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A Rickshaw wallah's Tirade

“Amar naam Chatterjee!” (My name is Chatterjee!). Sounds like a proclamation from a fiery leader of the masses at a public rally. Much less, one from a rickshaw wallah plying his trade in the dusty bylanes of North Calcutta and addressed to no one in particular.

It was a pleasantly strange coincidence that led me to Chatterjee’s rickshaw on my way home. Instantly, this frail old man launched into a tirade of indignation against the ruling political party whom he branded as a group of turncoats, insisting vehemently and repeatedly to nothing but the pleasant evening breeze that he had always been a Congress man. Yes, he defended, petrol prices have been rising, but surely the bosses in Delhi would admit to that! What is the point of protesting about that in an insignificant meeting of rickshaw wallahs’ union, he asked? It was the tone of uncompromising understanding of world affairs that drew me to listen to him, rather than plug in my earphones and switch off the world. And for it to come from a humble rickshaw wallah surely added to the charm. If at all you expect one of his kind to blabber, it is about their domestic troubles or a cricket match the players had shamed them in. You certainly do not expect him to suddenly start explaining how Parliament works. He went on about how “two thousand crores” are allocated to a given state by Delhi to solve their own problems. And when the money ran out, where did the babus go? They went to the vishwa Bank (World Bank). He didn’t approve of it for sure, he reprimanded as if the old men at their game of carrom had suggested otherwise.

Sixty two years, he said, he had stuck to an honest living. And what had the world given him? A life of drudgery surrounded by “fools” who understood nothing. He spoke of Tagore’s ‘Where the mind is without fear” and he spoke of Swami Vivekananda’s philosophy as we crossed a bridge I had initially feared he would ride me into, with the rickshaw to boot. His old friend Langda Shyam had died. Did the fear of death drive him to compromise with his ideals? No, he insisted, throwing in the odd English phrases. Honesty is the best policy, he bellowed at a group of bewildered women who shielded their children behind their generous Indian waists.

“Today, the world has lost the eminent singer Bhupen Hazarika”, he said solemnly. Yes, he wasn’t in touch with insignificant details like dates, the bard of Assam having passed away nearly a week ago. But surely you could forgive an old man his folly. Chatterjee, as I find myself fondly calling him, reminisced about a popular song by Hazarika “Manush Manushyer jonne” (All men for one another). He labelled as fools all those who could not understand the deep underlying meaning of Hazarika’s lyrics. But he wasn’t a fool, he remonstrated at the top of his voice. He listened and he understood. And then he broke into a melancholic rendering of the same song, drawing catcalls from a group of boys standing at a paan shop we were passing.

A taxi tried to overtake him. Chatterjee warned the driver not to honk the horn. When he was paid no heed, he sniggered at the taxi that had by then long gone, that he would complain to the Dum Dum thana (police station) and pocket a thousand rupees of commission off the two thousand the driver would pay to save himself for a crime that I did not really understand myself.

I would have liked this almost surreal ride to continue but I had reached my destination. He asked me why I had kept quiet all the way and not asked him to ride faster, which evidently most of his rides do. I answered that I had been listening to what he had to say and asked if he listened to Bhupen Hazarika. To which, he paid tribute to the great man along with Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh. With that, he bade me farewell and wished that we meet again.

I certainly wish I do. Three years I have studied social sciences at a college supposed to be one of India’s best. Never have I learnt more than during this rickshaw ride. Sure he didn’t have a lot of fancy things to say. His philosophy of life was the humanistic message of Hazarika’s songs, his understanding of politics was deep although simple and he emphasised again and again on the principled honest life of Tagore and Vivekananda that can be the salvation of mankind according to him. He scoffed at the corruption of the taxi driver and the narrow worlds of his fellow men who did not know how politics worked and did not understand the socialist message of “Manush Manushyer jonne”.

At the end of the day, we may agree with Chatterjee and we may laugh him off as a mad snob. But either way, it is a woeful commentary of our world today that a sixty-two year old man has to pull rickshaws for a living. It is a woeful commentary of our society that the opinion of a rickshaw wallah, however intelligent is ridiculed. Would we really be worse off with a few more like him, although better appreciated?

