Wednesday, February 27, 2013

దిల్ దుఖ్ నగర్ By - కృపాకర్ మాదిగ



అయ్యో నా బిడ్డలార
ఈ నెత్తుటి కళ్లాపిని చూడలేను
మీ నిస్సహాయ రోదనల్ని వినలేను
బయటపడ్డ పేగులు
తెగిపోయిన కాల్జేతులు
పేలిపోయిన కండ ముద్దలు
పగిలిపోయిన చెవుల పొరలు

గాల్లో కలిసిన ఊపిర్లు
చెల్లాచెదరైన నూకలు
మట్టిలో కలిసిన మెతుకులు
పిల్లలవో పెద్దలవో
నల్లనివో తెల్లనివో
హిందువువో

మహమ్మదీయునివో
ఎంచలేను తేల్చలేను
అవన్నీ నా బిడ్డలవే
అన్నీ నావే, నా లోపలివే

నా అశోక వనంలో
కొమ్మల్ని నరికి
మొక్కల్ని పెరికి
అభద్రతల మంటబెట్టిన
దొంగలెవరో నాకు తెలవాల
ఈ నెత్తుటి సాగు ఆగాల

- కృపాకర్ మాదిగ

Andhra Jyothi Telugu News Paper Dated : 28/2/2013 

Dalitula Vastradara Marali By Chandra Bhan Prasad







Vaartha Telugu News Paper Dated : 27/2/2013 




Avitikathalu Book Release Programme Video's


Published on Jan 26, 2013


Shanker Sampangi, PhD student at EFLU along with Vemula Yellaiah have edited a book "Avitikathalu" in Telugu, it talks about the differentlyabled. The above programme was organized to release the book at EFLU.

Avitikathalu (Telugu Disability Stories) Book Release function at EFL-University-Hyderabad.
Edited by Vemula Yellaiah, (Modern Dalit Writer) and Shanker Sampangi Research Scholar, EFLU

Published by Aviti Sahithi Samstha,Hyderabad 2013.

Book Release Programme Dated: 17/2/2013


Vemula Yellaiah (Editor), Shanker Sampangi (Editor), 


Chief Guests : 

Kolukaluri Enoch (Former Vice Chancellor, SVU) BS Ramulu (Bahujan Philosopher ) 
Dr Bhangya Bhukya Associate Professor (Dept of Social Exclusion Studies), Dr Prakash Kona Associate Professor (Cell for the Disabled Co-Ordinator )Dr K Satyanarayana Associate Professor (Dept of Cultural Studies ) Dr Darla Venkateswarlu Associate Professor, University of Hyderabad , Gogu Shyamala Dalit Women Writer (Anveshi Women Studies Center, Hyd) and Vimalakka (Singer) Telangana United Front.




Part --1 Video Book Release Programme 






Part-2 Video : Book Release Programme 




Joopaka Shubadra talks about Rape, Caste, Feminism, Dalit movement etc By


Published on Feb 27, 2013


The interview was taken many months before. In this video Joopaka Shubadra speaks about mainstream feminism. As usual we have not edited the video, just to present whatever she spoke. Shubadra is an activist, writer, poet, and very powerful writer in Telugu. One of the important point she says that if people say only because of tight dress women are getting raped, then why rape on dalit/adivasi women are more, why? its only because caste?  Where is our culture? we celebrate Naragashura's murder, Durga pooja, these were never out cultural politics. Bharat Mata, Telengana Thalli, Witch Hunt, dappu


Source : Dalit Camera Published Dated: 27/2/2013





Avitikathalu : Vikalangula Batuku Chitrana Book Release news paper coverage


Avitikathalu : Vikalangula Batuku Chitrana Book Release news paper coverage 

Eenadu Telugu News Paper Dated : 18/1/2012 


Vemula Yellaiah (Editor), Shanker Sampangi (Editor), Kolukaluri Enoch (Former Vice Chancellor, SVU) BS Ramulu (Bahujan Philosopher ) Dr Bhangya Bhukya Associate Professor (Dept of Social Exclusion Studies), Dr Prakash Kona Associate Professor (Cell for the Disabled Co-Ordinator )Dr K Satyanarayana Associate Professor (Dept of Cultural Studies ) Dr Darla Venkateswarlu Associate Professor, University of Hyderabad , Gogu Shyamala Dalit Women Writer (Anveshi Women Studies Center, Hyd) and Vimalakka (Singer) Telangana United Front.



Andhra Jyothi Telugu News Paper Dated : 18/1/2013 


Vemula Yellaiah (Editor), Shanker Sampangi (Editor), Kolukaluri Enoch (Former Vice Chancellor, SVU) BS Ramulu (Bahujan Philosopher ) Dr Bhangya Bhukya Associate Professor (Dept of Social Exclusion Studies), Dr Prakash Kona Associate Professor (Cell for the Disabled Co-Ordinator )Dr K Satyanarayana Associate Professor (Dept of Cultural Studies ) Dr Darla Venkateswarlu Associate Professor, University of Hyderabad , Gogu Shyamala Dalit Women Writer (Anveshi Women Studies Center, Hyd) and Vimalakka (Singer) Telangana United Front.

Avitikathalu Book Review By Namasete Telangana Sunday Magazine







Avitikathalu Namasete Telangana sunday magazine Dated: 17/2/2013


Vikalangula Kathalaku Ahwanam---Andhra Jyothi





Andhra Jyothi News Paper Cutting ....Dated 12/9/2012



వికలాంగుల కథలకు ఆహ్వానం




తెలుగు సాహితి చరిత్ర లో వికలాంగుల జీవిత గాదలకు.సంబందించిన  కథలు ఇప్పటికి రావల్సినంతగా రాలేదని చెప్పా వలసి ఉంది. ప్రస్తుత సమాజంలో అందరి కన్నా కడు బీదలుగా కష్టాలు, కన్నీళ్ళు, అవమానాలు, అవరోధాలు, అంధకారం నిండిన వికలాంగుల జీవితాలలో సామజిక, రాజకీయ, విద్య, ఉద్యోగ, బతుకు గాథలను అత్మనున్యత భావానికి లోనై ప్రాణ త్యాగం చేసిన సమస్త వికలాంగులను తెలుగు సాహిత్యం లో వీరులుగా సృజనకారులైనటువంటి కథా రచయితల, నుండి వికలాంగులు అయినటువంటి పాటకులు, కవులు, కళాకారులూ చైతన్య సీలురు వీళ్ళ బతుకులను కథలుగా మల్చి రాభోవు తరానికి తెలుగు సాహితికి మీరందించే బతుకు కథలను "అవిటి సాహితి సంస్త" హ్యిద్రాబాద్ ప్రచురిన్చాదాల్చింది. తేది సెప్టెంబర్ 31 లొపు కథలను పంపగలరని సకల వికలాంగుల విజ్ఞప్తి గా స్వికరించాగాలరని కోరుతున్నాము. 

కథలు పంపాల్సిన చిరునామా:                                                                                                                                              సంపాదకులు 
అవిటి సాహితి సంస్త                                                                                                                                                   శంకర్ సంపంగి  (ఇఫ్లూ స్కాలర్)
రూం నెంబర్ ఏ --10                                                                                                                                                  వేముల ఎల్లయ్య (ఓ యు స్కాలర్) 
బసీర్ మెన్స్ హాస్టల్ 
ఇఫ్లూ విశ్వవిద్యాలయం 
హైదరాబాద్‌
ఫోన్ నెంబర్ : 9866624901 Email : sampangishnkr03@gmail .com 


Press Statement ....Dated: 29/8/2012

a panel discussion on “AVITI KATHALU: Vikalangula Batuku Chitrana”




Department of Cultural Studies, EFL University
Invites you to a panel discussion on
  
“AVITI KATHALU: Vikalangula Batuku Chitrana”

 (Disability Stories, edited by Vemula Yallaiah and Shankar Sampangi)

“Disability stories” questions the hegemony of dominant fiction and non-fiction writers in Telugu literature. Vemula Yallaiah (Dalit Modern Writer) and Shankar Sampangi have critically examined the frameworks of disability stories and they initiated an open debate. It challenges the mainstream writers in Telugu literature for their constant denial for disability personalities since its inception. The plight of persons with disability is always at stake even in literature. It also deals with the core of discrimination with multiple disabilities. It articulates a constant attempt to bring the persons with disability into mainstream where as they socially and economically excluded. It emphasis the popular civil and human rights movements for constitutional safeguards and the equal distribution of economy.

