Conflict Resolution: From Gandhi to Galtung By Anupma Kaushik

Posted on January 16, 2013 by gandhifriends

Mahatma Gandhi

Peace can be defined as a two sided concept. On the one hand it implies absence of violence and on the other the presence of positive, harmonious, cooperative relationships. These two aspects are referred to as negative and positive peace. Johan Galtung clarifies that peace research is based on the assumption that peace is as consensual a value as health. He further states that interdisciplinary and multilevel approaches are needed for peace research besides adoption of symmetry. Peace research needs to draw from all corners of the world and in order to understand an issue the researcher needs to see it from either side but the solution should not be based on the assumptions of one party alone. No party should be allowed to prevail over the other. Solutions should be found from which both parties might benefit. Findings should be symmetrically available. Peace research should be open in all its phases, never clandestine, never classified. Galtung also opines that for peace research most modern techniques of empirical study should be used. Data should be collected, processed, analysed and systematised into theories so as to provide a deeper understanding of the nature of conflict and that of peace. Last but not the least is the relevance of research. Research should help in the realization of peace. A researcher should not stop by ending a research project with policy implication but should get involved in concrete action by making propaganda among intellectuals and the public; persuading the establishment into action and challenging the monopoly of decision makers.1 Thus the scope of peace research is very wide. It covers the efforts for understanding of conditions that may prevent violence and also steps necessary for creation of conditions for furtherance of harmonious relations.2

Peace research recognizes that people as people are not always peace loving. Often governments are prodded on by an angry nation but more commonly governments share their nation’s idiosyncrasies and they even find it useful to play them up in order to have backing for their rule and policies. In other words irrational nationalism is deeply enshrined in people’s feelings about themselves and other people.3 In order to eliminate conflicts ways are to be devised to prevent misconceptions.4

Conflict consists of three components: incompatibility, action and actors. It is a situation in which a minimum of two actors strive to acquire at the same moment in time an available set of scarce resources. Examples of extreme conflicts are war, systematic repression, sexual and domestic violence, totalitarianism and genocide. In conflict both the parties want to win but that often is not possible or does not resolve the conflict completely and permanently.

Conflict Resolution is a social situation where the armed conflicting parties in a voluntary agreement resolve to peacefully live with and/or dissolve their basic incompatibilities and henceforth cease to use arms against one another. Thus conflict is transformed from violent to non-violent behaviour by the parties. In theory there are seven distinct ways in which the parties can live with or dissolve their incompatibility. First, a party may change its goal i.e. its priorities. The second way is when parties stick to their goals but find a point at which resources can be divided. The third way is horse trading in which one side has all of its demands met on one issue while the other has all of its goals met on another issue. The fourth way is shared control. The fifth way is to leave control to somebody else and the sixth way is resorting to arbitration or other legal procedures that the parties can accept. The seventh way is that the issue can be left till later or even to oblivion.5

There are certain conflict catalysts which can be divided into positive and negative. Positive catalysts are creative. They promote but streamline the conflict and create a healthy atmosphere for communication, understanding and cooperation for reconciliation whereas negative catalysts activate the conflict, format it, bring a bad taste to it. They substantiate the conflict and escalate it to an irrepressible stage, to the point of liquidating the parties. Negative catalysts are fear, force, bad language, exaggeration, secrecy, distrust, prejudice and adding new conflict issues. Positive catalysts are fearlessness, faith, love of opponent, empathy, morality, openness, introspection, confining to conflict points, readiness to compromise, voluntary initiation of dialogue.6

In analyses of conflicts, an analysis of incompatibility is necessary i.e. identification of conflicting interests, positions and needs of the parties. Then conflict strategies are to be analysed through which parties aim at reducing the influence of the other side and enhancing the influence of its own side. The behaviour of the other side is watched carefully. A positive announcement must be followed by positive steps otherwise the former is regarded as propaganda and the later as the reality. Once there is shift in behaviour a dynamic development may follow and build momentum. The parties may search for compatible positions and finding them will attempt to create new structures via which these can be expressed. Spoilers may be dealt with carefully for they will attempt to shift the conflict back to upper level.7

In civil wars and intra-state conflicts concerned parties will have a longer shared history of conflict and cooperation. The dividing lines can be ideological, economic, social, ethnic or racial. Here the most important issues are: first, to construct a social and political system that gives reasonable social and political space to all groups. The second is the issue of security as the one party that wins acts against the other. Thus it is important to end violence in a way that it removes this security dilemma. Without the parties being secure, subjectively and objectively, peace is unlikely to be sustainable. Democracy can be a solution here as it gives a way to handle the participation of parties in a society after a violent conflict and to give space to a host of actors who have previously been suppressed or excluded from having influence. Democracy also gives choices apart from winning and perishing such as winning but not gaining complete dominance; being strong enough to play a role; having some strength which can be enough to prevent undesirable developments or losing but still keeping a position in society. But for this to be a reality three conditions are important. First, the winner must be committed to respecting the rights of the loser and make a come back. In other words defeat with security. Secondly, the state should not be seen to belong to any of the parties, and thirdly, a neutral peace keeping force. Reconstruction of society on principles of inclusion is also necessary for example to solve the problem of refugees. This signifies that the extreme condition that gave rise to the flight has been removed. Human rights’ provisions and international connections are also important.8

There can be territorial solutions within a state in the form of self determination, autonomy and federalism. In self-administration devolution of power takes place from the centre to local level. Autonomy is given by the centre and is subject to policy changes by the centre. It can be of weaker or stronger type. Autonomy can also be guaranteed by outside actors not just subject to policy of the centre. Federalism is created for many units with uniform constitution and the central government is composed of constituent units.9 These are useful especially in cases where minority groups are regionally clustered. Self-control of regional groups over their internal affairs allows the protection of dignity, identity and cultures by placing minority groups on an equal footing with the rest of the national security.10 These go a long way in building positive peace where exploitation is minimized or eliminated and there is neither overt violence nor structural violence. For structural violence is built into the very structure of social, cultural and economic institutions and is more indirect and insidious than observable physical violence. It denies people important rights such as economic well being; social, political and sexual inequality; a sense of personal fulfilment and self worth. Thus positive peace-building implies establishment of non-exploitative social structure i.e. something that does not currently exist.11 This also implies that structures and institutions need to be created that are capable of ensuring human rights and managing the effects of democratization and liberalization.12 In other words positive peace cannot exist without human rights.

Gandhian Approach to Conflict Resolution

The people who established peace studies in the west – Johan Galtung and Kenneth Boulding were admirers of Gandhi.13 However in the west peace studies have taken a very different path to that of Gandhi. Probably the reason was that Gandhian peace demands a great deal of sacrifice from the practitioner. He calls it satyagraha i.e. ‘adherence to truth’ and truth and non-violence are the main planks of satyagraha. A person who resolves to adhere to truth cannot remain silent at the sight of violence which is negative of truth. Truth functions in the form of nonviolence or love. While the lover of truth ought to oppose violence such an opposition would mean ‘fight the evil’ while ‘love the evil doer’. It is a dynamic soul force based on the concept of self-suffering. As there are many forms of injustices there are many forms of satyagraha too such as non-cooperation, civil disobedience, fasting, hijrat, hartal, picketing, boycott, and renunciation of titles, honours and positions.14

Dr Anupma Kaushik is Associate Professor in Political Science, Banasthali University

Rajasthan kaushikanupma@yahoo.co.in

References

1- J. Galtung, ‘Peace Research: Past Experiences and Future Perspectives’ in Radhakrishna (ed), Peace Research for Peace Action, Gandhi Peace Foundation, Indian Council of Peace Research, Sahitya Kendra Printers, New Delhi, 1972, pp- 13- 31.

2- Mahendra Kumar, Current Peace Research and India, Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi, 1968, p- 9.

3- Gunnar Myrdal, ‘Peace Research and Peace Movement’, Ghanshyam Pardesai (ed), Contemporary Peace Research, Radiant Publishers, New Delhi, 1982, p- 30.

4- Ghanshyam Pardesai, Contemporary Peace Research, Radiant Publishers, New Delhi, 1982, p- 4.

5- Peter Wallensteen, Understanding Conflict Resolution, Sage Publication, London, 2007, pp- 3- 51.

6- Pooja Katariya, Conflict Resolution, Deep and Deep, Delhi, 2007, pp- 68- 73.

7- Peter Wallensteen, Understanding Conflict Resolution, Sage Publication, London, 2007, pp- 54- 56.

8- Ibid, pp- 121- 152.

9- Ibid, pp- 171- 172.

10- Ho- Won Jeong, Peace and Conflict Studies: An Introduction, Ashgate, USA, 2006, p- 235.

11- David P. Barsh and Charles P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies, Sage Publication, New Delhi, 2002, pp- 6- 8.

12- Roland Paris, At War’s End, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2004, p- ix.

13- Negeen Zinovieff, ‘Ancient Wisdom’, The Gandhi Way, No 96, Summer 2008, Glasgow.

14- Pooja Katariya, Conflict Resolution, Deep and Deep, Delhi, 2007, pp- 68- 73.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Gandhi Foundation.

Filed under: America, Gandhi, Nonviolence, Politics & Democracy, South Asia, UK & Europe | Tagged: conflict resolution, democracy, Galtung, Gandhi, nonviolence, Peace, politics, satyagraha | 1 Comment »

The Buck Stops at Your Door Mr Chidambaram by Gladson Dungdung

Posted on July 13, 2012 by gandhifriends

The Buck Stops at Your Door Mr Chidambaram

By Gladson Dungdung

July 10, 2012

The Adivasis live and die with the Nature. They believe in the super natural God, therefore; they worship the Nature in every occasion. The Adivasis’ economy is totally based on the Agriculture and Forest, which also depends merely on rainfall. Therefore, the villagers get together and pray to their Super Natural God before and after the harvesting. The Adivasi communities also have their own democracy, which is totally based on ‘consent’, which they practice in every village in every occasion. On 28 June, 2012, the Adivasis of Kottaguda, Sarkeguda and Rajpenta village in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh had gathered at Kottaguda village to plan for the performance of the traditional festival “Beej Pandum (seed Festival) so that they would celebrate the festival and start sowing the seeds on their lands as the Monsoon has reached to the region.

Unfortunately, 17 of them were attending this kind of meeting for the last time in their life. The Cobra battalion of the CRPF and the Chhattisgarh police, who were deployed in the region in the name of elimination of the Maoists, surrounded the villagers and fired on them without giving any signal to the villagers. Consequently, 16 of them got bullets in their chests, heads and other parts of the body, and died on the spot and one was brutally killed the next morning. The Security Forces claimed of killing 18 dreaded Maoists and celebrated it as one of the grand successes in anti-Naxal Operations. Similarly, P. Chidambaram, the Union Home Minister had also claimed that the Security Forces had shot top Naxal leaders in Chhattisgarh, and when the encounter was questioned he attempted to cover up it.

