Monday, January 30, 2012

NYPD Admits Using Anti-Muslim Film for Training Nearly 1,500 Officers


Antiwar.com

Last year, the New York Police Dept. was caught in an ugly scandal when the Village Voice reported it showed a 72-minute film titled The Third Jihad to police as a “terrorist training” video. Officials at the time downplayed the number of officers who saw it, and claimed it was quickly pulled when it was deemed “inappropriate.”



The video condemns Muslims in general and moderate American Muslims in particular, claiming that all non-violent Muslims are part of a secret conspiracy to overthrow the US government and impose Sharia law in its place.
FOIA requests have finally gotten through the red tape, however, and it is now revealed that movie was not an isolated mishap at NYPD, but rather was required viewing for months on end, shown to a minimum of 1,489 officers.
The human rights group that filed the request says the “response was to deny it and to fight our request for information.” The revelation of its use is particularly noteworthy given the number of NYPD scandals related to thesurveillance and persecution of the city’s Muslim residents.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Arundhati Roy, Anuradha Ghandy, and 'Romantic Marxism'


Monthly Review

by Bernard D'Mello 


This is the full-text of the introductory remarks made by the author at the Fourth Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Lecture delivered by Arundhati Roy on 20th January 2012 at St Xavier's College, Mumbai.

I woke up this morning to the chirping sounds of the swallows.  Arundhati Roy seems to have brought in those love-birds that come in to Mumbai at this time of the year from the cold environs of the North.  The lively spirit of Anuradha Ghandy (Anu, as she was fondly known) is all around us -- that picture of hers reminds me of one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs, "Forever Young".  We have here with us Anu's mother -- comrade Kumud Shanbag.  Parents abiding by Hinduism usually give their daughters away at the time of marriage in a ritual called kanyadaan.  Comrades Kumud and Ganesh Shanbag, rational and progressive, broke with this humiliating tradition; they raised their daughter Anu (Janaki) to decide what she wanted to do with her life and she joined the Revolution (Kranti).  One might call what she didkranti-daan, though, I think, daan (donate) is not the right word for it.  TheKrantikari Adivasi Mahila Sanghatan (KAMS) is justifiably proud of Anu (Janaki).  Not long ago, when Arundhati Roy was walking with these comrades, they proudly showed her a photograph of Anu that they were carrying -- she's dressed in fatigues, an olive green cap with a star on it, rifle slung over her shoulders, and smiling, as always.
Anu came a long way, from the Hamil Sabha (the general student body) of Elphinstone College in the first half of 1970s to the Byramgadh area in old Bastar in the latter half of 1990s.  For her, dalitadivasi and women's liberation1 were part of the fight for "new democracy" -- indeed, for her they were a prerequisite for any kind of democracy.  Just as Anu was shaping this policy of the Party -- the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (People's War) -- in the 1990s, Arundhati Roy created a character called Velutha in The God of Small Things (1997).  Velutha came from a dalit, attached-labour household.  But despite his origins -- Velutha came from the wretched of the wretched of the Indian earth -- he became an accomplished carpenter and mechanic, indispensible to semi-feudal capital's profit register in the small town of Ayemenem.  Rahel and Estha, Ammu's children, established a close bond of friendship with him.  Ammu was attracted to him, fell in love with him -- he was a passionate lover, he loved her like no one else could ever have loved her.
Velutha is my hero -- for me, he is the classic Indian proletarian.  Despite the exploitation and the oppression, Velutha did what he did with devotion -- he kept the creativity and imagination in him alive.  For him, like it is for his creator, ingenuity and work became one.  This characterisation tells us something about Arundhati Roy, Velutha's maker.  In the conception of Velutha, I saw, very early on, signs of a romanticism closely linked to revolution in Arundhati Roy as a writer.  That subversive intent was there from the very beginning.  From The God of Small Things to Broken Republic, Arundhati Roy is through-and-through a romantic, anti-capitalist writer.  There is a basic structure of feelings in her writings that touches my heart.
I don't know if she will agree with me, but I'd like to believe that Arundhati Roy has embraced 'Romantic Marxism'.  I know the ideological censors would be frowning at me; for them, there can never be anything like 'Romantic Marxism'; "comrade Bernard, you cannot mix romanticism with Marxism".  I differ and in this I am with E P Thompson.  And, with Marx of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (1959)2 and his passionate denunciation of capitalism in Capital, Volume-I -- with a language and imagery that makes the reader realize the need for Kranti.  Marx did, after all, also hitched romanticism with his exposition of the structure, the social relations and logic of the inner workings of the capitalist system.  At its core, 'Romantic Marxism' brings together Marx's thesis of alienation with his theory of value and welds these with the basic structure of feelings that such a consciousness evokes.