Discussants:

Chair: Dr. K. Satyanarayana (Dept of Cultural Studies),
          Dr. Uma Bhrugubanda (Dept of Cultural Studies ),
          Manohar N(Research Scholar, Dept of Cultural Studies),
          Vemula Yellaiah (Modern Dalit Writer, Osmania University) 
          Shankar Sampangi (Research Scholar, Dept of Cultural Studies).


 Date:             February 27 (Wednesday)
Time:              3PM-6PM
Venue:           Room# 2, First Floor, New Academic Block, EFL University, Hyderabad


ALL ARE WELCOME

AVITI KATHALU Book Release at University of Hyderabad






Avitikathalu Book Release Programme at University of Hyderabad
Dated : 28/2/2013 Time : 2:30 
Organizing : Empowerment Committee University of Hyderabad 

Thursday, February 21, 2013

తెలంగాణ ఫ్యూడలిజం - సామాజిక న్యాయం - కంచ ఐలయ్య



తెలంగాణ ఫ్యూడలిజం దాని వత్తాసు దారులైన రెడ్డి-వెలమలు వారి కనుసన్నల్లో లేదా నాయకత్వంలో ఒకవేళ తెలంగాణ వస్తే సామాజిక న్యాయం పరిస్థితి ఎలా ఉంటుందనే అంశంపై ఈ మధ్య కొంత చర్చ జరుగుతోంది. ఇప్పుడున్న దశలో తెలంగాణ ప్రత్యేక రాష్ట్రాన్ని కోరుకోవాలా వద్దా అన్నది ఈ అంశంతోనే ముడిపడి ఉంది. తెలంగాణ ఫ్యూడలిజాన్ని (ముఖ్యంగా ఇక్కడి రెడ్డి - వెలమల ఫ్యూడల్ విలువల్ని) అంచనా వేసేటప్పుడు ప్రపంచంలో వివిధ దేశాల్లో, దేశంలోని వివిధ రాష్ట్రాల్లో బతికి బట్టగట్టి, మారిన-లేదా మారుతున్న ఫ్యూడల్ వ్యవస్థలపై ఒక మంచి చారిత్రక అంచనా అవసరం. ఫ్యూడల్ శక్తులు చాలా దేశాల్లో అక్కడ ముందుకొచ్చిన విప్లవ పోరాటాల్లో, వాటితోపాటు అభివృద్ధి కానారంభించిన పెట్టుబడిదారీ సంబంధాల్లో మారుతూ వచ్చాయి.

మనదేశంలో కూడా ఈ పరిస్థితిని మనం చూడవచ్చు. కొన్ని దేశాల్లో కమ్యూనిస్టు శక్తులు పోరాటాలు చేశాయి. మరికొన్ని దేశాల్లో పెట్టుబడిదారీ వ్యవస్థ గర్భం నుంచి పుట్టుకొచ్చిన ప్రజాస్వామిక శక్తులు పోరాటం చేశాయి. ఫ్యూడల్ శక్తులు మారాయా లేదా అనేదానికి కొలబద్ద - ఆ దేశంలో లేదా ఆ ప్రాంతంలో పెట్టుబడిదారీ సంబంధాలు అభివృద్ధి చెందాయా లేదా అనే దానిపై ఆధారపడి ఉంటుంది. మనదేశంలో చాలా ప్రాంతాల్లో ఫ్యూడల్ వ్యతిరేక పోరాటాలు ఫ్యూడల్ శక్తులను కలుపుకొని లేదా అగ్రకులాల నాయకత్వంలో జరిగాయి. ఇంకా జరుగుతూనే ఉన్నాయి.

కొన్ని పాంత్రాల్లో ఇరవయ్యవ శతాబ్దపు మొదటి దశ - లేదా మధ్య దశలో బలమైన కమ్యూనిస్టు ఉద్యమాలు జరిగాయి. అందులో తెలంగాణ, బెంగాల్, కేరళలలో చరిత్రలో ప్ర పోరాటాలు జరిగాయి. ఈ మూడు చోట్ల ఫ్యూడల్ శక్తులు కులతత్వంతో ముడివడి ఉన్నాయి కనుక తమ ఆధిపత్యాన్ని చాలా పదిలంగా కాపాడుకున్నాయి. కానీ తెలంగాణలో రెడ్లు-వెలమలు (ఇక్కడి బ్రాహ్మణుల అండతో) బెంగాల్ కేరళ కంటే ఎంత ప్రజావ్యతిరేకమైనవిగా వ్యవహరిస్తున్నాయో చూడాలి.

ప్రపంచంలో ఏ ప్రాంతంలో లేని విధంగా ఇక్కడ రెండు ఫ్యూడల్ వ్యతిరేక పోరాటాలు జరిగాయి. మొదటిది చరిత్రకెక్కిన తెలంగాణ సాయుధ పోరాటం. రెండవది మళ్ళీ మహత్తర రక్తపాతంతో కూడిన నక్సల్‌బరీ పోరాటం. ఈ రెండు పోరాటాలు తెలంగాణలోని రెడ్డి, వెలమ భూస్వాములకు వ్యతిరేకంగా జరిగినవే. ఇం దులో వేలాదిమంది చనిపోయారు. గ్రామాలు రక్త-సిక్త మయ్యాయి. ఈ రెండు పోరాటాల్లో ఇక్కడి ఆదివాసీ, ఎస్సీ, బీసీ ముందుగుండు సామగ్రిలా కాల్చబడ్డారు. పోరాట ఫలితాలు విచిత్రంగా రెడ్డి-వెలమలకు దక్కాయి. 

అతి కొద్దికాలంలోనే ఇక్కడ కమ్యూనిస్టు-విప్లవ చైతన్యం కూడా వారి కాళ్ళకింద మట్టిలా మారిపోయింది. ఆంధ్రలో ఫ్యూడలిజానికి వ్యతిరేకంగా ఇంత భీకర పోరాటం జరగలేదు. రాయలసీమలో అరకొర తప్ప ఇటువంటి పోరాటం జరగలేదు. అయినా అక్కడి భూస్వామ్య శక్తులు ఎంతో కొంత పెట్టుబడిదారీ శక్తులుగా ఎదిగాయి. రాయలసీమలో ఫ్యాక్షనిజంతో కలగలిసి లుంపన్ పెట్టుబడి ఎదుగుతుంది. తెలంగాణలో ఏ పెట్టుబడికీ తావులేని ఫ్యూడలిజం రెండు భీకర విప్లవ పోరాటాల తరువాత కూడా ఎలా బతికి ఉంది? ఈ శక్తులే అగ్రకుల ఆధిపత్య కమ్యూనిస్టు పార్టీలను కూడా ఇక్కడ లేకుండా ఎలా చెయ్యగలిగాయి?

ఇక్కడి ఫ్యూడల్ శక్తులు బలంగా - ఫ్యూడలిజంలోనే కూరుకొని ఉండి ఆధిపత్య శక్తులుగా కొనసాగుతున్నాయనటానికి 1969 తెలంగాణ ఉద్యమంలో, ఇప్పుడు జరుగుతున్న 'వసూలు ఉద్యమంలో' వారే అన్ని కులాలను తమ చెప్పు కాలికింద పెట్టుకొని నడుపుతున్నారనేది ప్రూఫ్ కాదా? ఈ శక్తులు తెలంగాణ సాయుధ పోరాటంలో ఎదిగిన కొద్దిమంది ఎస్సీ, బీసీ నాయకులను తమ చెప్పుచేతల్లోకి తెచ్చుకోగలిగారు. ఆ తరువాత 2001 నుంచి తిరిగి వెలమ-రెడ్డి నాయకత్వంలో ముందుకొచ్చిన 'వసూలు ఉద్యమంలో' అన్ని రకాల దళిత-బహుజన నాయకత్వాన్ని, మేధావి వర్గాన్ని (కొద్ది మందే ఉన్నారు) పూర్తిగా తమ చెప్పుచేతుల్లోకి తెచ్చుకున్నారు. 