However, when the breaking news of encounter appeared in the television screens and the print media, the story seems to be totally untrue. The question immediately came into one’s mind was, how could 18 top Maoists have a meeting in a village, which is situated merely at a distance of 3 km from the CRPF camp? The truth of Bijapur encounter was finally revealed. A brave Journalist Aman Sethi, who has been tirelessly reporting on the state sponsored crime against the Adivasis of Chhattisgarh; this time also exposed the lies of the top cops, the Chhattisgarh government and Home Minister P. Chidambaram. According to his report, the security forces fired at a peaceful gathering of villagers, killing 20 of them, including five children aged 12-15, and sexually assaulted at least four girls during the encounter. The conclusion of the story was no Maoists were present in the village that day. The villagers had gathered to discuss the upcoming seed festival, when the security forces fired on them, which led to death of 20 villagers including 5 children.

The report of a three member Fact-Finding team comprising of Mr. J P Rao, Mr. Kopa Kunjam and Dr. Nandini Sundar, who visited Kottaguda, Sarkeguda and Lingagiri villages on 3rd and 4th July 2012 revealed further shocking facts. According to the report, these villages were attacked by the Salwa Judum Militia in 2005. They had killed 2 people and almost all the houses in all three villages were burnt. Consequently, the villagers had migrated to Andhra Pradesh and returned to their villages only in 2009. They were again attacked by the Security Forces this time, which led to death of 17 villagers including 7 minors. Apart from that, 9 have been injured, and at least 5 women have been beaten, assaulted and molested.

When the truth was unearthed, the Union Home Minister and Architect of the ‘Operation Green Hunt’ P. Chidambaram said ‘deeply sorry’ for killing of innocent civilians. The pertinent question here would be, is saying merely ‘sorry’ enough for brutal killing of 17 innocent Adivasis? Secondly, why are the political parties keeping quit in this matter especially the opposition party the BJP? Would they have behaved in the similar manner if 17 innocent non-Adivasis would have been killed in the cold-blooded murder? Will the BJP keep quit if the similar incident takes place in the Congress rule state? Who is responsible for massacre of innocent Adivasis? Is it not P.Chidambaram, who has been deploying the Security Forces in the Adivasis regions since, 2009 in the name of eliminating the Maoists?

The CRPF DG Vijay Kumar shamelessly justified the criminal acts of the Security Forces saying that it was impossible for the forces to know who they were firing at that night. He further says that the entire area is a “very hazy world”, in which it is impossible to identify who is a Naxal and who is not. The can be raised are why did the Security Forces fire on the villagers if they didn’t know whom they were firing on? Who had given them order to fire on the innocent villagers? And can the Security Forces fire on anybody merely on the basis of suspicion? The SDM Kuruvanshi, who has been appointed to investigate, questions the villagers that why they were meeting at night? He also doesn’t want to visit villagers but has summoned the villagers to his office, which clearly indicates that the state is determined not only to deny justice to the Adivasis but also continue the state sponsored crime against them.

The Teheka’s editor Shoma Chaudhary raised a most important question is her column ‘editor cut’ that Why is life in Bastar so cheap? A simple answer to this question is, since the Indian state seems to believe that all the Adivasis living in the forest regions across the country are Maoists/Naxals, who are biggest threat to the ‘investment climate’. The India’s Economist Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is always worried about the investment climate rather than its constitutional duty to protect the rights of its citizens. In fact, the Indian State is determined to grab the resources of the Adivasi regions at any cost, which will pave the way to India becoming the super power. Therefore, the Security Forces have been deployed in the forests to kill the Adivasis, who oppose to surrender their land, forest, water and other natural resources to the Indian state in the name of growth and development.

However, when we raise the question on fake encounter, the counter question comes back to us is why we keep quite when the Maoists kill the Security Forces? The answer for this question can be found in another question i.e. why does the Indian State send the security forces to the forest, where it didn’t reach in last 60 years? Is it for the protection of the villagers or to facilitate the mineral loot? If the Indian state sends the Security Forces to provide security to the people, then why do the security forces kill the innocent villagers, torture them and rape the women instead of protecting them? For whose security, the Security Forces are deployed in the Forests? Is it not true that the Security Forces are deployed in the forest to protect the corporate interest rather than protecting the people?

Whatever may be the intellectual arguments, but the fact is that the hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in anti-Naxal operations across the country since 2009 but no major investigation Chidambaram must leave his office, precisly because he is responsible for the brutal killing of all the innocent villagers including 17 innocent Adivasis of Kottaguda, Sarkeguda and Rajpenta villages of Chhattisgarh. The questions should be asked to Mr. P. Chidambaram that is it enough to say sorry after taking away the precious lives of 17 innocent people? Will he go for the CBI probe in all the cases of fake encounters took place in anti-Naxal operations across the country? And will he punish the top cops for killing the innocent civilians or let them enjoy the impunity? Remember, the buck stops at your door Mr Chidambaram.

Gladson Dungdung is a Human Rights Activist in India.
He can be reached at: gladsonhractivist@gmail.com

JharkhandMirror.org

Filed under: 1. News & Events, Adivasi Campaign, Living & Environment, Politics & Democracy, South Asia | Tagged: Adivasi, democracy, economics, environment, India, Jharkhand, Naxal, politics | Leave a Comment »

World Civilian Coalition Gathers for Global March to Jerusalem

Posted on January 16, 2012 by gandhifriends

World Civilian Coalition Gathers
for Global March to Jerusalem

Beirut -The International Executive Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem announces the completion of the preparations for the Second International Conference where the representatives of the International Committees involved in the organization of the Global March to Jerusalem will meet. The conference will be held in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday 17th-18th January 2012.

This meeting will be held to implement the decisions of the previous meeting, held in Amman last month, in which there was a consensus to form an International Central Committee representing all regions of the world and an International Advisory Board of eminent international figures for the march. The date for the onset of the March was agreed to be on the 30th of March, 2012, which marks the 36th anniversary of Palestinian Land Day, when peaceful protest against massive expropriation of Palestinian land was brutally met with deadly force by Zionist troops. About 40 delegates representing the International Committees throughout the seven continents of the world will be attending the meeting in Beirut.

The conference will adopt a structural process for the March, and its committee structure will be filled with appointees. The general policies for the international actions will be mandated in Beirut to ensure their success. The conference will also discuss the national events and actions that will be launched in all countries starting from mid January, 2012 and until the date of the march towards Jerusalem or the nearest possible point to it, from inside Palestine and the neighbouring Arab countries, as well as the convoys from Asia, Africa and Europe that will converge on the march date. In addition to that it will coordinate international activities that will coincide with the March in different countries.

The committee would like to confirm that the Global March to Jerusalem and all the accompanying local events and actions aim to shed light on the issue of Jerusalem (the City of Peace) as the key to peace and war in the region and the world. The racist Judaisation policies of the occupation and its ethnic cleansing practices against Jerusalem, its people and holy sites threaten this peace. Such practices are internationally recognized not only as crimes against Palestinians but as crimes against the whole of humanity.

The International Executive Committee also emphasized that through this peaceful march they envisage to mobilize Arab and Muslim nations alongside all freedom loving peoples of the world to put an end to Israeli violations of international law through its continuous occupation of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestinian Land. Israel’s persistence in continuing its racist and ethnic cleansing practices through the construction of the Apartheid wall, the expansion of settlements and the escalation of killing, destruction, displacement and Judaisation reveals the extent of its crime. This kind of behaviour demands an international rally to support the right of Palestinians to freedom, independence, self-determination and the right of return. This peaceful march is inspired by our belief and the belief of those who support our cause throughout the world that the massive participation of the people of the world is a practical, nonviolent way to achieve justice and preserve peace by ending the Israeli occupation in Palestine and its capital Jerusalem.

The International Executive Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem GMJ-ICC
Jan. 10th 2012

For more information, please contact:
Zaher Birawi: +44 7850 896 057 OR Dr. Paul Larudee +1 510 224 3518.

Filed under: 1. News & Events, Middle East, Politics & Democracy | Tagged: conflict resolution, democracy, economics, Israel, nonviolence, Palestine, Peace, politics | 1 Comment »

Killing, Denial and Manipulation – By Gladson Dungdung

Posted on September 16, 2011 by gandhifriends

30 August, 2011

Suniya, his wife and Mangri Honhaga (right)

30 year-old Mangri Honhanga along with her 4 month-old son Dula Honhanga and other family-members had desperately come toRanchi the capital city of Jharkhand after travelling for more than 6 hours right from Saranda forest in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand last week with the hope of getting justice. Both the mother and child have been suffering from illness – Dula is grade-3 malnourished patient and Mangri has been suffering from anaemia but they have no choice rather than facing all kinds of sufferings. The life was little better for them before 2 bullets of COBRA Jawans end the life of 38 year-old Mangal Honhanga the father of Dula and Mangri’s husband. Therefore, they had come to share their pains, sufferings and agony with the Chief Minister, the Top cops and of course, with the Media. Mangri Honhanga only knows that her husband was picked-up by the police from her house, taken to the forest and finally dead body was handed over to her.

Suniya Honhanga (27) and Ronde Honhaga (25) both the younger brothers of Lt. Mangal Honhanga are eyewitnesses of the brutal killing of their elder brother Mangal Honhanga narrated and exposed that what had happened with them in the forests at the end of June. Though the monsoon was on its pick-hour but the sky was clear and the morning was sunny on June 28, 2011. It was 10 O’clock in the morning when Suniya Honhanga and Mangal Honhanga were having mangoes in the courtyard of their house, they had just returned after ploughing the paddy field. Suddenly, they noticed the arrival of more than 300 security personals in their village called ‘Baliba’, situated at Chhotanagra police station in Saranda forest, which is indeed the heaven of the corporate sharks and also the abode of the Maoists.

The Superintendent of Police (West Singhbhum) Arun Kumar and CRPF commandant Lalchand Yadav were leading the operation. The forces caught Suniya Honhanga and Mangal Honhanga and took them to “Chabutra” (public sitting place in the middle of village) and asked all the villagers to reach to the spot. Once the villagers gathered, the forces tied all of them (men, women and children) with ropes collected from the village itself. The SP, CRPF Commandant and Jawans abused and threatened the villagers to face dire consequences if they don’t stop feeding, sheltering and supporting the Maoists. The villagers were kept whole the night in tied position. On the next day, 6 villagers were put in a chopper of Indian Air Force and transported to undisclosed location and another 16 villagers including Mangal Honhanga and Ronde Honhanga were asked to go with the paramilitary forces to the forest. But luckily, Suniya Honhanga was escaped.