Let me now say a few words about the topic of today's lecture -- "Capitalism: A Ghost Story".  Capital is not a work of Marx's imagination; so also, and I'm sure, Arundhati has a real story to tell, and it's going to be a passionate denunciation of really existing capitalism.  If we were to look at capitalism from a romantic Marxist perspective, we would see, above all, the total domination of exchange value, the "cold calculation of price and profit . . . over the whole social fabric . . . the death of imagination and romance, . . . the purely 'utilitarian' . . . relation of human beings to one another, and to nature".3  What should be reciprocity in human relations -- love for love, intimacy for intimacy, trust for trust, as it was with Ammu and Velutha -- has been replaced, in capitalism, by the exchange of money for commodities: accumulation and possession is all that matters today.  Indeed, beauty, now defined by capital, has also been commoditised; nothing remains unsullied by capitalism, its logic, and its basic structure of feelings.  Human beings have been turned into wretched beings -- physically, psychologically and spiritually dehumanised.
We, the Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Committee members, are old-fashioned Marxists.  We continue to insist that wealth comes from the exploitation of human labour and nature.  To quote Marx and, keeping in mind the importance he assigns to ecology, include capital's "sucking" of nature too:4
Capital is dead labour [and out-of-play nature] that vampire-like only lives by sucking living labour [and extant nature], and lives the more, the more labour [and nature] it sucks.
Value then is nothing but congealed labour and defunct nature incarnate in commodities.  And, in the contemporary world capitalist system, we witness the real subscription of labour, nature, and even democratically-elected governments to finance.  Yes, the bond markets -- the funds and financial institutions that buy government bonds, not the people who elected the governments -- are able to very significantly influence public policy, for it is they who specify the conditions under which they will buy those governments' bonds.  Indeed, the main focus of corporations today is financial, and here, with quarterly reporting on a mark-to-market basis, short-term net worth is all that seems to matter.  Add to this stock options-based remuneration of those who manage the huge financial portfolios, monetary policy designed for the benefit of high finance, and rising labour productivity alongside stagnant real wages, and the result is "traumatized workers", "indebted consumers", and "manic-depressive savers"5 high on Prozac and Viagra which keep Pfizer's cash register ringing.  "Humanity" has become "an appendage of the asset markets", my friend Jan Toporowski writes.6  We are reminded of what Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff (then editors of Monthly Review) wrote in the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crash in the US and it seems appropriate to paraphrase their words to apply to the present: "The mess" the world-system is in flows "from capitalism's ruthless pursuit of unlimited wealth by any and all available means, whether or not these have anything to do with satisfying the needs of real human beings."7  Indeed, capitalism -- which has metamorphosed into a life-threatening disease -- has become a threat to humanity and other forms of life.  The only remedy "is a truly revolutionary reconstruction of the whole socio-economic system".8
But, the failures of the revolutions of the 20th century stare us in the face.  I have taken more time than I had intended to, and lest I become a barrier between the star-speaker and you, I need to quickly wind up.  Let me then not mince words -- revolution is about expropriating the expropriators, and "force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one".9  But, and more importantly, revolution is also about "human emancipation".  It has to create a socialist sensitivity, a socialist consciousness; so forms of violence -- cruelty and brutality -- which negate the very end of revolution must never be a part of the means.  Now, while the "seizure of power" and the strategy to achieve this seem to be the central preoccupation of revolutionaries, we need to remember these words of Marx from The German Ideology (1932; written in 1846):10
Both for the production on a mass scale of . . . communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of [human beings] on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.
Rightly, Marx was more concerned about the "human emancipation" that must come about in the process of making the revolution, the kind of emancipation that makes of us a new kind of "human" being, a practicenecessary to found a society that is egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic.
With this "brief" (ha, ha!) introduction, may I invite Arundhati Roy to take the baton.