1969 నాటికి ఎన్నికల రంగంలో ఇంకా బతికి ఉన్న కమ్యూనిస్టు ప్రజాస్వామిక చైతన్యాన్ని (ఎన్నికల రంగంలో) కూడా చంపగలిగారు. మళ్ళీ ఎన్.టి. రామారావు పార్టీ పెట్టి కమ్యూనిస్టులకు ప్రాణం పోసే వరకూ తెలంగాణ ఫ్యూడల్ శక్తులు కమ్యూనిస్టు పార్టీలకు సీట్లు కూడా దక్కనివ్వలేదు. ఈ విధంగా కరుడుగట్టి, నిలదొక్కుకుని, తెలంగాణ సాయుధ పోరాట ఫలితాలను సైతం మట్టిలో తొక్కి గ్రామాల్లో బీభత్సం సృష్టిస్తున్న తెలంగాణ భూస్వామ్య వర్గంపైన నక్సలైటు ఉద్యమాల్లో చేరి ప్రజలు తిరుగుబాటు చేశారు. నేనింతకు ముందే చెప్పినట్లు 6,000 మంది ప్రాణాలను ఈ ఫ్యూడలిజం బలిగొన్నది.

ఆ పోరాటాలన్నిటినీ మళ్ళీ తెలంగాణ ఉద్యమం పేరుతో మాజీ నక్సలైట్లందర్నీ, నక్సలిజం చుట్టూ తిరిగి కవిత్వమో, కథలో రాసిన రచయితల్ని మళ్ళీ తమ గడీల్లో బంధించగలిగింది. ఇప్పుడు గ్రామాల్లో కూడా కమ్యూనిస్టు-నక్సల్‌బరీ-మావోయిస్టు చైతన్యం అడుగంటిపోయి దొరల 'ఇన్నోవా' కార్లలో కవులు - కళాకారులు, మాజీ నక్సలైట్లు 'జై తెలంగాణ' అంటూ తిరుగుతున్నారు. ఇక్కడి రెడ్డి, వెలమలు ఎంత కరుడుగట్టిన - తెలివైన ఫ్యూడల్స్ అయితే ప్రపంచాన్నే గడగడలాడించిన మార్క్స్‌ను, లెనిన్, మావోలను సైతం తమ గడీల్లో నయా వెట్టి చాకిరీదార్లుగా మార్చగలిగారు? ఇది మాటల విషయం కాదు. అందువల్లే తెలంగాణ ఫ్యూడల్ రెడ్డి - వెలమల్ని మిగతా ప్రాంతపు ఫ్యూడల్స్‌తో పోల్చడం సాధ్యం కాదు.

సమైక్య ఆంధ్రలో ఆంధ్రుల దోపిడీతో పాటు ఈ ప్రాంతంలోని ఎస్సీ, ఎస్టీ, ఓబీసీలు అభివృద్ధి కాకుండా తెలంగాణ దొరలు చేయగలిగిన ప్రత్యేక పనులున్నాయి. ఈ రాష్ట్రంలో కమ్యూనిస్టు పార్టీలు ఆంధ్ర, రాయలసీమల్లో ఎప్పుడూ బలాన్ని సంపాదించుకోలేదు. అయినా అవి అభివృద్ధి చెందాయి (ఎంతో కొంత). ఇక్కడ కమ్యూనిస్టు - మావోయిస్టు పార్టీలు కేంద్రీకరించి పోరాడింది ఇక్కడి ఫ్యూడలిజాన్ని బలహీనపర్చి అభివృద్ధి పథంలో ఈ ప్రాంతాన్ని ముందుకు తీసుకువెళ్ళడానికే. కానీ ఇక్కడి ఫ్యూడల్ శక్తులు కమ్యూనిజాన్ని - మావోయిజాన్ని మట్టుపెట్టగలిగాయి. 

ఈ ప్రాంతం అభివృద్ధి కాకుండా ముఖ్యంగా విద్యారంగం అభివృద్ధి కాకుండా చూసుకున్నాయి. ఇక్కడి అభివృద్ధిని ఆంధ్ర పాలకులు మాత్రమే అడ్డుకోలేదు. తెలంగాణ దొరలు ఈ పనిలో మంచి పాత్ర పోషించారు. ఎక్కడైనా గానీ ఫ్యూడలిజం విశాల ప్రజల మధ్య విద్య అభివృద్ధి కాకుండా చూసుకుంటుంది. ఆధునిక విద్య ప్రజాస్వామీకరించబడి అభివృద్ధి అయిన అన్ని వర్గాల ప్రజల్ని ఆధునిక చదువులోకి రానిస్తే ఆ ప్రాంతంలో పెట్టుబడి కూడా ఎంతోకొంత అభివృద్ధి అవుతుంది.

ఈ ప్రాంత ఫ్యూడల్స్ మొదటి నుంచి విద్య అభివృద్ధి కాకుండా చూసుకున్నారు. గ్రామ స్థాయిలో స్కూళ్ళు నడవకుండా చూసుకున్నారు. ప్రత్యేక తెలంగాణ ఉద్యమం పేరుతో 1969 నుంచి యూనివర్సిటీ విద్యను ఏమాత్రం నిలకడ లేనిదిగా ఉండేందుకు అన్ని రకాల ప్రయత్నాలు చేశారు. ప్రజాస్వామిక రాజ్యాంగంలో, ఎన్నికల రంగాన్ని ఫ్యూడలీకరించి, దాని ద్వారా డబ్బు సమీకరించి ఫ్యూడల్ లగ్జరీలకు ఖర్చు చెయ్యడం తెలంగాణ ఫ్యూడల్స్ ప్రత్యేక లక్షణం. 

దానికి ఈ ప్రాంతపు బ్రాహ్మణిజం అన్ని 'రూపాల్లో' వంత పాడుతూ వచ్చింది. 1969 నుంచి ఇప్పటిదాకా కోద్దోగొప్ప చదువు బ్రాహ్మణుల చేతిల్లో, డబ్బు, రాజకీయ అధికారం రెడ్డి-వెలమల చేతుల్లో పెట్టుకొని ఇక్కడి విద్యారంగాన్ని సర్వనాశనం చేశారు. ప్రజలకు ఇటువంటి ఫ్యూడల్ కుట్ర అర్థం కావడం కష్టం. తెలంగాణ రాష్ట్ర సమస్య అన్ని రకాల ఐడియాలిజికల్ శక్తుల్ని నయా గడీలకు తాబేదార్లను చేసింది కనుక అర్థం చేసుకునే సత్తా ఎవరికీ లేకుండా పోయింది. యూనివర్సిటీల స్థితే చూడండి. ఈ ఫ్యూడల్ కుటుంబాల నుంచి వచ్చిన వారు పైరవీలతో, కుల/రాజకీయ బలంతో ప్రొఫెసర్ వృత్తిలో చేరి అక్కడ చదువును అభివృద్ధి చెయ్యడం కంటే నాశనం చెయ్యడం లక్ష్యంగా పెట్టుకున్నారు. 

పెద్ద సంఖ్యలో యూనివర్సిటీ కాలేజీ టీచర్లు అయ్యి టీచింగ్‌కు, రీసెర్చ్‌కి ఏ ప్రాధాన్యం లేని స్థితికి తెచ్చారు. రిజర్వేషన్లను ముందు అమలుచెయ్య నిరాకరించారు. తప్పని స్థితిలో డిగ్రీలు ఉండి, సీరియస్ టాలెంట్ లేనటువంటి వారిని ఎంచుకొని నియమించడం ఒక పనిగా పెట్టుకున్నారు. ఉద్యోగంలో చేరగానే అడ్మినిస్ట్రేటివ్ పదవులు, ఫైనాన్స్ కంపెనీలు, రియల్ ఎస్టేట్ వ్యాపారాలు, రాజకీయ నాయకుల ఇళ్ల చుట్టూ చక్కర్లు ప్రొఫెసర్ల ముఖ్య డ్యూటీలుగా మార్చారు. తమ పిల్లల్ని ప్రైవేటు సంస్థల్లో చదివించడం కింది కులాల వాళ్ళు ఉండే ప్రభుత్వ సంస్థలను నాశనం చెయ్యడం ఒక 'ఫ్యూడల్ విద్యా విలువగా' రూపొందించారు.

