#M.M. Kalburgi

[krishnaprasad-blog]

Are Hindus in Karnataka in grave danger?

You can answer that question in many ways.

I had an aunt who read eight newspapers every morning. She would have angrily said, ‘Yaava huchch munde maga heliddu?”

Translation: which SOB is saying this?

But you can answer that question without breaking into expletives like my aunt. One way is to pose a counter question, or a series of counter questions.

Like:

# Is the Earth flat?

# Have 15 lakh rupees been deposited in your bank account by Narendra Modi?

# Is Arnab Goswami the most sober, balanced, non-partisan anchor on TV?

If your answers are, no, no and no, respectively, your answer is most likely to be “No” to the question: “Are Hindus in Karnataka in grave danger?”

No, as in illa, illai, ledhu, nahin, nyet.

Still, to see singers of the sangh gharana chanting a tired old raga about the plight of Hindus in Karnataka makes you wonder if the “Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan” party is lost for ideas as it readies for the assembly elections in the State.

Or, worse, if it has lost its mind.

Or, if there is a more devious gameplan at play.

***

The plight of Hindus at the hands of a pseudo-secular, minority-appeasing Congress is not a new discovery for the BJP. It has drummed this over and over again into impressionable heads for a quarter of a century.

You would expect young and ambitious BJP politicians in Karnataka like Anantkumar Hegde, Naveen Kumar Kateel, Shobha Karandlaje, or even Pratap Simha, all of them MPs, to make a headline-grabbing charge like this in an election season.

After all, they are the designated flame-throwers, the rabble rousers.

All of them are from the coastal belt or the Malnad region, baptised by the fires of  “polarisation”, and the embers of “communal mobilisation”.

This is not a new phenomenon in that part of the world. It has gone on for over two decades. Maybe more.

You could even expect the BJP’s old guard like former deputy Chief Minister K.S. Eswarappa to say stuff like that, because even in peace time, they provide no proof that there is any synaptic link between what their brain processes, and their tongue spouts.

But when the BJP as a registered political party, recognised by the Election Commission and sworn to protect the Constitution of India—with a blue tick from Twitter—goes official with some fantastic fear-mongering you are forced to sit up and take notice.

Recently BJP MPs took their “Hindu Lives in Danger” protest to Delhi. They held placards, sat in protest, gave interviews.

Five days ago, the BJP’s official Twitter handle in Karnataka put out this message.

https://twitter.com/BJP4Karnataka/status/970998023210741760

This is a staggering tweet even by the rather low standards of Indian political discoure.

It assumes many things. It assumes that the BJP is the sole protector of Hindus in Karnataka. It talks as if there is fear on the street. It talks as if there has been a bloodbath. It uses some newly learnt words like “annihilation”. And worse, it equates a democratically elected CM of a state, whom it has called “Mulla Siddaramaiah” with “jihad”.

The goalpost, you will notice, has subtly shifted in the hashtags: from “Congress-mukt Bharat” to “#JihadimuktaKarnataka”, to “#HinduvirodhiCongress.

Words like Jihad and jihadi—or “pink revolution” or “Pakistan”—is usually RSS-BJP shorthand for Muslims, a kind of a Morse code.

But if you are a young man or woman in Karnataka, or if you are a middle-aged man or woman, whether you are a Hindu or not, you should ask: WTF?

***

Not surprisingly, many are seeing through the charade. Nitin Pai, a Kannadiga who runs a think tank called Takshashila in Bangalore, tweeted back to the BJP.

It is not just Kannadigas who think this is a joke.

Even non-Kannadigas are seeing through the farce.

Delhi-based journalist Aditya Menon tweeted that if this was the way the BJP was going to address the Karnataka elections, the party didn’t need to create a manifesto.

Raghu Ram, the MTV executive who created Roadies, termed the BJP Karnataka claim as a “hate message”.

This is how clear the BJP’s strategy is to lay citizens. So why is the BJP making such an issue of it?