Ronde Honhanga narrates the further developments in the forests. All the 16 villagers were asked to carry the luggage of the paramilitary forces whole day without food and water. In the night they were asked to sleep in the forest itself. On 30, June, the security forces asked them to move towards Chhotanagra police station. Hence, they started travelling at 3 O’clock in the morning. Meanwhile, Mangal Honhanga and another villager Tasu Sidu stop for a while and Mangal Honhanga took side for toilet. The COBRA Jawans assumed that Mangal Honhanga is running away. Therefore, they fired three times – one bullet in sky and two bullets on Mangal Honhanga. Consequently, he fell on the ground and died there. Tasu Sidu witnessed it. Immediately, the Jawans wrapped the dead body and didn’t show the villagers unless they reached to Chhotanagra police station. The dead body was transported to Chaibasa for post-mortem and finally, the police handed over the dead body and sent all the 15 villagers to Baliba village.

The SP Arun Kumar organized a press conference in Chaibasa and told the media persons about their grand success in anti-naxal operations. However, he accepted that Mangal Honhanga was innocent villager and a bullet of the security forces hit him while there was crossfire between the security forces and the Maoists. However, the villagers unearthed the truth, according to them there was no exchange of any fire; it was a clear case of brutal killing by the security forces. Since, the villagers knew the truth therefore, the top cops asked the officer-in-charge of Chhotanagra police station to offer compensation package to the family members of the deceased. Rs. 3 lakh and a job were offered to the family members. Ironically, the death certificate does not state the cause of death. This is one of the classic examples of killing, denial and manipulation by the police and security forces while carrying on the so-called anti-naxal joint operations.

In another similar case, the police killed a villager and coined it as the result of crossfire. On 18 August, 2011 the security forces arrive to Baliba village again. They caught 6 villagers including Ladura Barjo, Mangal Barjo, Sanika Barjo, Dubiya Barjo, Mangra Guria and Soma Guria. These people were taken to “Chabutra” of the village and, kicked and severely beaten with stick, tiles and butt of the guns. Consequently, Soma Guria fell down and became unconscious. On the next day, the security forces took them to the forest. Soma Guria was not able to walk but he was dragged towards the forest. According to the eyewitness, when he died due to injuries in the forest, the security forces fired two bullets in his chest. On 20 August, the villagers were handed over the dead body of Soma Guria and told that he was killed in crossfire.

In fact, the security forces land to any village, rob the houses, catch the innocent villagers, torture them, exploit women and shoot the man, and finally, they hand over the dead bodies to the family members after couple of day and tell that their man was killed in the crossfire. Thus, the endless inhuman acts of the security forces continue in the Saranda forest. The villagers are tired of sharing their pains, sufferings and agony. But do they have any choice? The security forces captured the house containing a ration shop of Patur Gagrai of Tiril Polshi village on August 3. He is also the president of village education committee. The police blame that he supplies ration to the Maoists. In another case, the security forces raped 3 women in Karampada village on August 1 and 15 people were picked up from Hatnaburu village on August 24 alleging them as members of the CPI-Maoists without any proof. The fact is, whenever, the security forces go for the anti-naxal operation, and they victimize the innocent villagers. The billion dollar question is, can the security forces rape women and kill the men in cold-blooded murder even if they are member of the CPI-Maoists?

The story does not end here. When the Jharkhand Human Rights Movement (JHRM) intervened and exposed the killings of Mangal Honhanga and Somu Guria by the security forces, the top cops started branding the JHRM as Maoist’s organization. The Kolhan DIG Naveen Kumar said, “The allegations by the family are Maoist sponsored. It is just to harass and disrupt police operations.” He also said that Mangal Honhanga was a rebel. Similarly, the IG and spokesperson of Jharkhand Police R.K. Mullick said that Mangal Honhanga had some explosive with him. What a brilliant idea of the top cops of Jharkhand for coining an innocent Adivasi as Maoist to bury their inhuman acts. However, when there was ample pressure, the Inspector General of Police did inquiry and found that both Mangal Honhanga and Soma Guria were innocent Adivasi and the security forces shot them when they declined to follow their instructions. The irony is still, the Home Secretary and the Director General of Police are tirelessly attempting to coin both the killings as results of the crossfire.

The most important point is, speaking about rights has become crime in the largest democratic country on the earth especially, when the rights are for the under privilege communities. However, if you speak for the middle class or upper middle class, you’ll become the hero. Perhaps, second Gandhi, second Nehru or Second Patel. For instance, when the teachers of thousand of public and private schools asked their children (students) to take part in Anna Hazare’s movement after deserting their studies, it was glamorized by the 24×7 news channel instead of questioning and taking action against the teachers. In another similar case, when the poor children took part in a movement against POSCO project in the state of Odisha, the state government threatened the organizers for taking action against them in the name of violating the child rights. What kind of democracy is this?

Indeed, it’s very clear that if you stand against the police atrocities and reluctant to be alienated from the natural resources (land, forest and mineral), you’ll be coined as the extremists. Precisely, because both – questioning against police atrocities and displacement ultimately expose the corporate nexus with the government’s anti naxal-operations for mineral interest. Obviously, the Indian state bothers about the ‘threat to the investment climate’ rather than protecting its citizen’s rights and the constitution. Though the Jharkhand police have accepted the killing of Mangal Honhanga and Soma Guria but my assumption is, the family members would be shut up with the compensation packages and the cops will enjoy impunity as usual.

When I completed this piece, a report appeared in the news paper, which states that the Adivasis of Tholkabad village in Saranda Forest have vacated their village and went to elsewhere in fear of the police torture. Since, right from the beginning, when I started writing on so-called anti-Naxal operations, I have been mentioning that the ‘Operation Green Hunt’ was launched with the clear intention to create fear, insecurity and livelihood crisis in the villages so that the villages would leave the vicinity. Consequently, the government can hand over the Adivasis land to the corporate shark comfortable. The Jharkhand government has allotted iron-ore to 19 steel companies including Mittal, Jindal, Tata, Atro-Steel and Torian in Saranda Forest. Therefore, of course, they want to clear the land.

Published in the Jharkhand Mirror.

Gladson Dungdung is a Human Rights Activist and Writer. He can be reached at:

gladsonhractivist@gmail.com

jharkhandmirror.org

Filed under: 1. News & Events, Adivasi Campaign, South Asia | Tagged: Adivasi, civilization, democracy, economics, environment, Gandhi, India | Leave a Comment »

The Indian Anti-Corruption Campaign of the Politician Anna Hazare

Posted on August 26, 2011 by gandhifriends

Arundhati Roy- photograph © Jean-Baptiste Labrune

I’d rather not be Anna

by Arundhati Roy

Click on the link below to read the original article from The Hindu 21st August 2011
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2379704.ece?homepage=true

“While his means may be Gandhian, his demands are certainly not.”

A Response by Dr Felix Padel

I’ve been up since 4am, woken by hearing Arundhati Roy interviewed on the BBC world service – they seemed to cut her critique of Anna’s failure to critique corporate roots of corruption – & connivance of the media in promoting him – rather short!

Opinions differ wildly about Anna’s integrity. Like her, I see him as authoritarian & narrow-minded. While he’s bringing into much-needed focus the enormity of corruption, he’s focusing on the main bribe-takers – i.e. the politicians – rather than the main bribe-givers – the corporations and banks, and is as rigidly insisting on rapid implementation of his own deeply flawed & authoritarian version of the Lokpal bill as the govt’s pushing its own ludicrously flawed version. Rapid implementation can be extremely dangerous if it sets up a flawed structure that will “take over the government” with even less accountability.

What we see in the Anna phenomenon is a reduction of Gandhi’s fasting technique to a ridiculous extreme, superbly manipulated by the media. I can’t agree that the essence of Gandhi was in this fasting trick though, or that a public threat to fast to death is necessarily “violent violence”. It can be sometimes I’d say “non-violent violence”. E.g. when he used it in West Bengal, when he did actually succeed in stopping massive-scale Hindu-Muslim violence through a fast-to-death that came extremely near completion, I’d say this was in a sense a homeopathic use of violence against one’s body to stop massive outer violence. Yes there was a manipulation of public opinion, but in the sense of exercising a “correct control”, bringing a mood of extreme public violence under control.

Understanding the difference between what Gandhi did & what Anna’s doing is important & instructive. Arundhati’s recent article is the first time she has used “Gandhian” in a positive sense, to make clear the difference between the two.
But the idea that Gandhi was manipulative, and did become an adept user of media-power, is also part of why Arundhati dislikes Gandhi.

On the use of public fasting, do see the Lepchas. Their fast, which has gone on in relay for 4 years, has made very little impact, probably because they are so remote, in northern Sikkim, and as Buddhists, seen as very marginal in India – unlike Anna, who taps into the mainstream Hindu aesthetic. Also marginalised because the vested interests in big dams by construction, energy & mining companies are so extreme – at the centre of the whole issue of “ecocide” that Anna’s not addressing at all.

This video [& article], better than any other I’ve seen, reveals the full horrendousness of what is actually happening to all the rivers coming down from the Himalayas.

www.hindu.com/fline/fl2512/stories/20080620251209500.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqKTIhs4E_Y

In West India, the Ganga & Yamuna descending from the glaciers have become or are becoming rivers no more, but a series of tubes chiselled through rock, leaving devastating waste and decaying ecosystems. In northeast India, 300 new big dams are being constructed on Brahmaputra tributaries in Arunachal alone – mostly already under construction to sabotage widespread protests. The Teesta is the major river in Sikkim, running north-south. This video shows the one big dam already completed with appalling impacts – 27 more are planned/under construction. It shows the Lepchas fast, and I’d say it’s an appropriate use of fasting, and deserves far more publicity.

When I tuned into the BBC world service just now at 3.45am just as Arundhati was being interviewed on Anna. What she said opened my eyes more to the heinous nature of the Anna charade. My brother had questioned “what does she mean comparing Anna with the Maoists as trying to overthrow the government?” I’d replied that partly, it’s because he’s being used by the BJP to overthrow the Congress leadership of the present government. This answer’s inadequate, partly because he’s made a public display of humiliating BJP politicians whenever they come to support him (though this doesn’t stop them coming).

She spelt out this aspect more precisely – he’s attacking the government full-on – but not the corporations or banks at all! Attacking the bribe-takers – among whom politicians are pre-eminent! But not the bribe-givers: every “AAM ADMI” [ordinary man] in India is a bribe-giver by definition – just to get routine bureaucratic work done, one has to give a bribe, so his solution is to focus on penalising the bribe-takers rather than the bribe-givers.