ఇక్కడి పాత యూనివర్సిటీలైన ఉస్మానియా, కాకతీయల్ని చూస్తే వాటిని వీరేమి చేశారో అర్థమౌతుంది. ఈ స్థితిలోనే కేంద్రం దాని అవసరాలకొద్దీ (ప్రభుత్వాన్ని జగన్, కె.వి.పిల నుంచి రక్షించుకునేందుకు) 2009 డిసెంబర్ 9 ప్రకటన చెయ్యగానే ఫ్యూడల్ కుటుంబాల నుంచి వచ్చిన ప్రొఫెసర్లంతా జేఏసీల్లో పని, పైసల వసూళ్ళు, నాయకత్వ ఉపన్యాసాలు పెద్ద ఎత్తున మొదలుపెట్టారు. అన్ని కులాల టీచర్లకు కూడా చదువు చెప్పకుండా జీతం రావడం, జేఏసీల్లో చేరి నినాదాలివ్వడం సులభమైంది. ఒక్క పుస్తకం గానీ, వ్యాసంగానీ రాయని వ్యక్తులు ప్రొఫెసర్ డిజిగ్నేషన్‌తో రోజూ రోడ్లమీద ఉండడం ఇక్కడ తప్ప, ఎక్కడా సాధ్యం కాదు. 

ఇదంతా ఫ్యూడలిజం ప్రభావమే. జేఏసీల పేరుతో మళ్ళీ దొరలు 'మజా' చేసుకుంటుంటే మావోయిస్టు మేధావులు సైతం 'విముక్తి ప్రాంతాలేర్పడుతున్నట్లు' గంతులెయ్యడం ఇక్కడే చూస్తాం. ఇదే తెలంగాణ ఫ్యూడలిజపు ప్రత్యేక లక్షణం. ఇది ప్రజల మెదళ్లను తొలిచేసింది. ఇటువంటి శక్తులు ఒకవేళ ప్రత్యేక తెలంగాణ ఏర్పడితే రెండు ఎన్నికల వరకూ అధికారం తమ చేతిలో ఉంచుకొని ఆ తరువాత బీసీ, ఎస్సీ, ఎస్టీలను రానిస్తారా? మావోను, లెనిన్‌ను, మార్క్స్‌నే బ్రాందీగా మల్చుకొని తాగినోళ్ళు బీసీ, ఎస్సీ, ఎస్టీ మేధావుల్ని, రాజకీయ నాయకుల్ని బతకనిస్తారా? ప్రత్యేక రాష్ట్రం కోసం ఇప్పుడు ప్రజలు (తెలంగాణ ఆడవాళ్ళు) బట్టలు కట్టుకొని బతుకమ్మ ఆడితే అది వచ్చిన తెల్లారి నుంచే 'బట్టలిప్పి బతుకమ్మ' ఆడిస్తారు. తెలంగాణ జీవితం ఒక షేక్స్‌పియర్ డ్రామా.

అన్ని ట్రాజడీలకు అది ఆలయం. ఇక్కడి ఫ్యూడల్స్ చరిత్రలోనే సర్వమానవ సమానత్వాన్ని కోరుకునే లక్షణం లేదు. ఇన్ని విప్లవ పోరాటాల తరువాత కూడా ఇక్కడ ఫ్యూడల్స్‌లో ఏమాత్రం మానవ విలువలు పెరుగలేదు. ఫ్యూడల్స్‌లో చదువు ద్వారా నేర్చుకునే సంస్కారం ఉండదు. చదువును చంపే సంస్కారమే ఎక్కువగా ఉంటుంది. ఈ స్థితిలో ఎస్సీ, ఎస్టీ, బీసీలు ఏం చెయ్యాలనేది పెద్ద సమస్యే? తెలంగాణ చందమామను చూపెట్టి విద్యావంతులంతా రోడ్లమీద ఉండడం, ఏ పనిమీద కేంద్రీకరించకపోవడం అలవాటైంది. ఇక్కడి ఫ్యూడల్ శక్తులను విమర్శించినా పాఠాలు చెప్పకుండా తిరిగే పంతుళ్లకూ చాలా కోపం వస్తుంది. గడిలోని కవులకు, కళాకారులకు కోపం వస్తుంది. ఇదిప్పుడు ఆలోచనకు రక్షణ లేని రాజ్యం.

ఈ ఫ్యూడలిజంలోని ఒక లక్షణం కొంత ఆశను మిగిల్చింది. కేంద్ర ప్రభుత్వపు పైసలు - పదవులు, బిజినెస్ డీల్స్ ఆశపెడితే అది తెలంగాణ నినాదాన్ని, గెలిచిన సీట్లను అమ్ముతుంది. ఈసారి వసూళ్ళు ప్రధానమయ్యాయి. తెలంగాణ రాష్ట్రం రాదని ప్రధాన నాయకులుగా ఉన్న ఫ్యూడల్స్ అందరికీ తెలుసు. సామాజిక న్యాయం వారి ఎజెండా కాదు. కానివ్వరు. ఈ దఫా తెలంగాణ ఉద్యమం పేరుతో సాధారణ ప్రజలు (ముఖ్యంగా ఎస్సీ, ఎస్టీ, బీసీలు) ఎక్కువగా నష్టపొయ్యారు. 

ముందు ప్రజల ఉనికి ముఖ్యం, వాళ్ళ పిల్లల చదువులు ముఖ్యం. ముఖ్యంగా ఈసారి తెలంగాణ ఉద్యమం పేరుతో అన్ని రకాల ప్రొగ్రెసివ్ ఆలోచనలకు అడ్డుకట్ట వేశారు. ప్రత్యేక రాష్ట్రం రాదని చెబుతున్నా తమ ఉనికినీ, సంపాదనలను కాపాడుకునేందుకు ఏవో కొన్ని ఉద్యమాలు నడపడం వారి అవసరం. ఎస్సీ, బీసీ, ఎస్టీల్లారా పోలీసు దెబ్బలు, కేసులుమీకు, పైసలు, పదవులు వాళ్ళకు. అయినా ఇష్టమైతే వారితోనే ఉండండి. తెలంగాణ రాదు; వచ్చినా మీకేమీ దొరకదు.

- కంచ ఐలయ్య
సుప్రసిద్ధ రచయిత, సామాజిక శాస్త్రవేత్త

Andhra Jyothi Telugu News Paper Dated : 22/2/2013

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Andhra Pradesh SC, ST Sub Plan


The Legislative Council of Andhra Pradesh on 2 December 2012 had passed the historic Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan (Planning, Allocation and Utilization of Financial Resources) Act, 2012. Through the passage of this bill Andhra Pradesh had become the first state to make such legislation, of all the states in the country by giving statutory status to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribe sub-plans by ensuring allocation of funds to these sections in proportion to their population. The legislation would be helpful in ensuring the right to equality for SC and ST community apart from being effective in ensuring social security and a comprehensive development of the people of the community.

Historical background of the sub plan: The demand for according legal status to the Sub-Plans was made on states for a long time by the Planning Commission of India and National Development Council (NDC). The ST sub-plan was introduced by Indira Gandhi during 1975-76 and the SC sub-plan during 1979-80. In Andhra Pradesh after Sustained struggle waged by the “Kulavivaksha Vyatireka Porata Sangham (Struggle Committee against Caste Discrimination)” and the CPI (M) has resulted in the enactment of a legislation to ensure proper implementation of SC/ST Sub-Plans.

Why do we need such legislation?The need for separate legislation was felt as funds allocated for SC, ST sub-plan were not utilized fully and efficiently, and have been used for other purposes including infrastructural development by almost all the parties that were in power in spite of Planning Commission’s guidelines on fund utilization. The state government recognized the need for legislation in place of guidelines, as funds were used even for Necklace Road works and cleaning of Hussain Sagar. As per the population, the government should allocate 16.23 pc funds in the budget for SCs and 6.6 pc for STs, but spending remained mostly on paper as the funds meant for them are diverted for other programmes. And in order to prevent diversion of sub-plan funds of SC and ST population for other activities and not to allow them unspent, the AP government has passed this historic bill. There is also a mandatory provision for allocation of almost a fourth of the State’s annual plan of the budget for SC, ST. The legislation will also ensure total utilization of funds allocated to these sections in the planned budget. A state council headed by the chief minister will release the funds and review the progress of utilization of funds. The council will meet at least twice in a year. State-level and district-level SC and ST sub-plans will also be prepared. Last year the state spent only 12.24 per cent for SCs and 5.98 per cent for STs. In the plan budget for 2012-13, as against the state allocation of Rs 8,657 crore under SC sub-plan and Rs 4,060 crore under ST sub-plan. The law would facilitate comprehensive development of SCs and STs and provide them protection and equality on par with other sections of society.