Notes
1  Scripting the Change: Selected Writings of Anuradha Ghandy, edited by Anand Teltumbde and Shoma Sen, Daanish Books, Delhi, 2011.
2  One should also mention Marx and Engels' On the Jewish Question(1844) and The German Ideology (1932, writing completed in 1846).
3  See Michael Lowy's "The Romantic and the Marxist Critique of Modern Civilisation"Theory and Society, Vol. 16, No. 6 (November 1987), p 892.
4  Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954; a reproduction of the first English edition of 1887, edited by Frederick Engels), chapter 10, "The Working Day", p 233.
5  Riccardo Bellofiore and Joseph Halevi, "Magdoff-Sweezy and Minsky on the Real Subsumption of Labour to Finance", 2010, at cemf.u-bourgogne.fr/z-outils/documents/communications%202009/AHE.pdf.
6  Jan Toporowski"The Wisdom of Property and the Politics of the Middle Classes"Monthly Review, Vol. 62, Issue 4, September 2010.
7  Paul M. Sweezy and Harry Magdoff, The Irreversible Crisis (New York: Monthly Review Press), 1988, p. 55.
8  Ibid.
9  This is how Marx puts it in chapter 31 on "The Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist", in Capital, Volume I.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Nation sitting on Volcano and the Media Offering opium to Masses




“The intent is clear. Keep the people drugged so they do not revolt against poverty”
Press Council of India (PCI) Chairman Justice Markandey Katju on Sunday called upon journalists to play a seminal role in promoting scientific and rational ideas in society and raise the intellectual level of the masses by extricating them from the morass of superstition, casteism, bigotry, communalism and feudal tendencies.
Delivering the Jhabarmal Sharma memorial lecture here, Justice Katju flayed the penchant in a section of the media for non-issues — ostensibly to serve its business interests — at the expense of the vital issues which affect 80 per cent of the people in the country facing poverty and unemployment.
“You have lost your sense of proportion, but this cannot go on for long. As your critic and well-wisher, I will bring you to the right path,” Justice Katju told the audience largely comprising journalists and academicians. The venue was Kesargah, which is the headquarters of Hindi daily Rajasthan Patrika.
Taking note of the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival, Justice Katju said the level of participants in the event touted as a mega literary carnival reminded him of Hindi novel Chandrakanta Santati full of fairy-tales and useless anecdotes, which he read in childhood: “What is the level of the people taking part in this festival? Does their work evoke any kind of admiration for them?”
The PCI Chairman regretted that those claiming to be litterateurs had stooped to the level of making indecent remarks on the stage and were justifying perversions. This was happening in the land which had produced illustrious writers and poets like Premchand, Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Qazi Nazrul Islam and Saadat Hasan Manto, he said.
Justice Katju said while the nation was “sitting on a volcano,” the media was offering four kinds of opium to the masses in the shape of religious bigotry, films, cricket and falsehood: “The intent is clear. Keep the people drugged so they do not revolt against poverty and the terrible mess created for them.”
The former Supreme Court Judge felt that the electronic media was dividing the people on the lines of caste and religion by creating an impression that Hindus alone had the first claim over citizenship and others were second-rate citizens. “Minority communities are demoralised in various manners. This is unacceptable in India which is a land of migrants,” he said.
Uttar Pradesh Governor B.L. Joshi and Rajasthan Patrika Editor-in-Chief Gulab Kothari spoke.

Monday, January 16, 2012

4th Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Lecture (Jan 20, Mumbai)


                                                                        

Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Committee
                        4th Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Lecture
                                            by Arundhati Roy

                  “CAPITALISM: A GHOST STORY”
                                           on January 20, 2012
                                                          at
             St Xavier’s College Hall, Dhobi Talao, Mumbai
                                                at 6.00 pm

Thursday, January 12, 2012

International campaign in support of People's war in India commences tomorrow




A new international campaign in support of the peoples' war in India led by the CPI Maoist is getting underway tomorrow. The communist parties from Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Brazil, Morocco, Turkey, Sweden and Ecuador and several other countries and participating in this week long campaign. 