This is why I thought we need to speak about this, because very soon the TV crews with designated reporters, some of them in war fatigues, will be despatched from Delhi to create the mahol, the atmosphere

And they will try to turn Karnataka into Kannur with live shows.

You can bet the bottom of your bisi bele baath that one of these charlies will soon call Karnataka the “killing fields”, based on the BJP claim.

Any political party with a semblance of self-respect would take that as an insult, but the BJP it seems would like to wear it as a badge of honour.

Why?

***

The key reason, of course, is that keeping the communal pot boiling is a very important ingredient in the BJP recipe for elections.

Especially in communally sensitive pockets, like the west coast, and the Malnad region, where the percentage of Muslims is slightly higher than the state average.

Karnataka has a population of 6.25 crore according to the 2011 census. The state has the second highest Muslim population in South India after Kerala.

Hindus comprise 84%, a little over 5 crores.

Muslims are at 13%, about 80 lakhs.

But in the areas represented by M/s Hegde, Karandalaje, Kateel, the Muslim presence is slightly higher.

It is 74 per cent in Bhatkal.

24% in Dakshina Kannada.

16% in Kodagu.

14% in Uttara Kannada.

Those are precisely the places through which the BJP is taking out a ‘Jan Suraksha Yatra’, and you can imagine the slogans, speeches that must be going out.

Narendra Modi famously, notoriously said “Hum Paanch, hamare pachees” to incite Hindus against Muslims.

Something similar is playing out here, where in response to one of the tweets questioning its “hate message”, the Karnataka BJP talked vacuously of exploding Muslim numbers.

That is also not true.

50 years ago, in 1961, the Census put the Muslim population in Karnataka at nearly 10%. By that yardstick, a 13% presence today in 2018 looks larger.

But compared to the 2001 census, the Muslim population is stable in the state.

Yet, the Karnataka BJP likes to believe that Hindus are in danger because of the population explosion of Muslims.

Really?

***

An equally important reason is that Muslims form the second biggest vote bank in Karnataka after dalits and tribals.

Two out of three Muslims in Karnataka live in urban centres, which means that of the 80 lakh Muslims, about 50 lakh of them live in cities and towns.

One statistic I read showed that Muslims are in a majority in 22 out of Karnataka’s 248 towns, and their population is between 40-50% in another 20 of them. So, in roughly 40 towns, Muslim voters hold the aces.

K. Rehman Khan, the Congress politician, claims that Muslims are the deciding factor in at least 100 out of Karnataka’s 224 constituencies.

And 24 of those are in the three areas represented by Hegde, Kateel and Karandalaje.

So, raising the bogey of “Hindu Lives in Danger” is one way for the BJP to consolidate Hindu voters against a phantom.

***

And they are doing it in a variety of ways. Some conspicuous, some sub-conscious.

So they openly oppose the Congress government’s decision to celebrate Tipu Sultan‘s birthday, Tipu Jayanti.

They take out rallies through communally sensitive areas in towns in the name of Hanuma Jayanti.

They question Shaadi Bhagya, a scheme to provide incentives to poor couples, because shaadi has a Muslim connotation.

They question the “secular” nature of the Constitution, as Anantkumar Hegde did.

Inter-faith couples at bus stops are attacked in the name of love jihad.

They say the West Coast will burn if an RSS leader called Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat is arrested.

All this is mostly confined to the West Coast but its message seeps down to the rest of the state because the media repeats and amplifies it in infinite loop.

The balance of terror is attained.

All this also provides the backdrop to the bigger message, or what they think is their masterstroke, which is the alleged killing of BJP-RSS workers, which is quickly interpreted to imply that “Hindu Lives Are in Danger”.

And that the Congress is party to this.

As Sonia Gandhi herself admitted two days ago, the BJP has managed to convey to the people that the Congress is a Muslim party.