Reflection on Rahul Pandita’s Hello Bastar

Waking up one sultry post-Pujo morning in Calcutta, I found a home delivery of Rahul Pandita’s Hello Bastar awaiting me. The book’s cover claimed it to be “The Untold Story of India’s Maoist Movement”. So finishing my morning chores, I sat down to read the narrative about a movement which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has dubbed as India’s biggest internal security threat. Admittedly, the book stumped me and left me engrossed. Some five hours later, I had turned the last page.

The book was certainly well written and had presented the facts of the Maoist movement in a perceivably dispassionate manner, which is difficult to come by given the intense passions and romance that can engulf any writer on the subject. Chapter after chapter had followed the history of the struggle from before the Naxalbari conflict flared up to contemporary times. What is more, a glowing afterword by Maoist ideologue Kobad Ghandy written from the ramparts of the high security cells of Tihar Jail, Delhi had dissected the idea of the Indian nation as we know it.

Coming from another conflict-zone – the Northeast, being a student of Presidency College, Calcutta, which itself was a so-called headquarters of the Naxal struggles of the 60s and 70s, and a boarder of two years at Hindu Hostel, which had housed some of the then-radicals; I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the history of the movement. Indeed, one of the most vivid memories of my early days in Calcutta was staring with awe at the openings in the ceiling of my hostel room where arms and ammunition had once been stowed away from repressive police eyes and hearing whispered tales of Asim Chatterjee alias Kaka, and other student leaders of those days. Even with that background, Hello Bastar was an eye-opener.

The assertion that the void created by the State has been filled by the Maoists has never been truer. Although the Maoist struggle started as mostly bit-piece uprisings against oppressive landowners assisted by the state machinery, every failure met by the movement, every fake encounter death, every repression and supposed annihilation has only paved the way for another fresh movement. This phoenix-like life of Maoism in India isn’t surprising: the basic tenet on which the movement has survived for the past four decades and more is the inherent oppression and discrimination in the land tenure system of the country and the failures of land reforms to arrive in most parts of the country despite sixty two years of the Constitution.

The result has indeed been a vast chasm between the rulers and the ruled. For despite all pretence at democracy in the hallowed streets of Lutyens’ Delhi, at the most localised level, India has continued, despite Independence, to be “ruled” by those in whose hands, economic power has been vested in more than proportion. I say this, because following Marx’s conjecture that the economy is the substructure or base of a society and all its non-economic relations are based on this substructure – a conjecture that fits today’s materialistic, capitalistic society to the T – the feudal structure of rural India that hadn’t undergone any major change during two centuries of British rule left the poor considering their landlords as nothing less than demi-gods. And on the other hand, the landlords considered it their right to extract from the peasants as much as they could, in short, to treat them no better than monkeys, if not worse, as the author compares on two occasions in his book. Indeed, the regicide that had followed in Europe after 1789 hadn’t yet arrived in India.

The Maoists, it can be said, took a path very similar to the first modern-day rebels in Europe. By instilling faith in the poor and a belief that their lot was not a divine punishment but indeed oppression on the part of the landowners, the Maoists tried to break the shackles of an age-old feudalism in India. The reaction of the Indian establishment to the Maoist struggle at every stage is only indicative of this basic fact. Because with all due respects, the government that we have seen in the Indian nation has been nothing more than an oligarchy of leaders put forward by a process beyond the understanding or power of the aam aadmi. Where the mango people come in is simply to put in their affirmation of the choice made by the High Command, whichever High Command may at that point be in favour. No other logic can explain the coming to power of our present PM or President or even the imminent coming to power of the next heir of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and the next, and the next, and so forth.

This government was so shaken by the prospect of the Indian masses (however unrepresentative a sample) coming to political, social and economic consciousness, that it immediately tried to repress. Interestingly, the demands of the Maoist movement have basically been the protection of the interests of the poorest of the poor, something that doesn’t really contravene the spirit of the Constitution. If the movement, in any form, has now sought to overthrow the current establishment, it is only with a sense of disillusionment and frustration at the common man being denied the rights promised by the establishment in the first place. On this point, I might be wrong and I might be refuted, but it is entirely my personal belief.