The International Committee to support the people's war in India, that was born on the appeal launched at the International meeting in Paris on January 2010 and gained the participation of comrades from several countries, with the mobilization of the week 2 to 9 of April has shown an international extent and played a role in promoting information and taking side in support of the People's War in India, in the context of the more general situation of class struggle, imperialism and the struggle of the proletarians and oppressed people, decided, in the framework of the protracted campaign, handling the contradictions in the different countries, to launch a new international week of action from 14 to 22 January 2012 with the slogans:
“the repression by the Indian government does not stop but feeds the People's War”
“may the wind of the People's war reach the proletarian masses all-around the world”

The campaign opens the work that leads to the international conference of support planned for the summer 2012.
The campaign includes initiatives and meetings in different countries to collect signatures and organize the participation to the International Conference.
The Committee calls the Icawpi and all the committees of solidarity with the people's war and the Indian revolution to organize this activity together with us.
Adherence, internationally and in each country can be of any organization, political parties, committees that decide to participate, whether individually or as a group or platform of organizations.
The Committee calls on  all the blogs and web-sites, that are giving a big contribution to the knowledge of people's war India, the exposure and strugle again st of the Operation Green Hunt, and to widespread  the documents of the CPI(Maoist), to play their important role in realizing the campaign and for the success of the International Conference in 2012.
The Committee, taking lessons from the previous campaign in 2-9 April 2011 is primarily aimed at the proletariat and the masses for a massive participation in initiatives.
The Committee invites all the adhering forces to consider that the support for People's War in India is the datum that unites and mobilizes.
The Committee, in particular in the imperialist countries, will mobilize particularly in a campaign against Indian transnationals companies that expand even in the imperialist countries.
The Committee reiterates that it supports in the form of solidarity all the people's wars and the anti-imperialist struggles ongoing in other countries in the world and considers all of them important and decisive in the tsruggle against imperialism.
The Committee will bring in all anti-imperialist demonstrations against the political and economic summit of imperialists and the imperialist war, the support to the PW in India, the propaganda and the invitation to attend the International Conference

International Committee to Support People's War in India
October 2011

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Where Ants Drove Out Elephants - The Story of People’s Resistance to Displacement in Jharkhand




By Stan Swamy
This article is an introduction to the trajectory of peoples’ movements against displacement in Jharkhand in the last few years. As the author writes, the resistance in Jharkhand has resulted in the fact that “[o]ut of the about one hundred MOUs signed by Jharkhand government with industrialists, hardly three or four companies have succeeded in acquiring some land, set up their industries and start partial production.” - Sanhati Editorial 
Displacement is painful for anybody - to leave the place where one was born and brought up, the house that one built with one’s own labour. It is most painful when no alternate resettlement has been worked out and one has nowhere to go. And when it comes to the indigenous Adivasi People for whom their land is not just an economic commodity but a source of spiritual sustenance, it can be heart-rending.
A very conservative estimate indicates that during the last 50 years approximately 2 crore 13 lakh people have been displaced in the country owing to big projects such as mines, dams, industries, wild-life sanctuaries, field firing range etc. Of this, at least 40%, approximating 85 lakhs, are Indigenous Adivasi People. Of all the displaced, only one-fourth have been resettled. The remaining were given some cash compensation arbitrarily fixed by local administration and then neatly forgotten.
Independent studies done during the mid-1990s reveal that in Jharkhand about 15 lakh persons have been displaced and about 15 lakh acres of land alienated from mainly Adivasi people. Needless to say, during the last 15 years a lot more displacement of people and alienation of land have taken place. Strange but true, rehabilitation of the displaced was never taken seriously by any govt during all these six decades when the process of industrialization for ‘national development’ has been in vogue. In fact there was no rehabilitation policy at all!


***
MOU-signing spree after the creation of Jharkhand 
***
The real reason for the creation of Jharkhand as a separate state in November 2000 was not so much to respect and honour the long cherished wish and struggle of the indigenous people to govern themselves as per their culture & traditions, but in view of opening up the vast mineral resources to national & international mining companies whose pressure was increasingly brought to bear on the government. Quite understandably, one MOU after another was signed between the state government and various companies without any reference or consultation or consent of the mainly Adivasi people in whose land all this natural wealth is stored.
Legal safeguards meant to protect Adivasi land from being alienated to non-Adivasis such as The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act (1908), The Santal Parganas Tenancy Act (1949), the Constitutional provisions through the Vth Schedule, The Provisions (Extension to Scheduled Areas)Act (1996), some significant Supreme Court judgments such as The Samata Judgment (1997) were and continue to be neatly ignored by the central & state govts in generously awarding vast tracts of land to industrialists at their asking. Over hundred such MOUs were signed during 2001 and 2010. Rough estimates indicate that about 1.4 lakh acres of land have been signed off. A cruel betrayal of the Adivasi people for whom land is not just an economic commodity but a source of spiritual/cultural sustenance.