So, the BJP in Karnataka can afford to put out a blatantly communal message like this one.

https://twitter.com/BJP4Karnataka/status/971010237598593024

***

A failed by-election in Kerala should have been a sobering experience for the Hindutva project, where too the BJP made a big song and dance over the killing of RSS workers and turned it into a “Hindu Lives in Danger” story.

The by-election was being held in Vengara.

Arun Jaitley visted the homes of RSS/BJP workers killed but not CPM workers.

The apostle of peace, Yogi Adityanath, lectured Kerala about medical facilities in the state, after hundreds of children had died in Gorakhpur.

Amit Shah took part in a Jan Suraksha yatra before his son Jay Amit Shah‘s troubles beckoned him back to Delhi.

Like in Karnataka, the words “jihad”, “jihadi”, “love jihad” flew around.

In the end, BJP got fewer votes in Vengara than in the previous election in 2016.

In spite of that experience, the BJP is now well set on its course of turning the Karnataka elections into a battle between pro-Hindu and anti-Hindu forces.

In spite of the fact, that a Lokniti survey shows that “one of every two Hindus reports having a Muslim as a close friend compared to one out of three in other states.”

***

The death of BJP-RSS workers in Karnataka, like in Kerala, is therefore being primed to be the cause celebre before the Karnataka elections of 2018.

At a recent rally, BJP president Amit Shah said:

https://twitter.com/BJP4India/status/951137829739900929

The Siddaramaiah government has countered these claims repeatedly.

The state home ministry claims that of the 23 deaths over which BJP claims ownership, only nine died in communal clashes; 13 died due to other reasons.

Dinesh Gundu Rao, the working president of the Congress, tweeted that Hindutva forces themselves caused the deaths of three Hindus and five Muslims.

Yet by repeating it endlessly, and by exaggerating it, the BJP has put an official seal on the “Hindu Lives are in Danger” claim, conflating BJP karyakartas with Hinduism, although 5.13 crore Hindus are going about their lives peacefully, happily.

It calls Siddaramaiah ‘narahantaka‘ (a blood sucker), a word I last heard being used for the forest brigand Veerappan.

https://twitter.com/ShobhaBJP/status/959454864383381504

Of course, she doesn’t talk of the deaths of Gauri Lankesh and M.M. Kalburgi although they were Hindus too,

***

So why is the BJP, whose leaders make a big scene of eating at the homes of Dalits, doing this?

There can be only two reasons for this: ignorance or arrogance.

Ignorance: It has no idea of the South. It does not know that Kannadigas, more than anywhere else in India, do not believe that Hindus are more patriotic than minorities, or that Muslims are mostly violent, as Lokniti survey shows.

Arrogance: It does not care what South Indians think of this thuggish approach to politics, which endangers social peace and harmony built over centuries, as long as it fetches votes and seats.

The third reason could be that the BJP knows in Karnataka, as elsewhere, that it has no chance of gaining Muslim sympathies.

So stereotyping the community, creating a siege mentality, spreading fear among graduates of WhatsApp University is a no-risk gamble.

***

The Congress won a surprisingly large proportion of seats in the west coast in the last elections in 2013 despite a similar ‘atmosphere’. Many analysts think that was an aberration and the BJP may well be on the way to recapturing its hold. So by raking it up in a big way now, it is making sure.

James Manor, the University of London professor, wrote recently:

“Communal polarisation as an electoral strategy lacks promise except on the coast and in minor pockets, and pushing “hard Hindutva” can backfire as it did in the last election, which is why Yeddyurappa is not keen to harp on it.”

Yeddyurappa is said to have warned the rabble rousers to go easy, but the fact that they continue to do so, implies they could be marching to the beat of a different drummer from Delhi—or Nagpur.

Which means Yeddyurappa himself might not be on strong footing although he is the designated CM candidate.

To be fair, when he first became chief minister, in the Vajpayee-Advani era, Yeddyurappa appointed a Muslim MLC as minister. Under Modi and Shah will the BJP even give a ticket to a Muslim? They did not in UP or Gujarat.