Why do we need a separate plan for SC/ST?It is since ages that there are worst forms of social oppression, economic exploitation and discrimination towards Dalits and Tribals in India. Even after 67 yrs after independence and after several attempts by the government, it is unable to curb the menace of discrimination and uplift the social, economic and status of SC/ST. Recently even the PM Man Mohan Singh accepted that SC/ST are subjected to discrimination and harassment in many parts of the country. And the money which is sanctioned towards the upliftment of the SC/ST is spent for other purposes or left unspent since ages. Thus depriving the legitimate rights for the upliftment of the SC/ST. In order to make better use of the resources and for the overall development of SC/ST a separate sub plan funds was considered as the need of the hour and the government was successful in passing the legislation. This legislation can be considered as first of its kind in the country.

What are these Sub-Plan funds?Sub-Plan funds are those that must be allocated to the SC/ST Nodal Agencies at the time of preparing the budget itself with a mandate to spend them exclusively for the welfare of Dalits and Tribals.

What is Special Component Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan?As general development programmes could not specially cater to their socio-economic upliftment and bring them on par with other sections of society, Special Component Plan (which was later renamed as Scheduled Caste Sub Plan) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) were formulated. The SCSP is an important intervention through the planning process for social, economic and educational development of Scheduled Castes and also for the improvement in their working and living conditions. It was started from the Sixth Five Year Plan period.
In accordance with the government policy all PSU’s under the administrative control of the Ministry makes allocation for various activities related to the welfare of the economic development of the SC/ST and people of the weaker sections in the neighbourhood of project locations through Special Component Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan which are as follows:

Objectives:
  1. Construction of community latrines on the lines of Sulabh Shauchalay’s etc in villages inhabited mainly by SC/ST and weaker sections communities
  2. Construction of schools/collage buildings, scholarships, adult education, distribution of teaching materials and other aids to SC/ST students, etc
  3. Financial assistance for establishing libraries in villages inhabited by SC/ST communities
  4. Construction of open air stage cum training halls
  5. Provision of community health facilities, free medical services, medicines through medical camp and family planning camps, etc
  6. Provision of drinking water facility to nearby villages through ring wells/tube wells, etc
  7. Provision of agriculture and irrigation facilities etc in surrounding villages of project locations
  8. Financial assistance to SC/ST women through co-operative societies for providing facilities for handlooms, weaving, etc so as to enable them for self –employment
  9. Financial assistance to physically handicapped persons belonging to SC/ST communities for their rehabilitation.
  10. Vocational training guidance to enable the SC/ST persons become self reliant under the scheme “Earn while you learn”. Training are arranged in various trades, like basket weaving, coir-rope making, sewing, poultry training, fishing, tailoring, typing, motor driving as well as supply of necessary tools, machines, etc
  11. Economic development /self employment by organising entrepreneurship development training programme
  12. Welfare programmes such as distribution of seeds and fertilizers free of cost to needy SC/ST farmers and distribution of smoke less chulas and solar cookers to SC/ST women and also construction of approach roads and adoption of villages.
  13. Social forestry schemes like distribution of fruit bearing seeds, sapling and other plants etc
Issues raised before and after the passage of the bill:The opposition sought an amendment that the allocation of the funds should be based on ABCD groups within the SCs based on their populations and socio-economic conditions. The chief minister pointed out that in 2004 Supreme Court had struck down the classification of SCs into sub-groups as unconstitutional and said no fresh law could be passed in any form on the issue.

APCC president said that he would raise the issue of separate sub-plans for Backward Classes and the Minorities in the Assembly. He said that the BCs and the minorities should get their fair share in budget. His support for the separate budgetary allocation is similar to the demand by the MIM asking for sub-plan for the minorities.

Mind this gap (The national convention for youth with disabilities) By GARIMELLA SUBRAMANIAM



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GET ON BOARD:For India’s recent spectacular growth story to continue, the Millennium Development Goals must be achieved. Key to realising MDGs is to mainstream the inclusion of the disabled. —PHOTO: R. RAVINDRAN
GET ON BOARD:For India’s recent spectacular growth story to continue, the Millennium Development Goals must be achieved. Key to realising MDGs is to mainstream the inclusion of the disabled. —PHOTO: R. RAVINDRAN
The national convention for youth with disabilities earlier this month in New Delhi may not have been greeted with the kind of euphoria that is occasioned whenever the country’s youth-power becomes a talking point. But there were enough indications during the two-day event of the glimpses of change unfolding in the profile of people with various impairments in metropolitan India. This is notwithstanding poor implementation of the 1995 law, including the failure to constitute statutory bodies in many States. Not to mention the universal phenomenon of a forbidding physical environment for wheelchair users, the near non-existence of sign language interpreters for the hearing-impaired and the lack of effective protection for people with multiple disabilities. In a small way perhaps, the government, the media, industry and the disability campaigns can take justified pride that a modest beginning has been made in the past two decades to centre stage disability on the equal opportunities and development agenda.
Here was a gathering of a nationwide representation of students with a diverse range of impairments from the country’s top institutes of management, technology, law and the humanities. Their nomination to the convention — held under the aegis of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) — was the outcome of a 2012 survey on the number of students with impairments enrolled in the country’s top-ranking colleges and universities.

Some forward movement

A cross-disabilities gathering of this nature would have been unthinkable a few decades earlier, when all but the visually impaired were the dominant voice in the discourse. Canvassing persons with impairments has become an integral part of the country’s decennial population census since 2001. Similarly, the growing emphasis on the provision of accessible polling booths during elections in recent years has infused new vigour into the very idea of universal adult suffrage in India. It would have been beyond anybody’s imagination until recently that people with impairments could qualify for openings under the Union Public Service Commission.
There is recognition of the moral and pragmatic case for a policy of inclusion and reasonable accommodation within industry as well. A diversity and inclusivity policy is among the key initiatives of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom). The president of Nasscom, Som Mittal, pretty much sums up the case for inclusion in his foreword to the Nasscom Foundation’s Inclusivity at the Workplace compendium. For India’s recent spectacular growth story to continue, the Millennium Development Goals must be achieved, and key to realising the latter is to mainstream the inclusion of the disabled, he says. The initiative calls upon enterprises to formulate explicit policies on inclusion, with targets and performance indicators to measure the impact of diversity. Such evidence of commitment to inclusion enhances credibility among employees and clients. Of value to HR professionals is a manual on hiring persons with disabilities, compiled by the Diversity and Equal Opportunity Centre and with backing from the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Political voices

Palpable during discussions at the convention also was considerable impatience with the pace of progress. For instance, the Planning Commission’s failure to spell out any clear commitments for the disabled in the 12th Plan document, having made a few promises in the previous plan, came in for some criticism. Mr. M.A. Baby, member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), one of the speakers of the session on politics, leadership and disability, was fielding questions on the participation of disabled people in representative bodies on the lines of reserved positions for other minority groups. Ms Meenakshi Lekhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s nominee to the convention, was constrained to clarify that her party’s faith in the family as the principal caregiver for disabled people should not be construed as an attempt to undermine the basic responsibilities of state institutions.
Having ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities way back in 2007, it is imperative upon the government to enact fresh legislation to replace the 1995 law. In the absence of the requisite legal instrument, the government has already had to face up to its inability to furnish the periodic report to the relevant international committee. A more real concern is that it would be impossible for the country to realise the commitments for the welfare of millions of India’s disabled without a new law.

garimella.subramaniam@thehindu.co.in

New Delhi having ratified the U.N. Convention on the rights of the disabled in 2007, it is time the government enacted fresh legislation to replace the 1995 law

The Hindu English News Paper Dated : 21/2/2013

Vikalangulandariki Vidhya Andhani Drakshena By P Rajashekar





Vartha Telugu News Paper Dated : 5/12/2012

The remaking of Narendra Modi By SHIV VISVANATHAN



POWER fascinates and when self-obsessive, it is even more fascinating. Subject to continuous churning, a dynamic sense of power has a magic few other processes possess. Narendra Modi is not just a man obsessed with power, but one who sees himself as a basic medium for it. Here is a Frankenstein redoing himself, creating a new self and a new costume. The remaking of Narendra Modi has to be understood because he stands as one of the major threats to the Indian polity. His attempt to project himself as a future prime minister has paid dividends. This essay is an attempt to understand the remaking of Modi, the modernist as fascist.
Recently, Time magazine asked us to be realistic and adjust to him. The Brookings sees him as a necessary evil, more necessary than evil. The report of think tanks should serve as a warning that recognizes that policy makers are already assuming the coming era of Modi. Yet, there is a paradox here. While Modi consolidates his image outside Gujarat, the state itself might be turning more lukewarm to him. The lack of enthusiasm emerges from three sources. First, elements within the BJP find him a hot potato and would be content to queer his pitch. A whole array of small movements, from the boatyatras to the battle against the Nirma plant, betray an unease with his development policies. Third, the shadow of the 2002 carnage still hangs over him and not all the perfumes of the SIT (Special Investigation Team) have been able to cleanse his little hands.
As opposed to this, the middle class who loves a winner sees in Modi a man who caters to their vulnerabilities and projects their fears in searching for solutions. The middle class sees in Modi a decisive, security oriented, and development centred, urban fixated politician who has voiced all their fears about Muslims, anarchy, security and transformed it into a huge vote bank. The future and Modi appears twinned in the middle class mind. So how did a simple, lower middle class pracharak, already diagnosed as a fanatic and a fascist by the psychologist Ashis Nandy, try to change his spots? It is this remaking of Modi that we must understand if we wish to unmake it.