An interesting point to be noted from the book is the apparent lack of interest among the educated youth of the country to participate in the Maoist struggle. This stands in stark contrast to the phenomenon of the early Naxal movements. The reasons for this disenchantment among the student community are complex. Certainly, we have come to realise that the revolution, if it is coming, is a slow one. Hence, the romance and passion of the early-day rebels is not to be seen. What is left is an intellectual murmuring of dissent at government policies that leave a lot to be desired, and a more careerist student, on the average. Secondly, with the coming of social media and the intrusive presence of the media in general in our lives, an average youth from a middle-class family is brought up on a diet of prejudice against the idea of Maoism as a violent terrorist movement. How deep this prejudice runs can easily be fathomed from any comment stream on the internet on any operation carried out by Maoists. Thirdly, taking a broader perspective, the students of 2011 do not have a Vietnam raging in the world outside. As such, they do not find the international political scene as representing a conducive “time” to bring about an armed revolution.

In conclusion, I must refer Hello Bastar to any individual who wants to get an alternative picture of the Maoist movement, albeit from the other side this time. It will not only provide you with an understanding of the Maoists and why they are Maoists, but also how the country functions, the relative priority that the Indian establishment lays on different sections of society. And if nothing else, it is a reflection on India after sixty-four years of self-rule, I excuse myself the use of the word Independence.

Best English Dailies in India

Best English Dailies in India

Quintessentially Paschimbanga?

A move delayed since 1974, a time when the government of SS Ray initiated procedures to rename the state of West Bengal. This was followed up in 1999, but it took a historic change of government in 2011 to finally retire a name rendered redundant decades ago by political changes, only to replace it with one suffering from the same flaws. 

Since 1947, West Bengal has been west of nothing in particular. Its sister, the East had by then changed her suffix from Bengal to Pakistan. In the process of a bloody Partition orchestrated through stoking the fire of religious identity politics, East and West had ceased to be mere geographical contours sketched on the map by colonial rulers. What emerged from the ghosts of the Partition was a cultural and religious divide between the Ghotis of West Bengal and the Bangals of the East, between Hindus and Muslims. Overnight, it did not matter if you shared a common heritage, a generally common language, a love for fish or Rabindrasangeet. As seen with any other instance of violence in the modern world, one particular identity of an individual or a group took precedence over all others – in this case, the identities being religious and geographic.

The widely famous tolerance of the Bengali incorporated millions of East Bengal immigrants in the West, most of them although not all, in erstwhile Calcutta. Yet, the antagonism that seeped into the Bengali psyche would best be summed up by a recent matrimonial in a leading newspaper which specifically mentioned, “East Bengali girls need not apply.” It did not help that with East Bengal giving precedence to its religious identity over its linguistic one to become East Pakistan, the migrants continued to live in a state called West Bengal that continuously reminded them of their borrowed geographic and cultural identity.

1971 came along, and although Islam had presided over the awkward marriage of East and West Pakistan, yet considerations of language and culture prompted a struggle that culminated in the birth of a new nation: Bangladesh. Yet again, West Bengal was reminded of the obsolescence of its name, now nothing more than a Siamese twin separated and left alone. Since then, governments (there haven’t been too many of those!) have played with the idea of rechristening the state, a demand brought up regularly in the intellectual circles of the state. These demands were soon made administratively relevant in order to give the state’s representatives an alphabetical advantage in national gatherings.

However, on 19^th August 2011, when Chief Minister Mamata Bandhopadhyay announced that West Bengal would be known as Paschimbanga, pending legislation in the state Assembly and the Parliament, the proposal was met with shock and dismay. To look at it from the perspective of the government, it was possibly a move to achieve the alphabetical advantage without causing large-scale administrative costs, since Paschimbanga is already the nomenclature used when written in Bengali. However, the middle class probably expected something more imaginative, a name that did away with the historical redundancy rather than uphold it as a reminder of the upheavals the region has undergone, beginning way back in 1905 with the Partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon. That however, was not to happen. What will happen instead is a silly parade of change of official notice boards, letterheads, and all that comes with them, only to hear incorrect pronunciations of the new name and crackpot jokes.