11 Muslims were elected MLAs in the Karnataka Assembly in 2013. How many will make it this time will tell us how much the BJP’s “Hindu Lives in Danger” campaign has succeeded.

As James Manor wrote recently: “In Karnataka and beyond, the BJP’s reliance on communal spite runs great risks.”

Q: Are Hindus in danger in Karnataka? A: Is Arnab Goswami the most balanced anchor on TV? Are Hindus in Karnataka in grave danger? You can answer that question in many ways. I had an aunt who read eight newspapers every morning.

[surepeps-blog]

Outspoken journalist's murder sparks outcry in India

Outspoken journalist’s murder sparks outcry in India

Indian activists, politicians and journalists demanded a full investigation Wednesday into the murder of Gauri Lankesh, a newspaper editor and outspoken critic of the ruling Hindu nationalist party whose death has sent shockwaves through the industry.

The 55-year-old, who was shot dead by three unknown gunmen on a motorcycle as she entered her home in the southern city of Bangalore in Karnataka…

[doonitedin]

Kalburgi complete literary works omnibus: 27,000 pages, 40 volumes, 68 kilograms

Kalburgi complete literary works omnibus: 27,000 pages, 40 volumes, 68 kilograms

An overview of the disciplines he has worked in is a testament to his versatility An omnibus of the complete literary works of slain scholar M.M. Kalburgi, comprising 40 volumes of over 27,000 pages, hit the stands recently. Six years ago, when M.M. Kalburgi was assassinated in Dharwad on August 30, 2015, then chief minister Siddaramaiah had announced that the Karnataka government would publish…

[indiannewsonline]

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) made a new arrest in the M.M. Kalburgi murder case on Friday. The arrested has been identified as Krishnamurthy f from The Hindu - National http://bit.ly/2KglzLn

[ourdarkcollectionmakerme]

Irasel's Atheism is the NOTA button of religious choice. It deserves every safeguard from law and the state.

Irasel’s Atheism is the NOTA button of religious choice. It deserves every safeguard from law and the state.

Martyr to no god

 Despite legal protection accorded to the freedom of religion, the assault on rationalism in general and atheism in particular continues. H. Farook has joined Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi in the ranks of the martyrs to no god. The only difference between them is that he was not a prominent rationalist, but a Coimbatore scrap dealer with a strong…

[syllabuus-blog]

SC seeks Centre’s response on SIT probe into Kalburgi murder (Lead) New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Centre on a plea by Umadevi Mallinath Kalburgi, the widow of rationalist M.M.

[wionews]

A different Gandhian legacy: Shankar Guha Niyogi

October 2nd calls for the usual reflections on Mahatma Gandhi and his legacy. But in times when the remembrance of Gandhi has become largely ritualistic and empty of meaning, and our path diverges even more from his vision of a just, non-violent economy, it is worth remembering another person, Shankar Guha Niyogi,  who embodied Gandhi’s spirit, even though he was a Marxist himself. 

Last week marked the 26th death anniversary of Shankar Guha Niyogi. On September 28, 1991, Niyogi, leader of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM) and the Chhatisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (CMSS) was shot dead in his sleep. With the recent assassination of Kannada journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru, the public discourse around political assassinations has once again come alive. And the spate of recent murders, including those of Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi, and Narendra Dabholkar clearly shows the threat that such committed vernacular intellectuals and activists pose to those who want to forcibly impose their own idea of India on everyone else. Remembering Niyogi then also serves to remember our long history of assassinations.

It is worth remembering another person, Shankar Guha Niyogi,  who embodied Gandhi’s spirit, even though he was a Marxist himself. 