A decade ago he was a simple cadre functionary. As the pracharak became chief minister, he extended the pracharak’s lens on to his new world. Gujarat was seen a cadre to be transformed. Modi’s world was simple but his idioms were powerful. Like most RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) organizers, he evoked a swadeshi cultural idiom which was ascetic, nationalist and nativist. What was good for Gujarat was good for Gujaratis, as long as Modi determined it. Here was a man uneasy with difference and sought to meet it either by erasing or denying it. He lived out a parallel history where Delhi was seen as an alien region controlled by foreigners. He enacted out the feelings of many Hindus who thought of electoral democracy as majoritarian tolerance that had gone too far, convinced that official history had been unfair to Gujarat which had produced both Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi. Even worse, that Delhi acted as if Gujarat was a non-place. Rectifying history was Modi’s and the RSS’ favourite idea of justice.
This process paralleled the rewriting of history by Stalinists. The Stalinists rewrote history to supress dissent. Modi rectified history to construct and consolidate the mentalities that would sustain him in power. Both used production statistics to create legitimations. Stalin had Stakhanov, the legendary worker who always met unreal production quotas. Modi cited Gujarat as a continuous example of business booms and found the semiotic Stakhanov in himself. He worked overtime to project an image of Gujarat as if he alone was responsible for Gujarat’s success. Continuous repetition creates its form of legitimation and loyalty. By repeatedly reciting the story of Gujarat’s success, Modi created a sleight of hand. The propagandist of Gujarat’s success was gradually seen as the creator and cause for it. It was an act of usurpation that was swift and complete.

The man who complained that history was unfair decided that fairness comes from rewriting it. Modi was sure that propaganda by creating self-fulfilling prophecies becomes true. He realized that he could not be a Gandhi or a Patel. They were ideals or icons he could not mimic. He also understood that the Gujarat of his time had no national figure. The textile strike and the collapse of the industry had created a tabula rasa in terms of models. With the death of textiles, the mahajans and seths who reinforced its orderly world lost their halo. Modi realized that the time was ripe for a new construct, an image constructed out of anxieties, fears, and even the traditions of achievement that have made Gujarat into an increasingly urban society.
Narendra Modi is a master of the language of populist politics. He understands the cultural idiom, in particular both the dialects and the dialectics of resentment; his grasp over the cultural politics of relative deprivation convincing Gujaratis that their contribution to the nation, GNP and history was not recognized. By playing on this unconscious, he shaped it to suit his instrumental politics. Any complaint about Gujarat would immediately switch to these cultural tracks, creating the logic of insider/outsider politics. The insiders were patriots; the outsiders were illiterate, unfair and arrogant. The corollary was obvious. Any insider who criticized Gujarat and its synecdoche, Narendra Modi, was automatically classified as an outsider. This classificatory exile was the task of enthusiasts who found in English journalists and newspapers their targets. English was an alien language and represented the outside.

The imaginary house that Modi built had two sites, the Gujarat of his imagination and Delhi as his imaginary. Delhi was the last colony. It was the location where the imperial forces of the Congress ruled by the empress Sonia lived. Delhi embodied an extension of Mughal rule perpetuated by the Congress. Delhi was non-Gujarat, it embodied colonial history without a hearing aid, deaf to the complaints of its opponents. Delhi was soft on the Muslims creating an invidious politics which favoured bootleggers and smugglers. Modi was adept at taking partial ethnic truths and transforming them into political slurs.
Narendra Modi is a shrewd politican. In recognizing the limits of Hindutva politics conducted in Hindutva idioms, he unconsciously realized that a rampant Hindutva might eventually threaten Hindus themselves. In that sense, his co-religionists were a problem as they are soft on history, preferring a soft democracy more in tune with their syncretic mentality. Modi sensed, early on, that his role as the lumpen speaker gorging on the violence of the riots had to be a temporary phenomenon. He sensed that while such resentment could be a layer in the unconscious, what one needed was an image of a more positive politics, something that could exorcise the ghosts of 2002. More than exorcism, one needed a semiotic makeover to create a set of self-fulfilling prophecies around the new Modi to survive politically. Populist politicians can perpetuate their tyranny by letting the rumour and gossip of a new leader play itself out. As a wag put it, Narendra Modi became ‘The Gentleman’. It is this transformation that we need to understand.

Modi is a cultural construct whose semiotic grammar we have to understand. Semiotics as a theory of signs and symbols served to update Modi. Originally Modi appeared in the drabness of white kurtas, which conveyed a swadeshi asceticism. Khadi is the language for a certain colourlessness. Modi realized that ascetic white was an archaic language. His PROs forged a more colourful Modi, a Brand Modi more cheerful in blue and peach, more ethnic in gorgeous red turbans. His ethnic clothes serve as diacritical markers of respect. He plays the chief in full regalia. Having earned traditional respect, he needed a more formal attire – suits for Davos, a bandhgala for national forums. Hair transplants and Ayurvedic advice served to grow his hair. Photographs show him even trying a Texan hat. Hoarding after hoarding proclaims not only the same message but a diverse attire of designer wardrobes. He senses he has to sustain himself as both icon and image of a different era.
Modi grasped that the core competence of a politician must be built around different cores or, to switch metaphors, he needed a set of second skins which people would see as natural. He was shrewd in realizing that it was the Hindutva man in him that had to be deconstructed and recomposed. Like Eliza Dolittle, he had to project a new grammar. He (or I guess his PROs) disaggregated elements of his Hindutva to create a new image. Hindutva or the RSS training evoked the state as the God of society, organizational skill, asceticism, a cultural embedding of ideas, a sense of competence as machismo, a clear idea of history. Modi presented himself as the Vivekananda in politics.
Modi realized that the chameleon in him could transform Hindutva into a more neutral but aggressive technocratic idiom. Management became a form of masculinity and the idea of Hindutva conventionally seen as local or parochial now became globalized. Modi’s Gujarat behaved like a city state, a combination of Singapore and Shanghai on a larger scale. What came to his aid was the language of the World Bank. Modi’s expert handling of the earthquake was decisive. He realized that World Bank transmuted its ideologies into methodologies of audit and standards, creating as it were a new kind of accountability. Modi may have been responsible during the riots but he was definitely responsive to World Bank idioms and norms. The language suited him as he could preen himself with numbers.

The aura of accountability found its hyphen in the obsession with security. Security was the technocratic idiom of nationalists. Security was also the machismo that would fight terror. Gujarat’s handling of terror was presented as exemplary. The brilliance of it was that security and accountability were positivist terms measured by tonnage or control. In Modi’s thesaurus, they substituted for the ethics of responsibility. Responsibility is more encompassing in its philosophy, more inclusive in involving minorities. As a way of life, it involved dialogicity, an accommodating mentality, while security or accountability could be handled with forceps. They were distancing terms. If responsibility sounded soft, security was hard. It exuded power, control, and hierarchy. Gujarat was secure under Modi while Delhi was vulnerable to terror under an effete Congress. Technology needs a sense of cosmopolitanism which Modi’s presence in Davos as the only Indian chief minister provided.