The intention of the Government is hard to gauge from this move that is proving to be highly unpopular among at least the youth and the middle class. If the by-now-official reason for the change – the alphabetical advantage – was to be achieved, other proposals such as Bangabhoomi, Bangadesh, or simply Banga or Bengal would have worked far better. In fact, Paschimbanga leaves the state just seven places higher in the list of states than it was as West Bengal. Banga, in particular, would have held great historical importance as the name referred to by the bard Tagore in Jana Gana Mana and also by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka to refer to the undivided expanse of sub-Himalayan Gangetic plain. Instead, with Paschimbanga, although the state loses the colonial hangover associated with the word Bengal, it holds on to its disturbed past, continuing to distinguish between Paschim and Purbo.

The move by the new CM ends up being nothing more than the kind of farce that has left Kolkata a city whose name cannot be pronounced correctly by vast majority of the Indian masses. The practice of popular politics that has seen many states and cities wasting precious resources of the public exchequer undergoing a cosmetic change in name, at times to wipe out a colonial past, at times simply to cater to indigenous votebanks, has simply been replicated. It can just be wondered that given such a populist move, couldn’t policymakers come up with a better name that served all purposes?

Is Independence Day Just A Holiday?

Two years ago, on a wet and gloomy morning, I woke up to the sight of a Tiranga ready to be unfurled at the gate of the hostel I’d recently made my home. The corner stall served the same tea, the streets wore the same look of worldly abandon, the trees still shed brown-green leaves and still, breakfast served at the mess was bad. Yet it was different for me in a very personal way, like a day that came in customised packaging. It was my first Independence Day celebrations. Ever.

For seventeen years, I had witnessed Independence Day come and go behind closed doors back in my hometown of Shillong. Terrorist groups, falling over each other to proclaim their anti-India stand, made sure that the average Northeasterner enjoyed a cosy day at home, come every 15^th August or 26^th January. So it was refreshing to say the least to breathe open air this particular time.

It would not be far from the truth to say that the true significance of Independence Day is lost on the generations that haven’t actually seen or been brought up on a staple diet of stories of the freedom movement, its heroes and villains. Probably, the only ones who can still feel the true spirit of Freedom are those who are deprived of it either by political reasons, like in conflict areas of the Northeast and Kashmir, or by economic reasons of poverty and exploitative deprivation. Yet, would it be fair or proper to blame a generation for its disdain and indifference to an occasion cherished by its predecessors, simply because of its chronological position in history? I would argue, no.

It is true that 15^th August today evokes the variety of jingoism and inflated national pride that can easily be missed come Morning the 16^th. To a large extent, one can attribute this sudden outburst of patriotic fervour to a sort of automated conformism; the desire to be part of a shared experience that is larger than us. Or maybe, simply, as Sartre exclaimed in his Nausea, “Good God, how important they consider it to think the same things all together.”  And could you really blame anyone for this state of affairs? It’s human nature to flock together, even instinctively. The feeling of belonging has primal connotations of safety inherent in each one of us. Also, personally, the popular idea of Independence means little, because we have never known a day without it. Which, without being too austere on my generation and the preceding one, I suppose is alright.

Yet, Independence Day is not just a holiday. Far from it. In a nation being divided and dissected on every ground imaginable, an occasion like this comes handy to remind us of our piecemeal Oneness. Through all the jingoism, the message of nationalism and patriotism as perceived in the popular sense isn’t entirely lost on the general Indian masses. It may be agreed that the forms of expression may have changed, that fancy SMSes and Facebook statuses may be our way  of “doing our bit for the nation”. Today, the reasons which keep the nation united might be superficial, even trivial, but there can be no arguing that without them, we would be heading faster towards a breakdown of national sentiment. Independence Day may not be the kind of emotional ritual it once was to Indians but it still is a day that reminds us of the age when the diversity of the land united to dream the Midnight Dream; a day that reminds us and assures us that the dream is unfulfilled yet attainable. So even though the jingoism will disappear the next morning, a small flicker of nationalism will burn on.