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Coming from a working-class background, Niyogi moved from his native Bengal to work in the Bhilai Steel Plant in the late 1960s, but his union organising activities soon got him fired. After spending a few years working underground, organising Adivasis, and traveling all over the state of Chhattisgarh, Niyogi finally made the Bhilai region his home. He led the mine workers and other industrial workers of the Bhilai region for nearly 14 years until his death at the age of 48. In the process, he along with the workers built a unique trade union movement that went far beyond the usual scope of union politics. 

While it was widely suspected that some major industrialists of Bhilai were behind his murder, the case resulted in only one conviction, that of the hired assassin. And this too fourteen years after the murder, in 2005. Those behind the murder got away.

Ramchandra Guha once remarked that every thinking Indian had a Gandhian and a Marxist inside, struggling for supremacy. This certainly seems true of Shankar Guha Niyogi. Niyogi did not describe himself as a Gandhian, and remained close to communist politics all his life. But his practice reveals a creative mind at work that Gandhi would have been proud of. Satyagraha and Sarvodaya found their echoes in Niyogi’s 'sangharsh' and 'nirman', the struggle for the creation and the creation for struggle, as he called it.

Satyagraha and Sarvodaya found their echoes in Niyogi’s 'sangharsh' and 'nirman', the struggle for the creation and the creation for struggle, as he called it.

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Even as he fought for the mine workers’ rights, wages, working conditions, and other bread-and-butter trade union issues, Niyogi wrote with great feeling about the degradation and despoilation of the air, the water and the forests in the mining areas. Under his leadership, the CMM and the CMSS treated environmental issues as central to their programme and not as an afterthought. The rights of forest dwellers over their own produce, for example, formed an important part of the movement. This is an early example of what later came to be called a “red-green” movement. 

Niyogi embraced the ethos of Sunderlal Bahuguna’s Chipko movement and called it a 'revolutionary movement'. He invoked the spirit of the American Indians in his writings on the environment. CMSS also supported the movement against the Narmada dams and showed the hypocrisy of officials who treated Adivasis as the principal threat to forest ecosystems while selling the forest to saw-mill owners. The union fought against monoculture planting of Eucalyptus and Pine trees for wood, and for the conservation of biodiversity. 

Let us take a moment here to realise the significance of an environmental conservation movement that is not based on the urban upper-middle class but, rather, operates with workers, peasants, and Adivasis, who constitute the majority of society.

The movement was born from the recognition that the communities which lived close to nature could be trusted to use it sustainably and had a lot to teach everyone on sustainable use. A centrepiece of the struggle was the 'Know Your Jungle' campaign that was built on the understanding that intimacy with the forest created a love for it. This type of thinking is what we find in Gandhi and in other creative Gandhians, such as J.C. Kumarappa, who were proponents of the local economy. 

India’s modern environmental movement owes a lot to Gandhi, and Niyogi is a prominent thinker in this tradition.

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India’s modern environmental movement owes a lot to Gandhi, and Niyogi is a prominent thinker in this tradition. But Niyogi combines it very effectively with a consciousness of the environment born out of daily struggles of not only Adivasis and peasants but also industrial workers.

Environmental, social, and economic concerns are thoroughly interwoven in Gandhi and so they were in Niyogi also. A particularly novel idea one finds in Niyogi’s writing is that of an 'environment station' (pariyavaran thana). “Just as there are police stations (thanas) everywhere, there should be ‘environment stations,’ he wrote. These would employ local people who are well-versed about the local ecology and its problems. Thus, in one go, such a step helps in creating employment as well as a new consciousness about nature. Sadly, this idea has received hardly any attention, even in social movements.

The Chhattisgarh movement took an all-round approach to workers’ lives, intervening as frequently in areas of health, education, alcoholism, and gambling as in areas of regularisation of contract labour and minimum wages. For example, Shaheed Hospital set up by the CMSS still operates in the region and the noted activist Dr. Binayak Sen, who came to Chhattisgarh inspired by Niyogi, used to practice there. And it is worth noting, at the time when the contract labour system has become the norm across all industries, one of Niyogi’s key struggles was against the contract labour system in the industrial plants of Durg-Bhilai. 