However the main bribe-givers are in effect, structurally, the corporations and banks – sometimes (with the latter) doing this illegally in massive bribes, but also doing this in “legal” ways, through revolving doors, corporate “largesse” and use of banking power. By not saying a word about the corruption stemming from the big companies, the World Bank & other banks (who also largely control the media) – it becomes clear who his real backers are, & why the media are highlighting him so assiduously.

In this sense, he’s truly attacking the role of government, even more than the Maoists do, but in the same way that Naomi Klein outlines in “Shock Doctrine”. In other words, what he’s really promoting seems to be the corporate state & a privatizing of government.

I’m examining these aspects more closely from now on. Attaching a document I’ve just made, highlighting statements by the 2 Anna-supporters I personally respect most, but also the confusion over details that Anna is promoting (highlighted by Arundhati on the BBC) at the same time as demanding an immediate implementation of the Lokpal bill. It’s interesting in this light that videos I’m looking at of Anna don’t seem to translate him…….. The Tehelka articles by Shoma are very revealing*, but I don’t agree with her final comments that Anna himself has complete integrity or that his intransigence on changing his own version is only a slight fault….

* latest one is http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ne270811COVERSTORY.asp

Dr Felix Padel is an anthropologist who has lived in India for 30 years.

A Septuagenarian from Maharastra…

By Liz Crisp

I travel regularly to India. Prior to my current trip, I was asked to write something for ‘The Gandhi Way.’ I thought to myself – what on earth can I write about? Then one day, a 74 year old man from a village in Maharashtra decided to go on hunger strike. The press were hailing him as the new Gandhi-ji. The world was watching.

Here is my diarised account of Anna Hazare’s fast, based on reports in the Indian press.*
*(The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu plus second hand reports from Hindi language papers Punjab Kesari and Hindustan).

Sunday, 21 August 2011

Day seven of Anna Hazare’s hunger strike: just like Anna, India’s support for him is still going strong. From Bollywood stars to aam aadmi (common man), from famous Swamis to street Babas; the papers are full of people sporting Gandhi topis, Anna banners and the Indian tricolour.

At Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, the streets are flooded with rivers of people. Thousands of supporters throng Mumbai to hold a midnight vigil. All over India, people are carrying out direct action to show their solidarity to Team Anna’s campaign. Students are refusing to accept their degrees. Others are only willing to graduate in Topi hats in place of the traditional cap and gown. Rickshaw drivers are striking. Villagers from Anna’s hometown decline to wash for a day. Everywhere, people are mobilised into fighting corruption in their own localities. So far, it’s all been peaceful. Team Anna contrasts its campaign against the recent London riots.

Many are cashing in on the opportunity. The Times of India (which I seem to remember publishing an article a few weeks ago about the hunger striker being childish) is boasting of orchestrating the biggest ever online election. The mobile phone networks and bulk SMS vendors are raking in fortunes by the day. Delhi street beggars are calling this a fifteen day mela (festival) as they make a booming trade from topis, flags, and Anna paraphernalia. Whilst Anna starves, food vendors are more than trebling their daily profit feeding the hungry crowds. Delhi’s poor are making the most of free food distribution. The Hindustan Times reports one man saying, ‘I don’t know what the Lokpal Bill is. I’m just here for the good food’

Even Baba Ram Dev is back in a happier limelight after his own anti-corruption campaign disaster. Apparently the yoga guru’s strategy involved the use of guns and capital punishment. After he staged his hunger strike, as with Anna, the police turned up to arrest him. A violent scuffle broke out and Baba Ram Dev escaped in woman’s clothing – much to the disgust of his supporters. His hunger strike lasted but 3 days before he gave it up. Doctors advised him it was bad for his health (isn’t that the point of a hunger strike??). Afterwards, he kept a low profile, particularly as his own integrity was called into question when his closest aide, Bal Krishna, was suspected of obtaining a passport with false documents. However, a couple of days ago a jubilant Baba Ram Dev was pictured riding on the back of Anna’s fame, atop of a car, waving the Indian flag to a sea of people.

After a spate of embarrassing scam exposures against the Government (e.g. A Raja case, 2G Spectrum licences, the Commonwealth Games and cash for votes), it seems the anti-corruption crusade in itself has become a platform for opportunists. The Indian people are sick of being cheated but who can be trusted when corruption seems to be everywhere? A while ago, the opposition BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) announced its primary strategy was to be fighting corruption. But it is likely that most political parties will have skeletons in their cupboards, so who could take this seriously?

However, if the media is to be believed, the public appear to have put their faith in Hazare. The Gandhian has a long track record of social activism. He has proved genuine concern for his causes without benefitting personally. And he is also a very experienced hunger striker. From 1983 to date, he has completed 12 hunger strikes, from which his demands have either been all or partially met. The Maharashtra Government are so used to his protests that they have a special policy for dealing with Anna.

Previously Anna was little known outside of Maharashtra (opinion polls showing Baba Ram Dev being much more famous). With this latest national campaign, Anna has been propelled into the public limelight. On 4 August, the Government sent their Lokpal Bill to Parliament’s Standing Committee for consideration by 3 months. Hazare considered it a toothless piece of legislation and unfairly weighted against complainants. He submitted an alternative Jan Lokpal Bill which includes everyone under its ambit, from the local village Panchayat to the Prime Minister. His Bill also requires officers to publish a charter that accounts their public duties and demands a lokpal to be set up in every state. He wants his Jan Lokpal Bill accepted by 30 August 2011 or he will fast until his death.

The snowballing success of this campaign has been aided by a group of powerful allies, now forming ‘Team Anna’. This includes the formidable ex-commissioner Kiran Bedi, who was once re-named ‘Crane Bedi’ for daring to tow away Indira Gandhi’s car for being illegally parked. Bedi may have got a bit carried away herself today, as she’s just been slated for trumping the slogan ‘Anna is India! India is Anna!’ This smacks bad memories of Indira’s Emergency slogan (‘Indira is India! India is Indira’!).

Anna’s critics say he is forcing his view in a way that could be described as fascist. They disagree that one person should assert their view as being correct and therefore it must be enforced. Anna’s deadline does not allow due process to be followed according to democratic principles. The Parliamentary Standing Committee needs sufficient time to conduct wider consultation and include all views. Some say that his Bill will not address corruption as the Lokpal itself could also be corrupt. It’s also been suggested that corruption is endemic throughout Indian society and not confined to politicians. Change needs to occur at all levels.

To date, the Government has remained quiet. On the seventh day of Anna’s strike, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finally speaks. He says his door is always open for discussion.

Day 8, 23/08/11

Doctors report that Anna’s body is beginning to show signs of starvation. They say they are not overly concerned as the human body can go without food for at least 30days.

Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has finally begun direct communications. He sent a letter stating that he is willing to send Team Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill to the Parliamentary Standing Committee for “holistic consideration along with everything else.” Singh appealed to Anna to end his fast so that he could “regain full health and vitality.”

Parliament carries out no business that day. They are too busy arguing over how to handle Anna and the Lokpal bill. Other state parliaments are disrupted by similar debates. It’s not business as usual for Indian politics today!

According to the press, Anna’s critics are beginning to become more vocal. Muslims have expressed disappointment that his strategy does not represent them. Team Anna members have arranged to meet with Muslim leaders to smooth things over. Dalit leaders are reported as being riled. It was a Dalit, BR Ambedkar, who architected the Constitution. They say Anna is making a mockery of the democratic system – the political process is not ‘2 minute noodles’. Anna’s demands, print The Hindustan Times, are becoming associated with urban, upper-caste Indians and exclude lowercastes and Muslims. The Hindu prints an article where the writer describes Team Anna’s tactics as ‘messianic politics’, questioning if the masses at Ramlila Maidan represent all the people.

Day 9, 24/08/11

Manmohan Singh meets Anna. No agreement is reached. Parliament is split over the inclusion of the Prime Minister in the Lokpal and therefore Manmohan won’t make guarantees before the consultation process is completed. Anna is demanding that the Government’s Bill be withdrawn and replaced by his own one. Singh declines.

Government negotiators are reported to have said that Anna’s health is his own problem. The Government later deny that this statement was ever made.

Anna’s health is deteriorating. Doctors have given him two choices over the next 24 hours – either finish the strike or go to hospital. Anna is adamant he is staying put. If he dies, he calls for his supporters to fill the jails.

Day 10, 25/08/11

Manmohan Singh say “he [Anna] has made his point… I respect his idealism. I respect him… His life is much too precious and I urge him to end his strike.”

Singh says that Hazare’s Lok Pal Bill will be considered in Parliament, along with the Government’s own Lokpal Bill and A. Roy’s alternative version. Government, the Lok Sabha, the opposition and Maharashtra Chief Minister all appeal to Hazare to end his strike.

Anna is still fasting. He wants the Government’s Bill withdrawn. Anna frenzy is still going strong amongst the people. Large scale protests are reported across India. So far, they are still peaceful.

Chief of IBN 18 (TV station) writes a letter to Anna in the Hindustan Times (26/08/11). He applauds his action to date but pleads with him to stop now. He fears that, in the event of Anna’s death, violence will erupt on the streets. Comparison is drawn to Gandhi-ji, who never fasted until death. Gandhi-ji understood the beauty of compromise and said that fasting should never be undertaken “out of anger. Anger is a short-term madness.”

Dalit opposition is reported, concerns are expressed that Anna does not support their reservation rights [for public sector jobs] under the current Constitution.

Government is considering a framework for consultation on key pieces of legislation in the same style as the European White Paper system.

Day 11, 27/08/11

Anna apologises to Manmohan Singh if he hurt him. He says his campaign is against the system and not individuals.

There are reports of a few violent protesters in Delhi – a relatively minor incident, with no police retaliation. Culprits are arrested. Large scale, peaceful protests continue across India.

Parliament plans a discussion tomorrow. Anna will maintain his fast until after this debate.

Day 12, 27/08/11

Day 12. Triumph for Team Anna! Government has agreed to submit Anna’s Lokpal proposals.

Anna breaks his fast.

Disaster! No English newspapers!

The End…

So Anna symbolically ends his fast by the hands of two children, one Dalit and one Muslim, serving him honey and coconut water. The papers report on sympathetic hunger strikers across the country also ending their fasts. Of course, this story is no way complete and a new chapter begins as the Government faces the major task of working out an acceptable implementation plan.

Critics have slated Anna for being rigidly uncompromising. But The Times of India report that Team Anna were planning to throw in the towel had the Government not agreed their proposals (‘How Team Anna pulled a Fast One’). Anna’s health was more critical than his doctors presented and the team feared that the protests could turn ugly if he died. Anna has been careful to encompass marginalised communities in his post-fast speech. Team Anna pay homage to the politicians, BR Ambedkar and the media.