***
Enough is enough . . .
***
In a span of three to four years the Jharkhandi people began to realize that the central & state governments were not for peoples’ welfare but that they were laying steps to sell off peoples’ land, their water & forest resources together with all the mineral riches to corporate houses. They decided to act. Wherever projects together with land requirements were announced, people mobilized and organized themselves and said a definite ‘no’ to the government and companies. People’s Resistance Movements Against Dispacement sprang up in different parts of Jharkhand from 2004 onwards.
Even as people stood together in the form of micro-resistance movements, the industrialists , local administration, police, lower judiciary, most of print & electronic media and the urban middle class joined forces. They began to sing the song of ‘development’ and accused the peoples’ resistance movements as ‘anti-development’. The police started to harass the leaders of people’s movements as ‘obstructing government work’ and as having extremist leanings. It is this situation which brought together activists leading anti-dispacement struggles, some socially concerned intellectuals, a few members of the media, a few folk artists, and some journalists. After a series of discussions & reflections it was decided to bring together the various anti-dispacement movements under some umbrella organizations so as to strengthen people’s struggles and to express support & solidarity to each other. Three to four such macro bodies emerged. Public meetings, rallies, advocacy , press conferences were held to educate and motivate the people in struggle. It was made very clear that these anti-displacement movements will not enter into any dialogue with the government or the company to discuss rehabilitation facilities for particular projects since it would imply that people accept to be displaced.
By 2009 it became clear that companies are not making any in roads in Jharkhand in terms of acquiring land and setting up their industries whereas they are ready with their large investments and latest technology and the only thing they want is land. The corporate houses then started to exert pressure on the central & state governments to take some drastic steps by which this stalemate could be put an end to.


***
Operation Green Hunt . . . meant to hunt out the people and clear their green fields & forests to give to mining companies. 
***
A new philosophy was created to the effect that development is not taking place in the tribal belt of central India because of the ‘menace of Naxalism’ and if the Naxals/Maoists can be eliminated, the government will undertake systematic development programs and the tribal population will catch up in the developmental process. Hundreds of police and CRPF jawans were sent into the villages of the so-called “red zone”. They did not have the guts to go deep into the jungles and confront the Naxals. Instead they gave vent to their frustration on the helpless innocent village folk. They harassed them, beat them up, ransacked their houses, humiliated the elderly, dishonoured the women, arrested or shot any young person. They were not accountable to any civil authority. The peaceful life of village communities was shattered.
Protests against state repression by human rights & civic rights groups started in good earnest. During 2010 public meetings, rallies, advocacy work condemning state action against its own citizens were conducted. At the same time, resistance to displacement was also strengthened. The end result was despite the state coming down so heavily on them, the indigenous adivasi / moolvasi people steadfastly refused to part with their land for the industrialists. Out of the about one hundred MOUs signed by Jharkhand govt with industrialists, hardly three or four companies have succeeded in acquiring some land, set up their industries and start partial production. This too they did by dividing local communities, enticing them with false promises or threatening them by using hired hooligans. Most significantly, the big companies which asked for hundreds and thousands of acres of land were turned away empty handed. This is indeed a heroic achievement of the poorest of the poor against the mighty industrialist giants.


***
‘Operation Anaconda’! 
***
This operation brought in a change of strategy in the state’s war against the Adivasi people. It was unleashed in August 2011. Anaconda, the huge serpent of the Amazon basin in Latin America, was the code name. A thickly forested area by name of ‘Saranda’ in Singhbhum district which had been under the influence of CPI (Maoists), was chosen as a forewarning of things to come. So now on it will not be a hunt spread out over a large area but pin point smaller compact areas as “terrorist affected” and swipe the Adivasi people out even as Anaconda swipes every thing in its way.
Thousands of police and para-military forces were brought in from the different parts of the country to do the swiping operation. Even the names of these battalions (“Greyhounds”, “Cobras”, “Scorpians”) were supposed to evoke a sense of fright among people. They were mostly outsiders who did not know the culture, language of the Adivasi people and they did not have any sympathy towards the simple village people. Their achievement during these months was three villagers dead, three in death bed, several houses destroyed and granaries incinerated. They swept through village after village, destroyed the straw roofs, drove the people out of their homes, burnt their clothes, valuables, stole their money and killed their cattle.
This cruel action of the state was brought to light and condemned by human rights activists, artists, leftist political parties, press & electronic media. An appeal was made to the National Human Rights Commission which was good enough to respond and made its investigation although its final report is still awaited.
The central & state governments have gone into face-saving exercise, ended the infamous Operation Anaconda, offered some monetary relief to the victims and is now speaking of developing Saranda villages with top bureaucrats in command. The end result of this cruel exercise on people is that the Jharkhand government has allotted iron-ore to 19 steel companies.
At the same time, the Adivasi people who have nothing to lose but the chains of state repression, will continue to resist displacement and land alienation.