Another, particularly interesting aspect of the CMM was its engagement with local history. For example, the celebration of local martyrs whom the predominantly Adivasi workforce could relate to and, thereby, find their own histories of struggle. Tribal freedom fighters, such as Vir Nayaran Singh who was executed by the British in 1857 became focal points of the new struggle.

The demand for preferential employment to people from the Lohar community in the steel plant is an excellent example of thinking that updates Gandhian ideas.

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The charter of demands from a large peasant-workers rally from October 1980 illustrates the innovative thinking behind the CMM. These included diversion of waters going to Bhilai Steel Plant to farmers during the drought year, higher prices of output for farmers and lower prices for consumers, a halt to mechanisation of iron ore mines, jute mills and cotton mills of the area, construction of small dams and repair of ponds, making local languages, such as Gondi and Chhatisgahi the medium of instruction in primary schools, a ban on commercial sawmills in the vicinity of forests, preferential employment for people from the Lohar (ironsmith) community in the Bhilai Steel Plant, expansion of cottage and handicraft industries, and one Industrial Training Institute in each kasbah.

Notice how a Gandhian spirit suffuses many of the demands; preference to farmers over the industry, fight against mechanisation intended purely for profit, appropriate technology such as small dams, emphasis on local languages, and support for handicraft industries. The demand for preferential employment to people from the Lohar community in the steel plant is an excellent example of thinking that updates Gandhian ideas. In it is the recognition, that was Gandhi’s main insight, that India’s artisanal communities have nurtured a vast store of useful knowledge that can be harnessed for everyone’s welfare.

All this is not to say that Niyogi was a 'Gandhian'. Indeed, like most creative thinkers he easily transcended such labels.

  ×

All this is not to say that Niyogi was a 'Gandhian'. Indeed, like most creative thinkers he easily transcended such labels, taking whatever was useful from wherever he could and discarding the rest. The point is to remember a committed, patriotic Indian who lived Gandhi’s spirit and tried to create a new vision for India. Even now, in the new neoliberal India, most of what Niyogi fought for remains relevant, perhaps is even more relevant. Ever faster rates of economic growth are creating an increasing rate of stress on our natural ecosystem. To make matters worse, the fruits of this destructive growth are very unevenly distributed. A dangerous cocktail of jobless growth and degrading ecosystems brews in our society.

While the immediate reasons for his assassination may have been different from those of Gauri Lankesh, Kalburgi, Pansare, Dabholkar, or even Gandhi, all these murders demonstrate the danger that dedicated, committed individuals who speak, write and act truth to power in the languages of the common people pose to our ever more entrenched power structures. It is imperative that their memories be kept alive. 

Given Shankar Guha Niyogi’s stature and influence (hundreds and thousands of workers struck work and showed up at his funeral), it is noteworthy that there is not a single authoritative book from a major publishing house on his life and work. Some of his writings and essay on him are available here. And Ilina Sen’s memoir, Inside Chhattisgarh, talks about the activities of CMM and CMSS. An account of his life and work is highly desirable in these times.

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[newsinvids]

Non Stop 100: Same Gun Used to Kill Gauri Lankesh and M.M. Kalburgi, States Report http://newsinvids.in/non-stop-100-same-gun-used-to-kill-gauri-lankesh-and-m-m-kalburgi-states-report/ … #NewsInVidsIndia

www.NewsInVideos.in

[bollywoodguy]

Earlier, Bollywood Celebrities not only condemned Lankesh's murder, but also the unsolved murder of three other outspoken critics of right-wing extremist ideology - M.M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar. Recently, during the promotional event, when Sanjay Dutt and Aditi was asked about it.. they said…

[krishnaprasad-blog]

'If Rama devotees get their hands on these [AK-47s], they will be even more fearsome than the Taliban'

'If Lord Rama's devotees get their hands on AK-47s, they will be even more fearsome than the Taliban': Excerpts from Chidanand Rajghatta's book 'Illiberal India: Gauri Lankesh and the Age of Unreason'

Who killed Gauri Lankesh?