Sreekumar, the ex-Inspector General of Police who is an acute observer of Modi, is full of insightful nuggets into the craft and craftiness of the man. He said, ‘For all his Hindutva, Modi has become a devotee to power. Power is his only idol. Power secularizes Modi by instrumentalizing him. Modi will have no problem attacking Hindus to retain control.’ In fact, Sreekumar claimed that Modi’s ‘secularism’ can be double-edged. Modi, he said, demolished 600 temples to clear road obstructions in Ahmedabad. The message was clear. It was not that he was secular but that he was in control. The act could also be used secondarily to show how Modi can control Hindus when they get out of line. Modi began playing the Lee Kwan Yew of Gujarat emphasizing that all problems could be dealt with at a single window – Modi.
The myth of efficiency epitomized as security and stability needed investments as a continuing barometer of success. Modi played the self-styled magnet for investments brilliantly. In this new age of liberalization, investments are manna, the gift, the grace all tyrants are looking for. Investments are more powerful than riots in silencing critics. Gujarat was soon to become the Camelot of investments and its centre was Sanand. Modi created a dreamland for the automobile industry, successfully inviting Ford, Tata, Maruti and contouring this hub with a stunning array of ancillary industries which could add to employment. Modi’s message to the corporations was clear and Ratan Tata was among the first to sense it when he said, ‘It would be stupid not to be in Gujarat at this stage.’ Modi had become Gujarat’s best political salesman and his clients were the corporations and the diaspora. He played or enacted his vision of shining Gujarat impressing diasporic Indians, starved and nostalgic for efficiency and decisiveness. For them, as for Time magazine later, here was an Indian who could stand up to the Chinese. This was a helpful aura to have especially with the US government. A nuclear plant or two would become an apt mutual token of esteem.

I must emphasise that Narendra Modi’s tactics were not taking place in a vacuum. The chief minister is a very tactical man and his initial tactics differentiated between opposition and dissent. Modi recognized that the opposition was effete. The Congress, as the opposition, willingly or inadvertently had tied itself into knots, raising issues which it could not follow up. He sensed that the Congress was afraid of opposing him nationally, afraid to lose the Hindu vote. The Congress opposition in Gujarat was reduced to sniping with little effect.
Modi discovered that it was dissent, not opposition, that was devastating. Small pockets of activists created little colonies of resistance that was effective. For example, Teesta Setalvad and her team created a memorial for the survivors at Gulberg House, the housing colony where the Congress MP, Ehsaan Jaffri and 69 others, were brutally murdered. The event at Gulberg House was not organized or instigated by any party. A loose network of citizens put it together. The impact was stunning. Over 2500 people came and spent the day in a quiet act of solidarity. Shubha Mudgal came and sang powerfully, creating a circle of emotion, with the survivors in tears.

Modi understood that it was this form of protest that most threatened him and as part of his new repertoire he chose to suppress dissent in the academe. A senior professor at DAIICT, Gandhinagar, was asked to resign. In fact, what one is now witnessing is Modi’s effort to take control of key national institutions like CEPT and the Indian Institute of Management. The report by Time was publicized and translated into Guajarati to submerge such dissent. He has been successful, temporarily, in part because many academics see in the future Modi a career to be pursued. Modi is shrewd enough to anticipate that even if Gujarat becomes an intellectual corridor, dissent is one epidemic he cannot afford.
Modi’s effort to mobilize film stars like Anupam Kher, Sunil Shetty, Ajay Devgan, and Amitabh Bachchan is an attempt to create a groundswell of cinematic support for the regime. The use of Visvanathan Anand to announce and inaugurate Gujarat as a major chess culture is another powerful example. To combat dissent, Modi has created a brainstrust of advisors, including corporate dons like Narayana Murthi and Azim Premji, giving him legitimacy in entrepreneurial and managerial circles. IIM Ahmedabad’s decision to invite him as CEO for the day is merely one more example of academic institutes quietly falling in line. He has also nurtured a bureaucracy that is only a prosthetic extension of him.
The tactical brilliance of Modi lies in his ability to use law to thwart justice and employ democratic ideals to perpetrate his control. In this, both he and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa are siblings in politics. Both have criticized the Congress for not adhering to the spirit of federalism. Yet, the very same politicians who tout the importance of democracy at the federal level are reluctant to allow democracy at the state level. Modi’s contempt for his own party men and his distancing from them is projected as part of his honesty, his refusal to recognize party politics as a spoils system. In fact, distance becomes tactical. Initially, Modi was presented as a politician almost tactilely in touch with the masses. Now he is presented as a hoarding, a larger than life creature to be quoted, cited, his every act a policy event.

It is Modi’s use of the law, however, that appears most cynical. The Nanavati Commission continues happily creating an archive that means little. The SIT, behaving technically and narrowly, gave him a clean chit. He seemed to enjoy all the moral luck till the Ramachandran Report queered his pitch. But the pseudo trial by commission and committee sanitized a space around him, blurring basic ethical questions. What it conflated specifically was the difference between guilt and responsibility.
Assume that the CM had no direct role in the riots, yet was he right in disowning responsibility for the victims of the riots? Gujarat was the first example of a state government in India which refused responsibility for the aftermath of the riots, disowning any connection with the refugee camps that mushroomed after the carnage. The argument was that to accept responsibility for the camps was to signal a guilt about the riots. With one bad syllogism, a huge sector of victims were declared less than citizens and forced into subhuman lives in transit camps. Ten years after the riots, transit camps have acquired an air of permanence while everything within is ramshackle. Yet, Modi denies the camps exist or claims that they have shut down. Their very names, Ekta Nagar and Citizen Nagar, provide an ironic note to the ethical presence of the regime.

Yet viewed objectively there is a shrewdness to this tactic. Modi has injected the idea of development as a credo deep into the middle class. For them and him, development is a process that cannot wait, that has an inevitability to it, that is Darwinian in that the fittest survive. The Modi credo then suggests that those who act tangential to or are recalcitrant about development are reluctant citizens. The idea of development creates a double demand on ethnics, marginals, minorities. It throws them two specific challenges. First, it asks them to de-ghettoize and de-ethnicize themselves and erase, if necessary, identity and memory. It asks them to forget the riots, plainly stating why wait for justice when we are offering you development. It argues that development can be more distributive than justice can. The catch is that they have to become citizens and citizenship is defined as attempts to join the mainstream.
Here Modi’s discourse also suggests that minorities have hidden behind their ethnicity and behave like reluctant citizens. He claims that his is the ‘true’ secular option. He seems to suggest that the majoritarian electoral democracy of Congress plays to religious sentiments, while the BJP’s offer of development is an invitation to secular citizenship. With this, Modi acts as if he has claimed the higher moral ground.
Many Muslims find this suggestion tempting. They realize that they need to join the mainstream but they also sense the craftiness of the Modi option. He is asking them to abandon memory and justice, to forget, erase and accept entry into development, yet realizing that development too might be a zero-sum game. They sense that the new urbanization in the aftermath of the riots may disempower them further. Many of the Muslim women had an answer for Modi. They (in a composite sense) said, ‘We want to go on but this society won’t let us. We do not want our children to carry the burden of violence. We want to forget the past; they want us to erase it. Yet, they will not let us return to our livelihoods.’ The politics of memory has become a millstone around the Modi neck and the many commissions have not sanitized him completely.

Politicians are word splitters and consequently world splitters. Muslims like J.S. Bandukwala, a civil rights activist and retired professor of physics from Baroda, talked of apology and forgiveness as rituals of healing. For Modi, power which apologizes is no longer power. He lacks the wisdom and empathy of a Willy Brandt who knelt and asked for forgiveness of the victims of the Holocaust. Brandt rose in stature after the act but a Modi, afraid of the label of guilt, is unable to imitate him. But politicians can create parallel worlds which mimic the authenticity of the real. Modi lacks the courage to ask for forgiveness. He feels no empathy for Muslims. They remain a problem to be solved.
Instead of forgiveness, he chose magnanimity. Magnanimity is imperial; it evokes the height and distance of power. Modi’s Sadbhavana Yatra was an act of piety. Inaugurated on his birthday, where he received a Ramcharit Manas from his mother, the rituals felt like a darbar. The signal to the outside world was that Modi was a changed man. Yet, the message inside Gujarat was different. Minority groups came like subjects to swear fealty to a lord. Attendance was a performance to be duly noted. There was no sense of community; the entire drama spoke of power speaking to vulnerability. What betrayed Modi was his body language. When a Muslim cleric offered his cap, Modi shrugged, creating an embarrassing gaffe. There was a sense that he was not speaking from his heart. One could sense a politician waiting to be prime minister.
The viewer by now realizes that Modi was on a double stage, a CM fighting to be elected and waiting to be proclaimed a prime-ministerial candidate. Such was Modi’s confidence that even Lal Krishna Advani, Nitin Gadkari and Sanjay Joshi, stalwarts from the RSS, surrendered the stage to him. Modi’s autocracy, however, created an interesting shift in messages. Earlier, as a pracharak and a chief minister, the BJP was the text of his messages. Given his distance from internal party democracy, the party began appearing as a context for politics slowly withering to a pretext. His main opposition is now surfacing within his own party tired of his egocentric politics.

