and organising secretaries played a prominent role. They used Atal as a shield and Advani as a puppet.” (p. 144)

Madhok was scathing in his comments on Advani, the ‘Iron Man’ of Hindutva. “The position of Lal Krishna Advani was like a puppet. He was not qualified for the post [presidentship of BJS] which was given to him after discarding many senior workers. I knew through my personal experience that he is a boneless wonder. He has neither personal integrity nor opinion. But he is lucky. In gratitude for the office which he received as a prasad from Vajpayee and officials of Sangh, lacking self-esteem, he acted as a bonded labourer for any job assigned to him.” (p. 146).

Madhok claimed in his memoirs that when Swamy sought a fresh commission of enquiry during the Janata government’s rule in the late 1970s, it was scuttled by Vajpayee and Advani. Madhok is now no more. Last year, the RSS-directed, BJP-dominant, Modi-led government observed a year-year celebration to mark the centenary of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. Among other things postage stamp was issued in his name.

“A beacon of selfless service & an excellent organiser, I bow to our inspiration & guide, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya on his birth anniversary”, Modi had tweeted on September 25, 2015. But celebrations apart, no one in the sangh parivar, except Upadhyaya’s family and Subramanian Swamy are interested in solving the mystery of his untimely death.

Was Upadhyaya killed by two thieves while travelling in a Lucknow-Patna train on February 11, 1968, as concluded by a CBI investigation? While the accused were acquitted for want of sufficient evidence, the Chandrachud Commission of Enquiry appointed subsequently more or less concurred with the CBI’s findings. Was he a victim of a Congress plot as alleged in the recent period without a shred of evidence? Or was Upadhyaya assassinated by jealous, self-seekers within the BJP and the RSS as alleged by Madhok?

While the mystery of Upadhyaya’s death is unlikely to be solved, why none of the stalwarts of the BJS/RSS whom Madhok accused of criminal conspiracy ever sued him will remain as much a mystery.

(‘Deendayal Upadhyaya ki hathtya se Indira Gandhi ki hathtya tak’ by Balraj Madhok (volume 3 of his Zindagi ka Safar) is available at Dinman Prakashan, 3014 Charkhaywalan, Delhi-110006).

The post Balraj Madhok: A Pracharak-turned-Crusader against His Own ‘Parivar’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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