Despite a concerted campaign to deflect attention in the initial days, it is becoming increasingly clear that radical Hindu right-wing outfits—Sanatan Sanstha, Hindu Yuva Sena, Hindu Janajagruthi Samithi, et al—have much to explain on what happened on 5 September 2017.

As the special investigation team of the Karnataka Police zeroes in, Gauri’s ex-husband, the veteran…

[talkingpeppers]

Why has India become so 'Intolerant'?

Why has India become so ‘Intolerant’?

Lately, ‘Intolerance’ has become the most widespread issue in the country. From writers, poets, essayists  returning their literary prizes to high profile figures like Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan and lyricist Gulzar , everyone has been criticizing intolerance significantly.

The killing of famous writer M.M Kalburgi is the latest of Hindu attacks , which is the main reason for…

[syllabuus-blog]

SC seeks Centre's response on SIT probe into Kulburgi murder.

SC seeks Centre’s response on SIT probe into Kulburgi murder.

New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Centre on a plea by Uma Devi, the widow of rationalist M.M. Kalburgi, seeking a SIT probe into his murder.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud sought the response as Uma Devi demanded a coordinated probe in the killings of Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dobhalkar…

[wionews]

Banning ‘The Adivasi will not dance’, the absurdity of it all

Last Friday (11th of August) the Jharkhand government banned ‘The Adivasi will not dance’, a Sahitya Akademi award winning book. Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, the author of the book has been accused of promoting pornographic literature. Legislators across the political spectrum in Jharkhand have argued that the book has failed in depicting the reality and, thus, portrayed the tribal women in a bad light. Mr Shekhar has been subjected to legal proceedings which may eventually send him to jail.

Reality can, after all, be an illusion, and we do not need any Albert Einstein to convince us. Even our pea-sized brains know how to convert a reality into an illusion – just close our eyes, live in our own cocoons and fervently hope that the others would do the same. Our daily dose of mainstream news coverage, Facebook activities and professional engagements would additionally ensure that even this illusion would never be persistent.  

Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, the author of the book has been accused of promoting pornographic literature.

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And then, all of a sudden a person from our very own cohort rises - asks uncomfortably probing questions and casually tries to get rid of our blinders. One of our own! How can we hold the sense of betrayal buried deep down in our heart? We can not, we call for revenge. Everybody who has lost their blinders' calls for revenge.

So what can be done? To start with, we ask for a ban on the books written by these traitors. Later, perhaps we would demand to taste their blood.

U.R. Ananthamurthy was lucky, in spite of the fierce criticism coming from a section of his fellow Kannada Brahmins, neither his book ‘Samskara’ was banned nor did he end up in exile. Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin were not so blessed. India was the first country to ban Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’, which was nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize. In the case of Taslima, two of her books, ‘Dwikhandito’ and ‘Nirbasan’ could not be released in Bengal. When she was kicked out of Kolkata in 2007, then to her fellow Bengalis remained comfortably silent. Perhaps her books being banned was a boon in disguise, otherwise, she could have met the same fate as M.M. Kalburgi. When Kalburgi’s books and writings could not be banished, he was murdered.   

It has been alleged that Mr Shekhar has created a promiscuous protagonist for this story who has hurt the dignity of the tribal women.

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Among the democratically elected nations, India has always been on the forefront of literary censorship. The news of banning a certain book thus does not surprise us, we must have become quite habituated with such news. But at times the absurdity in reasoning baffles us. The sheer tomfoolery of the aggrieved party seems so annoying that even our pea-sized brains cannot take it anymore. We, for once, should wake up to the reality.