The Jan Lokpal may not be the answer to all evils. However, if it can remain free from corruption, it will at least give some power to local people. In the coming days, Anna is to talk about further goals, including the right to reject and recall elected representatives. Team Anna bid the people to “neither give nor take a bribe.”

What has amazed the world over the last 12 days is that, whilst the Indian people have been justifiably infuriated over the issue of corruption, large scale protests have been carried out with practically no violence. The London rioters should look and learn!

Anna is not a powerful politician or a celebrity yoga master. He is a septuagenarian with a Gandhian philosophy and cast iron resolve. He has managed to capture the hearts of the people, win over the media and move a government into submission.

But will it make a difference? I shall be watching this space…

Liz Crisp is a long-time friend of The Gandhi Foundation

Filed under: 1. News & Events, Politics & Democracy, South Asia | Tagged: democracy, economics, environment, Gandhi, India, politics | 1 Comment »

Do We Also Have the Democratic Rights? – By Gladson Dungdung

Posted on July 13, 2011 by gandhifriends

10 July, 2011

people at the mass meeting

On July 5, 2011, the Adivasis of Munda Khutkatti areas – Khunti, Murhu and Arki blocks of Khunti district gathered in Kachary Maidanof Khunti situated at a distance of 31 kilometres from the state capital of Jharkhand. In fact, the Khunti district administration had given them permission to hold a rally and mass meeting against the police atrocities. However, when the villagers started arriving to Kachary Maidan, Manoj Kaushik the Superintendent of police (Khunti) also reached to the venue and questioned Birsa Munda the leader of “Mundari Khutkati Ewam Bhuihari Parishad,” “Why you have brought so many people to protest against the police?” Birsa responded, “Villagers are facing police atrocities therefore they have come to express their pains and sufferings to the Deputy Commissioner”. The SP went back to his office after hearing Birsa’s response.

Meanwhile, the inspector of Khunti police station P.K. Mishra also started inquiring about the programme and the riot controller vehicle along with paramilitary forces reached to the venue. The police of Khunti, Arki, Murhu, Rania, Torpa and Karra police stations were already present in the venue. It seems that there was supposed to be an encounter between the police and the Maoists. As usual they assume it as a Rally and Mass Meeting of the Maoists. In fact, the police and administration consider all the rallies, mass meetings and protests organized against the police atrocities are as the programmes of the Maoists. Simultaneously, they had started their operations of stopping people in the entry points of Khunti. They stopped 3 buses at Arki and 2 buses and 3 Jeeps at Murhu block. However, 30 vehicles (buses and Jeeps) could able to reach to the venue and many people came by bicycles and by foot as well. There were more than 5000 people in the ground including more than 100 victims of police atrocities.

The Rally and Mass Meeting was organized by the “Mundari Khutkati Ewam Bhuihari Parishad”, which is a traditional organization of the Adivasis and it has legal validity as far the laws of 5^th Scheduled Area are concerned. It was 1 O’clock in the afternoon. The villagers started walking towards Khunti town by raising slogans against the police atrocities. They were shouting, “Police Atyachar Band Karo” (Stop police atrocities), “Nirdosho ko Jail se riha karo” (release the innocent from the prison) and “Maowadiyo ke name per Gramino ko pratarit Karna band karo” (stop torturing the villagers in the name of Maoists). These people had decided to raise their voices when the police and paramilitary forces crossed their limit of perpetrating atrocities against the villagers. Needless to say, that the police torture has become part and parcel of their lives.

I had also gone to participate in the Rally and Mass meeting. After hearing slogans against the police, the Police Inspector of Khunti police station Mr. P.K. Mishra and his guards stopped the villagers saying that they should not shout slogans against the police. “Why don’t you organize Rally against the Maoists, when they kill our police forces,” ‘P. K. Mishra questioned. In response, the villagers said that they have come to raise their voices and they are against of both the parties who perpetrate violence against the villagers. They are made sandwich by both the parties. However, P.K. Mishra didn’t hear the villagers and asked them to stop raising slogans against the police. The villagers continued their rally but the police stopped them three times. The police wanted to block the Rally and asked the villagers to go back to their villages. The villagers were not ready to do so. Since I was part of the Rally therefore I intervened on the matter and told the Inspector P.K. Mishra that he should not seize the democratic rights of the villagers.

Meanwhile, I introduced myself as a Human Rights Activist and also a member of the “Assessment and Monitoring Authority” under the Planning Commission of India and showed him my visiting card. He was looking like a wounded lion. He snatched and threw my card on the ground, humiliated me and threatened me saying, “shut up! If you don’t stop, I’ll tear down you and dry up”. “I don’t bother about losing my job,” he added. Meanwhile, four bodyguards of the Inspect got down from the vehicle and abused and started beating me but when the crowd intervened, they stopped. After sometime, the rally resumed and backed to the Kachahari Maidan and mass meeting was started. The villagers started sharing their plight one after another.

Since the launching of so-called anti-Naxal Operations known as “Operation Green Hunt’ in the areas, the innocent villagers have been facing police atrocities. On August 5, 2010, the police and paramilitary forces went to Birbanki village of Arki block and started abusing and beating the villagers. They also scattered belongings and caught two innocent villagers – Daud Samad and Lukin Munda alleging them as feeding the Maoists. Both are well known social workers of the region. Similarly, on October 30, 2010 the police and paramilitary forces caught three girl students of Narang village – Jasmani Soy, Magdali Purty and Juliyana Purty (age between 15-16)and put them in Jail for more than 45 days alleging them as members of the CPI- Maoist. They were set free from the prison but no policeman was punished for detaining the innocent girls.

Again on 27 November, 2010, the police and paramilitary forces entered in Basudih village of Arki block and tied up villagers and beaten them severely. The police arrested innocent villager Soma Marsal Purty and put him in the Jail after branding him as a Maoist. Similarly, on June 4, 2011 the police went to Bankira village of Arki, while coming back the police arrested Johan Hansa and Karma Singh Munda of Kuita village and put them in the Jail. On June 5, 2011, the police went to Ittihasa village and bet Sanika Munda, Laka Munda and Durga Munda severely alleging them as sheltering the Maoists in the village without any proof.

The police and paramilitary forces also torture the villagers during the prayers. On June 5, 2011, the villagers of Sareyad village of Arki block were having Sunday Mass in the village church. The police and paramilitary forces captured the Church and targeted villagers from the windows of the Church and shouted, “Shoot them”. After hearing the police there was a chaos in the Church and few villagers came out of the Church. The police and paramilitary forces bet them severely. Thereafter, they asked the villagers to prepare food for them. They ate and also bet severely to the person who cooked food for them.

Similarly, on June 5, 2011, the villagers of Kudunba of Arki block had gathered for prayer at Bankira at 8 O’clock in the morning. The police rounded them and asked them to sit separately – men one side and women on the other side. Thereafter, they bet the men severely and tied up hands of 25 men behind their back with the ropes, which the villagers use to tie-up their cattle. They also caught four girls – Seteng Nag, Hanna Nag, Mariam Kandir and Jaiwanti Nag. The police took 25 men and 4 girls to the forest in the name of search operations. The villagers were kept in the forest for 2 days without food and water. Finally, 2 persons – Mansid Nag and Masih Nag were put in the Jail alleging them as the Maoists. Mansid Nag works as a tailor and Masih Nag is a para-teacher and also works as a traditional medicine practitioner.

Amidst, a delegation met the Deputy Commissioner of Khunti Mr. Rakesh Kumar and a memorandum was submitted to him. Surprisingly, he said, “I’m hearing about the police atrocities first time”. “I know about the laws of 5^th Scheduled Area and will take action,” he assured. The Dy. Superintendent of Police (Khunti) Mr. Anil Shanker was in a hurry to send the villagers back to their villages, he asked me several times, “Please send the villagers to their villages”. When the villagers were sharing their pain, suffering and sorrow in the mass meeting, a chopper of the Boarder Security Force (BSF) suddenly appeared in the vicinity and flew two rounds over the Kachary Maidan and returned to Ranchi. Perhaps, the top copes of Jharkhand were inside the Chopper, had come to see the Maoists in the mass meeting. Since inception of the state, the police have killed 550 people and arrested 4090 villagers in Jharkhand in allegation of being the Maoists. However, the police failed to prove the allegations.

Of course, there is a tendency in the police and administration that anyone who raises voice against the police atrocity is either a Maoist or their supporter. The most pertinent questions are do the villagers have democratic rights? Do we really live in a democratic country? And do we also have the democratic rights like other people of this country enjoy? Where should people go to plea for protection of their democratic rights? While talking to individuals, many villagers said that they are against of the Maoists however, if the police atrocities didn’t stop, then they can also take up the guns if the power only comes from the barrel of guns. I believe that this is the last warning for the Indian state. Therefore, instead of shutting down the democracy, the Indian state must hear the pains, sufferings and sorrows of the people and deliver justice to them.

Gladson Dungdung is a Human Rights Activist and Writer. He can be reached at:

gladsonhractivist@gmail.com

jharkhandmirror.org

Filed under: Adivasi Campaign, South Asia | Tagged: Adivasi, democracy, India, Maoist, politics | Leave a Comment »

Gandhi Inspires Obama

Posted on September 8, 2009 by gandhifriends

8th September 2009
Wakefield High School, Arlington, Virginia

President Obama went to Wakefield High School in Arlington to give a national speech welcoming students back to school. He called for students to take responsibility and to learn from their failures so that they succeed in the end.

A student asked President Obama:

Hi. I’m Lilly. And if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

President Obama replied:

Dinner with anyone dead or alive? Well, you know, dead or alive, that’s a pretty big list. (laughter) You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine. Now, it would probably be a really small meal because — (laughter) — he didn’t eat a lot. But he’s somebody who I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. King, so if it hadn’t been for the non-violent movement in India, you might not have seen the same non-violent movement for civil rights here in the United States. He inspired César Chávez, and what was interesting was that he ended up doing so much and changing the world just by the power of his ethics, by his ability to change how people saw each other and saw themselves — and help people who thought they had no power realize that they had power, and then help people who had a lot of power realize that if all they’re doing is oppressing people, then that’s not a really good exercise of power.

So I’m always interested in people who are able to bring about change, not through violence, not through money, but through the force of their personality and their ethical and moral stances. And that’s somebody that I’d love to sit down and talk to.