***
Where lies the future …? 
***
Three apparent possibilities:
1. The “red corridor” is also the mineral corridor. The state, through its war on people, may clear the mineral rich land from the indigenous adivasi and hand it over to mining corporates on a platter. The people will be driven out of their ancestral land and forced to settle down in the slums of towns & cities and eke out a living as casual and contract labour. They will lose their adivasi identity, their culture, their language, their communitarian character. The extermination of the indigenous adivasi will be complete.
2. Flocking to join the Maoist militants as the sole alternative.This is a real possibility insofar as the bourgeois state is bending over backwards to oblige the corporates rather than fulfill its constitutional obligations towards its own people, particularly the indigenous adivasi people who have been the most exploited and oppressed all through India’s independent history. It is this state which has scant regard for those constitutional & legal provisions and some judicial interventions which have sought to protect and safeguard the interests of the indigenous peoples of India.
Is there any wonder then the Adivasi youth constitute 99% of Maoists in Jharkhand and neighbouring states?
3. Drop the gun and start talking to Maoist militants. This is still a possibility if people who cherish the cause of justice will rise up to the occasion. Writers, poets, artists, media persons, human rights activists/defenders, trade/labour union activists, cultural activists, each using their own forums, can surely highlight the inhumanity in the state’s war on poorest of the poor. Justice -oriented legal professionals can well initiate legal action against the state for its violations of constitutional and legal provisions to protect the rights of the indigenous people. Advocacy work can be done with well-disposed legislators, parliamentarians, political parties. Christian churches, whose 90% membership consists of indigenous people in the tribal belt of central India, should surely raise their voice against the unjust displacement of adivasi people and alienation of adivasi land.
In short, It is time to stand up and be counted.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