Take, for instance, the case of ‘The Adivasi will not dance’ which by the way is an anthology of short stories. The legislators from BJP, Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha are, particularly, perturbed with a story named ‘November is the month of migration’. The story, which is literally short (only two and a half pages long), has been tagged as pornographic. It has been alleged that Mr Shekhar has created a promiscuous protagonist for this story who has hurt the dignity of the tribal women.

Absurdity in contemporary India comes to a dime a dozen, from performing yajna for Donald Trump to theorising about interplanetary travel in the Vedic age, you name it. Visualising the twenty-year-old Talamai Kisku, the protagonist of Mr Shekhar’s story, as a promiscuous woman is as absurd as the aforementioned ones. Talamai has come from Santhal Pargana to the Bardhaman district of West Bengal in search of a job and some food. She does not find a job but instead finds a policeman who lures her with a cold bread pakora. Not just the bread pakora, in exchange for sex, Talamai is supposed to get some money too.

Mr Shekhar writes, “Talamai takes care not to scream, or even wince. She knows the routine. She has to do nothing, only spread her legs and lie quite”. Talamai indeed does nothing. Even when the policeman squeezes her breasts or bites her nipples, she does not scream, she just keeps thinking about the promised food and the money.

You did not read the story and that is how you know that Talamai Kisku has shattered the dignity of the tribal women of Jharkhand.

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Does she seem like a promiscuous woman to you? Absolutely, if you haven’t paid attention to the story I was telling you. Doesn’t it all make sense now? You did not read the story and that is how you know that Talamai Kisku has shattered the dignity of the tribal women of Jharkhand. You did not even hold the book in your hands and that is why you know that Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar must be legally prosecuted for stories which he never wrote.

I guess unlike Talamai Kisku, the legislators from Jharkhand do not visit the state of Bengal that often. Good for them. Otherwise, they could have heard about a story named ‘Draupadi’ which was written by Mahasweta Devi. Dopdi (Draupadi) Mejhen, a Santhal woman, was not looking for either money or food, she was still gang raped by the army jawans because she was enlisted as a terrorist of the state.

After regaining her senses, Draupadi refused to put on any clothing and said that she was not ashamed because she could not find a man in the army camp. Stark naked, she kept pushing the commander of the army with her two mangled breasts. Imagine the audacity of the character and her creator. How would the legislators have punished them? We all know very well that Draupadi and Talamai do exist, both in our illusion as well as in our reality. And, we have miserably failed them and millions of other tribal women. Their actions differ but they display the same indifference and despair.

It is already quite absurd that instead of the award he has been suspended from his job.

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I have a feeling that most of the legislators who have been asking for Mr Shekhar’s blood believe in karma. I have an advice for them, give him the ‘Jharkhand Ratna’ award, possibly a promotion too. It is already quite absurd that instead of the award he has been suspended from his job. Before the situation becomes more surreal, please take care of your karma.

‘The Adivasi will not dance’ is an outstanding book which looks at an extraordinary breadth of tribal issues that were never discussed in popular fiction. For example, the very first story of the volume, ‘They eat meat’ introduces us to a non-vegetarian tribal family who had to settle down in the western city of Vadodara where vegetarianism was the rule of the day. The daily troubles that the family dealt with are still alive and kicking, in reality. In any case, without our daily intake of silver carp or chicken, our illusory world will certainly not sustain.

Mr Shekhar deserves a thank you note for reminding us that happiness prevails only when “no one minds what we eat and we don’t mind what others eat”. And he certainly deserves much more than a thank you note (again, how about the Jharkhand Ratna?) for saying in public, for once and all, that Adivasis will not dance.

Not just the common people, even Indian auteurs such as Satyajit Ray had believed in the stereotypical images of tribal men and women dancing. Mr Shekhar’s dictum, however, does not originate from the lessons learnt from our past mistakes, the pronouncement is there because we fail to answer a simple question, “Do we have a reason to be happy”? 

With such an absurd book ban in place, we certainly do not have any reason to celebrate. Not even on our independence day.                         

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