Source: The White House Press Office

Filed under: America, Politics & Democracy | Tagged: Barack Obama, democracy, Gandhi, history, Martin Luther King, nonviolence | 3 Comments »

The Kettling – A Masque for Our Times – by John Rowley

Posted on April 5, 2009 by gandhifriends

Director: Sir Paul Stephenson
Script: Sir Ian Blair
Producers: The Metropolitan Police
Troupe: “The Darth Vader Clones”
Extras: Thousands of Unwitting Citizenry

The Revolutionary Committee re-named 1st April this year as “Financial Fools Day”. By chance, your own newly-appointed Theatre Critic chose to review the Premiere of “The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse”, a play billed as the highlight of the day’s Carnival and Serious Intent. Humour and satire would mock The Capital Village Idiots for their greed, arrogance and selfpreening stupidity. At 2 o’clock, the four huge masks of Pestilence, War, Famine and Death, each attended by dancers, singers, jugglers and clowns, would converge from the four Quarters of the Land in Capital Village square.
My daughter had a University project to complete on “Street Theatre as Protest” so made sure we got there early. We knew exactly where to go because the Committee had agreed assembly points with The Police. Thousands were expected for the free show despite the Powers stressing, perhaps a tad salaciously, the prospect of a ‘bit of violence’.
What we didn’t know, as we hopped on the bus, was that we were about to experience an attempt at a most astonishing cultural ‘coup d’état’. Nor did we expect to play two bit parts on TV, screened to prove, many hoped, the futility of amateurish nonviolence in the face of well-orchestrated State violence. My daughter and I gave them the footage they wanted and, as a result, I was on the evening TV News for 4 seconds and in The Guardian for half an inch the next day.
When the G20 Meeting was fixed for London, the forlorn Sir Ian Blair must have seen a wonderful opportunity to boost morale in The Met and catch the attention of politicians. If his lads excelled themselves, especially in his ‘piece de resistance’, he could grab prime-time News around the globe. Simply obey the media maxim, “If it bleeds, it leads” and ensure he could utter the refrain, “They hit us first, Your Honour”.
Kettling offered the perfect solution: an ultra-modern crowd control technique demanding just a bit of discipline. Imagine the stills in “The Daily Wind-Up”: perfectly aligned Clones, slick weaponry, unruly Mob subdued. TV sequences showing our calm and inexorable advance, the first blow by a corralled protester, the efficient, effective response. Bingo! A display of controlled violence commanding the respect and admiration of all. Consultancy contracts would flow again.
Police culture frames protesters as “The Enemy”. TV sight-bites demand a clash, “Us vs Them”, and simple codes – weaponry, discipline and colour – to identify the goodies: Us. Black is best because, like the night, it threatens violence and heightens weakness. Police Forces love it – always forgetting that it also signals Evil, the dark side, The Shadow. When did they ever wear blue?
So what do we see at the G20 protest ? Black helmets with dark facehiding visor, black stab-proof jackets, luminescent yellow waistcoats, black trousers and boots; each equipped with the latest hand-held pain-inflicting weaponry and electronics, again all coloured black. Rehearsals held at Heathrow, Kingsnorth, etc.
Can I guess the Summary of the Police’s internal project memo?

US:
Aim: To re-assert our world-wide reputation for efficient and effective policing.
Target Audience: Leaders, Ministers of Homeland Security, Chiefs of Police, Generals.
Methods: Demonstrate mastery of latest crowd control techniques, especially “Kettling”, and surveillance products. Priorities: Protect 1. The G20 Leaders. 2. Property. 3. Us. 4. Them.

THEM:
Types: Research indicates all ages, classes, sectors and interest groups. Probably liberals.
Reasons for Assembly: The Financial Crisis.
Targets: The Financial Elite – Banks, Politicians and other collaborators including Us.
Qualities: Anger, frustration, resentment ie violent. Amateurs.
Purpose: Carnival a cover for violence.

THE IDEAL VENUE: An enclosable arena with vantage points for VIPs, gear and Control room. Consider Bartholomew Lane where the all-glass Royal Bank of Scotland sits right opposite the all-stone Bank of England. At one end, Threadneedle will be throttled by crowds leaving Lothbury as choke point; at the other, our boys in black. [Note to Director: Clones must be able to understand that Kettling means bringing the right amount of water to the boil, simmering for hours, extracting the juiciest morsels and storing them in the deep-freeze.]

Perhaps this conceit is too flaky for you, Reader ? How come, then, that the RBS, the most hated of Banks, has its plate-glass wall left entirely unprotected when every other window in The Village had been boarded up ? How come there were no Clones within 60 yards and that none moved until it 26 was attacked ? How come that, on the roof of The Bank of England [the most despised], stood 60 Servants of the State with their HD watching gear ? [You don’t get to get up there without The Governor’s permission !] How come that, high up behind the glass, RBS employees taunted protestors with £50 notes ? And how come the Clones and their Beasts were kept secret from The Committee and so well hidden ?
Now see The Gaffer watching his 100 Monitors. When enough ‘water’ had assembled and just before “The Four Horsemen” could converge, he gives the signal: “Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!” So, as seen from The Gods … Lights! Cameras! Action!

“THE KETTLING”

SCENE 1

Stage Left: Flank to flank Mounted Horsemen appear from nowhere and line up behind shoulder to shoulder black Darth Vader Clones, ‘bats’ at the ready, still and awesomely silent. Slowly, those in the Pit realise they are there. Tension mounts.

SCENE 2

Centre Stage: On cue, a hooded Provocateur smashes a massive iron girder against the plate-glass window. A “Well done” here for the Prop Dept.

[This is when your critic and his daughter unwittingly act into the script by attempting to stop his blows, shouting “We must be Nonviolent !”. This proves predictably futile as his every blow raises a huge cheer of support. He is a Stekhanovite titan remorseless, unstoppable and immune to pleas and pathetic tugs at his arm. We are on the stage created by his back-swing and in full view of a thousand lenses. As we leave in despair, I curse all loudly and roundly for not coming to our aid. A few paces on, a very tall white guy, my age, shaven-headed, long, nicely cut beige coat, leans down and in a well-spoken whisper says: "Ex-Army! Soldier! Front-line! I like what you did there, Sir, but if I were you I’d get out. Quick. You just upset a lot of people, you know, and it only takes one blow and you’re down. That way, over there. OK? Gottit?"]. Who in hell was he ?
Now trapped and crushed and no EXIT signs in sight [who forgot them ?], the crowd becomes a Mob. A psychic entity has been born with self-awareness and a goal. It knows what it wants: Revenge! our species’ most violent emotion. Dissent is pointless; only a Satyagrahi could have stopped it.

SCENE 3

The breaking glass triggers the main move. Beasts and Clones advance slowly squeezing people ever tighter together, pumping up the adrenaline of Fear and Panic. 200 people escape through jagged glass into RBS, conveniently emptied of computers and well sealed from the bankers above. 27 Many were arrested for Trespass or new crimes under the Terrorism Act. “There’s our quota and maybe a bonus. Just the ticket.”

[It is at this point that your Critic and his daughter make their escape, as directed by my soldier, through a scaffolded narrow way. So the rest of this Review is mere anecdote, rumour and double-checked facts.]

SCENE 4

The Power Lines halt, the Mob squeals but is now contained, subdued by overwhelming physical force and the mega-phoned sound-wall. Notice how this Scene is a theatrical breakthrough: the playwright casts the rules of Narrative Thrust aside and insists that it last six or more hours. He clearly hoped for some tele-visual theatrics as the absence of water, food, lavatories or escape routes ratchet up the tension. Men can piss against walls but the women ? The Clones ignore all pleas for help: “Keep them penned, get the Alsatians a-growling and a-snapping, wave your truncheons about, show who’s Boss. Controlling the scared is easy. Lovely job.”

SCENE 5

9pm. After the prime-time News deadline has passed, begin to let the prisoners out. Take Name, Age, Address, Telephone Number, Email, Referee, DNA, Money and Iris Scan. I jest but wait till the next time. “Let them out slowly, belittled, demeaned, tired and weak. That’ll show ’em. Nice one.”

SCENE 6

During the Night. Feed juicy morsels extracted and pictures recorded on to the informal National Database, delete planted provocateurs, store forever and star those with a bit of Previous. “Handy info for ‘a bit of Pressure’ in the future.”

Unfortunately for The Met, “Kettling” has been universally panned by Critics of every persuasion. Its Producers, Directors, Actors, Techniques, PR, the lot have been lambasted. Rather than enhancing a reputation for playing by The Rule of Law, some of their leading front-line actors have been caught cheating, lying, slapping, pushing, beating with shields and ‘bats’ without provocation and, now possibly, killing an innocent citizen. Some hid their numbers and others had Medic inscribed on their jackets whilst wielding a truncheon. More of our millions spent on gizmos and overtime and they catch no one but themselves. It beggars belief !
And the security priorities ? 1. Put VIPs on a virtual island. 2. Tell Village elders to board up. 3. Dress Clones for war. No problem. 4. As for those violent, malevolent hooligans, Kettle, corral and treat as data. Did you 28 know that The Queen’s imperative on all Police Medals reads “Guard my people” ? Now we know how they read it.
So why did they ‘kettle’ the G20 demo ? It was unwarranted but necessary if you accept a wider view. How many Leaders flew home that week to a Police Force less violent than ours ? OK then, who? Three? Now recognise that our IPCC will almost certainly investigate and prosecute according to our rather elegant Rule of Law. Justice could well be done. And how many Leaders would love to import all that ? Lots – even China wants to open up. “So Rejoice in that, thee Nay-Sayers and Cynicks ! Thy cup of Rights is more than half full !”
Now step up a rung on this ladder and look even wider. See how the percentages of the uneducated, the unhealthy and the impoverished continue to grow inexorably, despite ye do-gooders ? See how the democratic, liberal population is dwindling and how an ever-burgeoning majority are oppressed by autocratic regimes, each prepared to use the full force of their armed services to retain power ? [Haim Harari in What is Your Dangerous Idea?, 2006].
Go yet higher and suffer real shock and awe. Can you see the ‘coup du monde finale’ proceed apace ? There, stampeding towards you are The Four Unstoppable Horsemen of Our Apocalypse whipping their vast steeds to a frenzy. The seas rise, the atmosphere deteriorates, the sun burns, our leaders without even a peasant’s remedy for Gaia’s Fever. Pestilence, Famine, War and Death gallop across business-first fields, culling billions: the ignorant, the weak, the poor and those trying to escape. This is our mythic reality.
What then of your despised crowd control techniques ? Think who might pay us to train their own. Won’t you be grateful as you hide with your family and loved ones if your authorities have rehearsed well ? What then of our so civilised principles of Social Justice and Nonviolence ? Who gets in the boat and who has to swim ? Guess who owns the boat. Can anybody even sketch a happy-ending ? Maybe a few, but do we listen ? Elites dream only of the safety of the past; only the young relish the radical, but do we trust them ?
Finally, how does Nonviolence stack up in the real world ? You will be aware of the following position but I rehearse it before you to invite your demolition of it:
“There is no pro-active word to describe Nonviolence because all religious, political, military and cultural elites know they would be unnecessary if its principles were fully followed: inequality is violence. Just as pure Religion seeks paths to Nonviolence so practical Politics seeks ways of applying power: power is violence and depends upon it. All Religions teach Nonviolence until they are controlled by the State: they then abandon its teachings. Whenever a people arm for defence, they will eventually use them for attack. Violence breeds violence; its absence creates a need. The media supply the people with a full daily menu of violence to satisfy this demand: 29 thereby also reinforcing the culture of fear. Fear incapacitates people: thereby facilitating the implementation of power. This is why all successful practitioners of Nonviolence are regarded as enemies of the State.” [Adapted from Mark Kurlansky, Non-violence: the History of a Dangerous Idea, 2007.]