Yet, evil for all its flaws is more inventive. Modi, like the devil in Paradise Lost, still has the best lines. More critically, Modi is consolidating power beyond electoral rhetoric. His unease with his party and with his communal image nudges him towards a new discourse, one which make one want to reread the past. Modi seems to have rewritten the scripts of modernization. His modernization no longer seeks the scapegoat in the Muslim; it sees its power in the collective force of the city. Now riots appear to be a clearing house of a project called the city. The fascist as modernizer has found a new symbolic project, the city.
Gujarat has always been the most urbanized part of India with at least 57 major towns. Modi is building on it a new wave of urbanization. Modi articulates the fact that urbanization is both process and a promise. As a process, there is logic to its demands which necessitates certain decisions. Instant cities unlike instant coffee are complex entities. Yet, Modi grasps the fact that cities are a coalition of opportunities. The city caters to a middle class, to corporations hungry for land, to a network of fixers who create opportunities around a city. Each act of Modi invokes a corporation and urbanizes Gujarat. Modi has allied himself with a newly emerging entrepreneurs like Adani and Mittal, with the pharmaceutical industries, and with Nirma, while tying up with the Tatas. He has offered the Japanese, always hungry for land abroad, two cities for development. He has hypothecated the coastline to the corporations like the Adanis, whose control of pipelines and ports make them a formidable force. Corporations desperate for land find him amenable.

The middle class seeing in investment the prospect of employment is also content. Modi has become the new urban hero. Yet, one senses an unease about these new cities. One wonders if they are a kind of enclosure movement, a new way to displace nomadic and pastoral populations as ways of life. Gujarat has long been the home of these great nomadic and pastoral civilizations. The speed of Modi’s policies of urbanization makes one wonder whether marginals and minorities are doomed in this feat of citizenship we call the city. The swadeshi pracharak has transformed himself into a development hero with the city as his script. Modi as a development statesman now projects messages at three levels. Locally he is a BJP CM; nationally, he is a future hopeful for the prime ministership; globally, he is a player articulating the rhetoric of climate change. His idiom and his style are now completely different.
There is also a struggle for a symbolic domain, some claim to a myth or legend of India. In some ways the idea of class now lacks the appeal and Naxalbari, the romance of revolution. The Congress also realizes that its narratives of Nehruism and nation-building ring hollow. As a symbolic entrepreneur, Modi senses it. He realizes that he cannot cite Savarkar or Hedgewar. They make for poor mnemonics, lacking any real appeal for the new generation. Modi is shrewd enough to realize that he needs a floating signifier, something all India can claim and he can claim in a particular way. The choice of Vivekananda appears immaculate. Unlike Ramakrishna, he is not the mystic. He is an outward looking, organization centred religious monk who built an institution. By juxtaposing himself to Vivekananda, Modi becomes another cultural innovator, seeking to revitalize society to face the next wave of modernity. His is not a spiritual pulpit; he is at heart a propagandist. He unleashes thousands of plastic balls with Vivekananda quotes to bounce around a society’s mind.

The question one has to ask is what Modi as performance teaches one about electoral democracy in India. Modi embodies a paradigm of violence forged out of resentment with history. His swadeshism, tinged with the folklore of a Bhagat Singh, sees the state as a masculine trope and the administrator as a decisive person. It is a denial of softness as a part of duty and a summons to violence as a part of patriarchal responsibility. Like many in the Hindu majority, he senses an effeteness about politics and democracy, a minoritarian bias that vitiates power. In seeking to create a strong India, it seeks a character building that emphasizes efficiency, security and decisiveness.

The emphasis is more on duty. Minorities in this discourse have a duty to join the mainstream and respect majority sentiments. Violence or a threat of violence becomes an administrative tactic to keep them in line, to create order. Such a sense of order is uneasy with difference and is often punitive about imagined disorder. The body language is patriarchal, more used to dictates than discussions. The dream is of the motherland, but as fathers see it. A strong state, preferably nuclear because the nuclear commands respect; a strong leader because leadership is the leitmotif of democracy; a strong people, often cadre-like in action, who will help constitute a different India.
Such a notion of order sees minorities, dissent, difference as sources of disorder. A minority that is reluctant needs to be disciplined in this model. A minority that emphasizes rights over duties is not ready for citizenship and is thus open to majoritarian violence as a pedagogical punitive exercise. In such a conception, minorities should episodically be taught a lesson so as to keep them in line. Such a notion frequently sees the majority as a victim of democratic normativeness.
One has to recognize that to many Modi represents a public policy hero, a Hindu Bismarck as a technocrat. Modi has consistently been ranked as the most able chief minister by India Today. As an administrator, he evidences an impressive set of skills; as a politician he is adept at survival. In fact, of late, one can see him chuckling over the embarrassments of the Congress. He comments freely on its alleged ability to handle the national grid or the question of terror. Gujarat scores high in terms of electricity, investment, quality of roads. He is a cultural dream for Hindus tired of softness and gentleness who welcome his technocratic machismo.

The diaspora sees in him an almost American competence, a quickness and a decisiveness rarely witnessed in Indian politicians. But Modi is a Rorschach for these people. They project on to him the qualities they wish to have – economy, decisiveness, a patriarchal brusqueness, a modernity rooted in tradition but without succumbing to it. He is a creation emerging out of a subculture’s deepest fears, hybridized with its sense of the correct response to these fears. If fear and resentment were the mother of invention, Modi as a cultural figure would be one product of such anxieties. A Vivekananda spouting manager, he seems an invention from some B grade commentary on the Bhagvad Gita speaking of security, nationalism and efficiency. He is a bully dressed up in managerial values and projected as the problem solver, an Indian answer to Chinese planning.
Modi realizes that there is an economy to the waiting game. He does not have to do much. He can laugh at the antics of his opponents, create an occasional spectacle, to grab the front page. By simulating a PM in waiting, he is even convincing people that he is going to be one. He is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy around himself. The press falls for it. India Today keeps saluting his powers of governance; Outlook creates the outlines of an unequal battle between him and Rahul Gandhi. This is pre-emptive politics and Modi plays it beautifully.
As a politician he realizes that he thrives on other people’s and other party’s mediocrity. It is not that he has an eloquent vision or an idea of India. He, however, guesses that an India without ideas is sure to vote him into power. Democracy, in this age of politicial mediocrity, will always pick the caricature of the lowest common denominator. Modi combines the worst of our anxieties with the most authoritarian of solutions. Authoritarianism like technocracy is a particular approach to problem solving. The charisma that fascism needs mixes with the pragmatism of technocracy to create a frame of thought as a way of life. Once a society accepts Modi as a mentality, a mode of thought, it might well have to live out its consequences over the next few decades. A friendly fascism can be a lethal mode of governance.

Finally, one has to recognize the moral luck of the man. Time and Brookings go out of their way to give him good conduct certificates for governance. Corporations feel he is the flavour of the year. The one thing that rankled was the refusal of the British and US governments to give him a visa. In October 2012, the British government withdrew its objections, contending that the laws of the land had given Modi a clean chit. Britain, like other countries, realized that Modi was heaven-sent in terms of business investment and the prospect of investment silences any mercantile conscience. The British, like many others, felt that here was a politician whose time has come. The ensuing hysteria made one wonder whether he had received an OBE. This sense of luck is something we need to acknowledge. Demagogues love signs and the signs are that Modi is a politician ready for a bigger stage. The modernist as fascist breathes a legitimacy that electoral pundits love.

Seminar India Online Magazine Jan 2013 
Shiv VisvanathanResearch Fellow at the Compost Heap and Professor, Jindal School of Governance and Public Policy, Sonepat