കപ്പലണ്ടിക്കാരന്റെ ആത്മഗതം



മാധ്യമം ആഴ്ചപതിപ്പ് 

കപ്പലണ്ടിക്കാരന്റെ ആത്മഗതം

സച്ചിദാനന്ദന്‍



ബിനായക്‌സെന്‍ ആരെന്ന്
എനിക്കറിയാം, കണ്ടിട്ടുണ്ട്
സഞ്ചിയും തൂക്കി ഞങ്ങളുടെ
മുളങ്കുടിലിനു മുന്നിലൂടെ പോവുന്നത്
ഇന്നലെ ഞാനും പോയി
പാട്ടും പ്രസംഗവും കേള്‍ക്കാന്‍
മൈതാനം നിറയെ ആളായിരുന്നു
ഇംഗ്ലീഷില്‍ പറഞ്ഞതൊന്നും
മനസ്സിലായില്ല
പാവങ്ങളുടെ
ഡോക്ടര്‍
ജയിലിലാണെന്നു മാത്രം
മനസ്സിലായി.
എന്റെ പപ്പായും ജയിലില്‍തന്നെ
ഞാന്‍ ഝാര്‍ഖണ്ഡില്‍നിന്നാണ്
പപ്പായുടെ പേരും ആരെങ്കിലും
പറയുമെന്ന് കരുതി, അല്ല,
ഇത്ര നല്ലയുടുപ്പിട്ട നല്ല മണമുള്ളവര്‍
എങ്ങനെ കേള്‍ക്കാനാണ്
അക്ഷരമറിയാത്ത പപ്പായുടെ പേര്?
'മാ'യെ അവര്‍ മാനംകെടുത്തി
വെട്ടിക്കൊന്നു, പപ്പായെ ജയിലിലടച്ചു
തിരിച്ചുവരുന്നതെന്നോ!
ഞങ്ങള്‍ക്കറിയാത്ത
വഴികളില്ല കാട്ടില്‍;
മരങ്ങളും മനുഷ്യരുമില്ല
ഏതു കിഴങ്ങിന്
എവിടെ കുഴിക്കണമെന്നറിയാം
വിഷക്കായും വിഷമില്ലാക്കായും
വേര്‍തിരിച്ചറിയാം
എലിയെയും തുരപ്പനെയും
പിടിക്കാനറിയാം
പക്ഷേ, ഖനിത്തുരപ്പന്മാരെ
പിടിക്കാന്‍ തോക്കുതന്നെ
വേണമെന്ന് പപ്പാ പറയും
ആവോ, ഞങ്ങളുടെ ആളുകള്‍
തോറ്റുപോവുമെന്നുതന്നെ തോന്നുന്നു;
കടുവകള്‍ക്കു മുന്നില്‍
മുയലുകള്‍ക്കെന്തു രക്ഷ?
ബിനായക്‌സെന്‍ പുറത്തുവരട്ടെ
പപ്പായുടെ ചതഞ്ഞ ഉടമ്പും
ഒടിഞ്ഞ വാരിയെല്ലും
അങ്ങേര്‍ ശരിയാക്കുമായിരിക്കും
ഏതായാലും കപ്പലണ്ടി ചെലവായി,
കുറെ മെഴുകുതിരിയും കരുതിയിരുന്നു
അതും ചെലവായി, കാണാനും രസം.
കൂടുതല്‍ മെഴുകുതിരി ചെലവായത്
ജന്തര്‍മന്തറിലാണ്, ആ
വെള്ളയുടുപ്പിട്ട കാരണവരുടെ
സത്യഗ്രഹത്തില്‍
അവിടെയും കണ്ടു ഇവരെ:
നല്ലയുടുപ്പിട്ട നല്ല മണമുള്ളവര്‍
അവര്‍ കോടികളെക്കുറിച്ചു
പറയുന്നതു കേട്ടു, ഞാനോ
നൂറുറുപ്പിക തികച്ചുകാണാത്തവന്‍,
ഇരുപതുറുപ്പിക കിട്ടിയാല്‍
അന്ന് അടിച്ചുപൊളിക്കും
ഹുക്കുംസിങ്ങിന്റെ 'ഢാബ'യില്‍നിന്ന്
റൊട്ടിയും ദാലും ചായയും
ചിലപ്പോള്‍ അയാളെനിക്ക്
ഒരു ഗുലാബ്ജാമുനും വെറുതേതരും,
പറയുന്ന ചിലതൊക്കെ
ചെയ്തുകൊടുക്കണമെന്നേയുള്ളൂ.
കോടികള്‍ ആര്‍ക്കുവേണം?
കപ്പലണ്ടിയില്‍ മണ്ണുവീഴാതെ
ഇങ്ങനെയൊക്കെ
കഴിഞ്ഞാല്‍ മതി
കപ്പലണ്ടിയും മെഴുകുതിരിയും
അവിടെയും കുറെ ചെലവായി
ആ തൊപ്പിക്കാരനു നന്ദി,
ഒരാള്‍ അന്നം വേണ്ടെന്നുവെച്ചാല്‍
പത്താള്‍ക്ക് അന്നം കിട്ടുമെന്നു
തെളിയിച്ചതിന്.
എനിക്കും തന്നു ഒരാള്‍
വടിയിലൊട്ടിച്ച ഒരു കടലാസ്
വായിക്കാനെനിക്കറിയില്ല,
അവര്‍ പറയുന്നതു കേട്ടു,
''ഭ്രഷ്ടാചാര്‍ കേ ഖിലാഫ്''*
നല്ലത്, അഴിമതി കുറഞ്ഞാല്‍
നാടുനന്നാവുമായിരിക്കും
അപ്പോഴും ഞാന്‍
ഇവിടെത്തന്നെ കാണും
അപ്പോള്‍ നിങ്ങളൊക്കെ
കൂടുതല്‍ കപ്പലണ്ടി വാങ്ങണേ,
അഴിമതി പുരളാത്ത
കപ്പലണ്ടി തരാം,
കൊച്ചുകുട്ടികളുണ്ടാക്കിയ
നല്ല മെഴുകുതിരിയും.
*അഴിമതിക്കെതിരെ

Followers