On the 3rd April, we listened to Hazel Blears defend the Police on Question Time. Referring to the demonstrators, she asked us all: “And what would you do if you were confronted by black-hooded hoodlums wielding sticks ?” My daughter turned to me and said: “What a creep !” We had a good laugh at Blears’ willful ignorance and insufferable Brown-nosing. I had no idea I would end up weeks later so very, very gloomy.

John Rowley is a Trustee of the Gandhi Foundation and has organised many events for the Gandhi Foundation including the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Gandhi’s death which was held in St Martins in the Field, London.

Filed under: Politics & Democracy, UK & Europe | Tagged: democracy, England | Leave a Comment »

Peter Cadogan (1921-2007)

Posted on February 16, 2008 by gandhifriends

Peter Cadogan, who has died at 86, was once called ‘the most expelled socialist in England’. He campaigned effectively on many fronts for peace, justice and human rights in print, on the streets and through teams of like-minded thinkers.

He moved from radical politics [Labour, Communist, Workers Revolutionary and Socialist Worker Parties] to radical spirituality as he came to the conclusion that William Blake, Gandhi and John MacMurray were his greatest mentors for living a compassionate life. He died a happy man.

Peter Cadogan was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1921 where he witnessed the poverty and humiliation of workers during the Depression. The images of war veterans and unemployed miners begging on street corners stayed with him and drove him all his life.

After working briefly as an insurance clerk, he went on to serve in the Air Sea Rescue Service from 1941 to 1946. This proved to be a profound experience. Desperate attempts to save lives, during which he found authentic friendship with the men under his command, were separated by long periods of inactivity in which he read Shaw, Wells, John MacMurray, Laski and, most importantly, Lenin’s State and Revolution. He realised much later that this book “was a lethal confidence-trick”.

On demobilisation, he immediately joined the Communist Party to which he gave 10 devoted years, thrilling to the ideas buzzing around the Historian’s Group of the CP with Christopher Hill, E. P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm and others. In the meantime, he studied history at Newcastle University, married, had a daughter and moved to Northampton and then Cambridge to teach history in Secondary Modern schools. He is still remembered in both as an inspiring teacher.

In 1956, Khruschev’s demolition of Stalin came as a blow and, when the USSR invaded Hungary, his sharp criticisms of the CP found their way into the national press. He was suspended and then quit, quickly joining the Labour Party. Two years later, he organised for them the first nuclear base demonstration against the American Thor missiles at Mepal, near Ely.

He became a founder member of the Socialist Labour League which later became the Workers Revolutionary Party and was expelled by the Cambridge Labour Party. Other joinings and expulsions of factions on the Left followed.

In 1960, Bertrand Russell proposed non-violent civil disobedience against nuclear weapons. Cadogan joined his Committee of 100 and their campaign climaxed in September 1961 with a vast but banned demonstration in Trafalgar Square. Russell was arrested along with 1300 others. Early in 1962, Russell sent him and others to the World Peace Council in Moscow where they “staged a free, unlicensed demonstration in Red Square against all Bombs including those of the Soviet Union. The police moved in immediately. It was the first free demo in that Square since the 1920s and made world headlines”.

Within days of the Biafran War starting in May 1968, Cadogan had set up the Save Biafra Campaign and worked vigorously for 18 months getting a lot of national coverage. All to no avail as the Foreign Office “was stuck with the Lugard doctrine of ‘one Nigeria’ and the Wilson Government, as usual, did what it was told. London supplied Lagos with all its arms, ammunition and military advisers. Moscow provided its Air Force and trained its pilots – an unholy alliance to end all such alliances”. About a million innocent people died of starvation.

From 1970 to 1981, he was the General Secretary of the South Place Ethical Society at Conway Hall, known as London’s ‘temple of dissent’. He saw his main task there as defending ‘the rational religious sentiment’, each individual’s ‘sense of the sacred’, and to this end conducted over 50 weddings and funerals. In 1975, he wrote “Direct Democracy: An Appeal to the Professional Classes, to the Politically Disenchanted and to the Deprived. The Case for An England of Sovereign Regional Republics, Extra-Parliamentary Democracy and a New Active Non-Violence of the Centre”, modelling his title on The Levellers and integrating his “revelatory discovery” of William Blake and Friedrich Nietzsche. In it, he pioneered the idea of the gift economy.

This led to him co-founding the organisation and journal Turning Point with economist James Robertson which was published for over 25 years. From 1981 until his retirement in 1993, Peter was Tutor in the History of Ideas in the Extra-Mural Department of London University and the Workers Education Association.

By 1987 he had become disillusioned with all forms of protest and put his energies into what he called positive and practical solutions. From 1993, he worked for The Gandhi Foundation, leading their project in Northern Ireland and advocating Non-Violent Direct Action. He set up Values and Vision and Save London Alliance in his home on the base of his conviction that authentic national democracy can only emerge from local democracies. He became well-known in Kilburn for saving a local park, for Xmas lights on the High Road, his letters to the press and his garden. Local kids called him ‘Mr. Peter’.

During the 1990s he became the subject of great interest to historians, pre-eminent amongst them Professor Kevin Morgan, Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at Manchester University, who interviewed Peter in depth, placed the recordings in the National Sound Archives and anthologised his papers on the CP.

Peter continued to e-mail and write articles and letters to the very end. Throughout 65 years of radical activism, he was never afraid to speak his mind, to challenge and question his own and other people’s thinking. This seemed at first to many as intolerance, even arrogance. In fact, all soon discovered that it was no more than his passion for accuracy and clear thinking in the overall pursuit of justice.

Like Gandhi, he became and remained friends with all his temporary enemies. Over 70 people, old comrades and new friends, came to his bedside in St Mary’s Paddington or sent him messages of love and respect. Peter had co-founded The Blake Society in 1985, was its President for the first four years before becoming Life Vice-President. So it was appropriate that his last days fell during the month of Blake’s 250th anniversary. He quoted Blake’s poems to those around his bed and told us that Blake’s “Jerusalem” ‘said it all’. His dying words were Blake’s moral imperative “Live differently”! Peter did just that, his integrity intact.
John Rowley

Instead of ending his copious and challenging notes, letters and writings “with all good wishes” or something, Peter would say “oxygen, peace, flowers”. I loved that ending: oxygen for the life we breathe in and out; peace, we all yearn for whether secretly or openly; flowers, symbolising nature which surrounds and nourishes. Peter first introduced me to the Northern Ireland Working Group in London which he and I represented within the GF. In the 1980s, we joined a group to visit Dublin to discover more about “the Troubles” from across the border. He was indefatigable in his work and writings, giving great support to those he believed had “got it right” in Northern Ireland. He was a warrior of the right kind and he leaves a gap behind him. Go ye well, Peter. It was rich knowing you.
Denise Moll

Filed under: 4. GF Friends | Tagged: Communism, Communist Party, Conway Hall, democracy, England, Gandhi, Kilburn, London, London University, Newcastle, Northern Ireland, obituary, radical politics, radical spirituality, Socialism, the Depression, William Blake | Leave a Comment »

People’s Power for Peace – by John Papworth

Posted on May 14, 2007 by gandhifriends

Gandhi’s life was essentially a quest for truth; it led him to enunciate two principles, both of which he believed to be essential to any improvement in the human condition. It is one of the great tragedies of the unfolding drama of modern history that whilst one of these principles has gained wide popular recognition, which is a long way from saying that any government has come remotely close to adopting it in practice, the other has been almost universally ignored. Gandhi’s reputation today rests largely on his advocacy of nonviolence as being one of the keys to a stable and peaceful world. In doing so he was updating a great deal of ancient teaching of several world religions. In Luke, to quote but one example, we find Jesus saying:

Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other. (Luke 6.37)

Unlike the generality of modern religious leaders who preach such doctrines Gandhi, as a political leader, sought to put them into practice, and paid with his life for doing so.

But Gandhi was aware that the intensely personal nature of such teaching was not enough, that in itself, and despite its urgency and importance, it did not answer the problem of applying it to the relationships between nations, and especially between those which ranked as ‘great powers’. He came to see that it was possible for vast numbers of people to accept the principle of nonviolence, but who could none-the-less be swept up in a tornado of war and violence between such powers and which they were powerless to stop. He realised people were not controlling events; it was events which were controlling people.

The point is expressed as poignantly as can be by the way ordinary German and British soldiers climbed out of their opposing trenches on the first Christmas Day of World War One and played a game of football. Was it not the birthday of the Prince of Peace? What better way to celebrate than by rejecting violence and by competing with each other in a game that expressed something of their common humanity?

It was more recently expressed when millions of people marched in vast peaceful crowds in cities around the world against US and British plans to attack Iraq. They paraded for peace, but all they got was war. Gandhi would not have been surprised by this, he realised that modern states did not, indeed could not, express the moral aspirations of ordinary people, especially in the matter of violence and war. His thinking was a developing growth which brought him to see that the matter of personal relationships was paramount in any discussion of moral practice and objectives, and that the key to their effectiveness lay not in seeking to convert giant states, which, because of their size, had an inbuilt propensity to subordinate any moral objectives to the maintenance and augmentation of their power, but in empowering the small, local village, and enabling the villagers to hear his message and respond to it.

People’s Power

This was his second basic principle, people’s power, village power. His first principle, of nonviolence, helped to beget a huge literature on the subject of peace; books, pamphlets, leaflets and journals, all proclaiming peace as their message, poured out of the presses, peace organisations erupted into being, peace demonstrations became the order of the day and peace concern became the central focus of multitudes of well-meaning people’s preoccupations, as indeed they still do.

It has to be said that none of this activity appears to have had any more effect on the problem of war than that historic game of football in the no man’s land of World War One. Those soldiers were not members of any peace movement and apart from their bibles (sic!) probably read no peace literature. But they wanted peace! All they lacked was the power to insist on it. The war danger today is infinitely greater, so great indeed that questions are being asked about whether civilisation can survive the use of the weapons ostensibly created to defend it.

What has gone wrong here is an almost total failure to attend to Gandhi’s second principle, the principle of people’s power in local village hands. It needs to be recalled that Gandhi was no stranger to the mechanics of power-mongering on a giant scale; had he not taken a leading part in the struggle for Indian independence from British rule? It was doubtless his awareness of how such power, even if labelled for apparently worthy ends, could be ruthlessly abused, which must have prompted his realisation of the need for power to be in people’s hands at the base of society, at the village level, if its abuse was to be effectively checked. There was also a deeper reason; he could see that peace, like freedom, democracy, justice and other attributes, was a moral principle and he realised that morality was a function not of people’s relationships with power structures, whether with giant political parties, or government institutions, or giant commercial enterprises, but with each other.

Community Power

This meant that the significance of personal relationships in local, human-scale communities, the moral principles they expressed and their capacity to enable those principles to impinge on the social order, was one of the vital mainsprings on which the well-being of society rested. He was saying that community power and community relationships were bedrock necessities to the effective maintenance of any moral principle in society, whether it was peace, justice or any other quality, if only because in the wider sphere of national affairs moral principles were inevitably subordinated to the quest for power or the play of power. In Gandhi’s view it was essential that the power of government should be widely dispersed and be in the hands of the only social unit where morality based on personal relationships could take precedence — the village community. Hence his insistence, to use his own words,

“You cannot have morality without community”.

Village Economics

He also saw clearly that the problem of war was not simply one of politics out of control because giant units cannot be controlled either by their electorates or even by their leaders, it was also a matter of economics out of control. He also saw what all events since his death have amply confirmed, that giant industrial and commercial growth would not solve the problems of India’s village poverty, they would only make it worse. India, like the rest of humanity seems to have forgotten the meaning of an ikonic, bespectacled figure, clothed in homespun and seated at a spinning wheel.

The Mahatma was not opposed to technology, was not his spinning wheel one example of it? But he wanted people to use and control technology for the supreme moral ends of human betterment; he did not want technology to use people for ends that were merely mercenary and of benefit only to a minority. He saw khadi and other village industries as not simply a mean of relieving village poverty and making life decent and tolerable for millions, he saw it as a means of enhancing village power and reducing state power, so that village moral options would play their own part in the political process.

It is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century that the significance of this aspect of his teaching has been almost completely overlooked by those who have sought to promote change under the banner of ‘peace’. They have made the error of assuming that in human affairs the shortest distance between two points is a straight line: that peace could be achieved with knee- jerk reactions to any moves towards war made by governments, that if only enough people would read enough peace literature, join enough peace organisations, attend enough peace conferences and peace rallies, even if they were only talking and meeting with each other, one day, somehow or other, ‘peace’ would prevail.

Mass Democracy Fallacy

One reason for this confusion arises from our readiness to accept that because each of us has a vote perhaps half a dozen times in a lifetime, that gives us control of the giant machinery of political power and that we are thereby entitled to assume it is our moral options which prevail and that our form of government is therefore democratic. This is one of the most momentous illusions of the modern era and has done more to destroy the effectiveness of the peace movement than any other factor.

The meaning of the word ‘democracy’ is based on the concept that people control the power of government, what prevails today is the exact opposite; it is the power of government which now controls people. The reason for this stems from our failure to see the force of Aristotle’s remark:

“To the size of a state there is a limit, as there is to plants, animals, and implements for none of these retain their natural facility when they are too large”.

Rousseau made much the same point: The more the state is enlarged the more freedom is diminished.

It is an illusion based on a failure to absorb the elementary arithmetic of power; that the smaller the political unit the bigger the significance of the individual member, contrawise the larger the political unit the smaller the significance of the individual: so that, for example, a unit of just two persons, each having the right to vote of course, means that each person has one half of the power: a unit of 100 means each has one hundredth, a million yields a one millionth. The UK has around 50 million voters, and if one 50 millionth of the share of governing power may give cause for discontent just think of the luckless inhabitant of the democratic Chinese paradise enjoying about one and a third billionth of power!

Why do these numbers matter? Because as the size of the unit increases and the power of the individual diminishes, where then does the power go? The answer is, to the centre. The mere factor of growth itself transfers power from the individual to central government, and the bigger the unit the more power the centre is able to wield.

But, a voice will object, the people control the government with their votes. It is a theoretical objection based on an illusion. The voters may elect the persons who govern, but on a mass scale is quite unable to control what they do. This is why we are in the midst of the greatest crisis of civilisation that has confronted humanity in all its history, for once in power the leaders control policy decisions, they control appointments, patronage, the power to influence the media, taxation, foreign relations, the power to make war, even the power to destroy the country’s very identity by submerging it in a federation of other mass powers. The voters may be aghast at what is happening, but on a mass scale all they can do is to vote into power another mass party leadership of different personalities which will tend to have almost identical policies.

Mass Party Illusions

Why should this be so? One reason is the leaders of all mass parties find themselves obliged to pursue the same objectives, if only because they are subject to the same constraints promoted by giant economic forces. These forces largely determine the values by which people live, which in turn are largely determined by consumerist propaganda, and no party leader dare oppose these values and hope to attain office. It is not for nothing that the sums spent on advertising today rival the budgets of educational authorities. The need to abandon mass motoring in favour of public transport is one of the utmost urgency if we are to heed the voices warning us of global warming and oil bankruptcy. What mass party leader dare propose as much ? Not even when the Astronomer Royal is now warning us that because of our love of cars and our acquiescence in the everlasting need for economic ‘growth’ the chances of human survival by the end of this century are only 50/50.

Another reason relates again to size; mass party members do not control the party, it is the party machine which controls the members. At party conferences it is the leaders who decide what resolutions are on the agenda and who will speak, they also decide what resolutions will not be tabled and who will not speak.

Power Out of Control

Peace activists have been banging their heads against the war makers with no understanding that what governments did was quite secondary to what they were, that they were so large as to be beyond the control of anyone for any sane social purposes at all, and that big leaders were blindly bent on nothing else but developing precisely those drives for power and money which had made them gigantic in the first place, drives which of course, make war inevitable.

Our peace brigades have failed to see that the problem was not just one of war as such, but of moral control, and that such control as was required if ever peace was to be secured, could only come from small-scale community power which was in the hands of people who, on the basis of their personal relationships, could give priority to moral principles which might yield peace, as well as a nonviolent social order and a general respect for moral integrity.

The failure of peace seekers to see the relevance of the inevitable powerlessness of people to influence events on a mass scale, and the need for democracy to be on a small scale if it was to be effective, meant that for a generation or more the peace movements of the world have been seeking to move forward by marching on one leg. The result, in these opening years of the 21st century, is a general movement for peace and social progress more confused, divided, and ineffective than it has ever been, even as the danger of increasingly destructive war continues to dominate the human outlook.

The Power Pyramid

It will be clear from the foregoing that a quite Herculean task confronts all who would follow the Mahatma in his quest for peace; it consists of nothing less than re-inventing the already inverted pyramid of power in our societies so that their moral priorities at last become effective and take precedence over power questing; it means abandoning our 19th century concepts of statehood, where it is accepted as normal that the power to run local matters, schools, health, police, planning, welfare and so on, is not in the hands of local people. It means stripping national government of all powers that are not essentially national; it means trusting people to make the necessary coordinating arrangements for their services with neighbouring communities without reference to the national government; perhaps above all it means local people taking collective community command of local resources so that no government can command them for purposes of war without their full consent.

Gandhi the Realist

Yet if Gandhi’s teaching went beyond nonviolence to embrace the political and economic imperatives of his time, let it never be forgotten how it stemmed also from an acute and profound perception of the moral and spiritual nature of human destiny. There was nothing facile in his reasoning; he was always conscious of the complexity of any approach to the moral transformation that life demands and no one reading his voluminous writings, especially his answers to specific questions or problems, can fail to see just how deeply he had penetrated the philosophical depths of the human dilemma. Gandhi still appears to many influential people whose values are steeped in the tragic market imperatives of giant ‘consumerist’ oriented societies as a dreamer and a utopian idealist. In fact no leader of his time was more practical and realistic.

Instead of war he advocated nonviolence, instead of giant mass parties as instruments of social improvement he urged the need for village power to solve village problems, and instead of giant industries and markets as the path to economic betterment, he promoted the powerful symbolism of the spinning wheel as the type of village industry that could accomplish village regeneration. The world today is in travail because it persists in ignoring the lessons one of the astutest economic and political theorists of the modern era.

The programme he promoted requires a vast educational trans formation to enable people everywhere to become aware that if they wanted peace, or any other decent social objective, then the power to achieve it needs to be in their own hands. People’s Power for Peace is a mantra that can rescue aspirants for any form of genuine social progress from their current slough of despond and ineffectuality more decisively than any other route available.

How would Gandhi have responded to this need? He would not have joined or formed some giant (and centrally controlled) mass party, he would have taken his message to the villages and local neighbourhoods, he would have encouraged and inspired local people, by nonviolent means, to assume power to decide and control village affairs at village level, and so open the floodgates of village talents and abilities to create a new life, one which reined in the power of big governments to perpetrate big mischief and big evils so that goodness, decency and creative beauty might flourish.

That was Gandhi’s way, that is the route he would take today. The fate of our civilisation now depends on the speed with which we follow his teaching and take it.

This essay was submitted for the Rodney Aitchtey Memorial Prize in 2004.

Filed under: Politics & Democracy | Tagged: democracy, economics, Gandhi, industrialisation, nonviolence, power, technology, village | Leave a Comment »

	Om Joshi on Adivasis Need Speedy and Impar…
	Om Joshi on Civilizational Gandhi –…
	OR Books — The… on Book Review – What Gandh…
	Review of Gandhi boo… on Book Review – What Gandh…
	Bollywood icon Shaba… on 2006 Peace Award: Shabana…
	Alan Nable on Conflict Resolution: From Gand…
	Green Opportunities… on Mahatma Gandhi and Environment…
	shelly on Nehru On Gandhi, Views On Poli…
	Bulu Imam on Obituary – Jason Imam 19…
	saleem khan mian khe… on Obituary – Jason Imam 19…
	Amit on Obituary – Jason Imam 19…
	sujay on Obituary – Jason Imam 19…
	Mary Saunders on Masanobu Fukuoka and Natural F…
	Forever Groundhog Da… on 2007 Peace Award – Media…
	binu on New Book Review – Whose…

The Gandhi Foundation

Latest News

Index

Recent Articles

Archives