The Losers Shall Inherit The World

About the author
T. Vijayendra (1943- ) has done B. Tech.

Electronics, from I. I. T. Kharagpur (1966).
He has been involved in trade union
movement, alternative journalism,
libraries, bookshops and publishing,
research, health, education and
environment. He lives on an organic farm
in the Western Ghats, watching birds and
writing occasionally, mainly for activist
education in the journal Frontier, from
Kolkata.
He has published scores of such articles
in Hindi, Bengali and English in various
alternative journals. Has published
booklets on occupational health of the
workers of textile industry and coal
industry (in Hindi and Urdu), how to run
hobby libraries and bookshops (Hindi and
Telugu), The Teacher and the Child Labour
(Telugu).
About the book
The U. S. never lost a single battle in
Vietnam but lost the war. The book is a
series of essays, looking positively, at
some of the losing battles that the Indian
people have been waging against forces
of exploitation and obscurantism. The
essays, published in the journal Frontier,
from Kolkata, are not written in a polemic
or academic style. They are more in the
style of education for the activist. The idea
is to clear up the mess in our minds
created by popular notions, beliefs and
theories created by the ruling class and
media. Today, when we are in the midst of
yet another major crisis of capitalism, a
new generation of activists is coming up.
These essays are addressed to them.
THE LOSERS
SHALL INHERIT THE WORLD
T. Vijayendra
Publishing Collective
Sangatya Sahitya Bhandar Sahitya Chayana
Bal Sanskriti Kendra Shishu Milap Peoples Books
THE LOSERS SHALL INHERIT THE WORLD

Author : T. Vijayendra
Editor : Nyla Coelho
Third Edition : 500 copies
Year : 2012
Price : Rs. 60.00
First two editions : 2009, 2010
L Copy Left: All Rights Reversed
Publishing Collective
Sangatya Sahitya Bhandar, 7-67 P, Jayadurga Compound, Temple Road, Kannarpady,

Udupi 576 103, Karnataka, Phone: 08258 205340 Cell: +91 94907 05634 Email:
t.vijayendra@gmail.com; Sahitya Chayana, 6, Saraswati Camp, R. K. Puram, Sector
3, (Opposite JNU Old Campus), New Delhi 110 022 , Cell: +91 90135 10023 Email:
vinabhatia15@gmail.com; Bal Sanskriti Kendra, C/o VHAP, SCF 18/1, Sector 10D, Chandigarh 160 011, Phone: 0172 5067558 Email: vhapunjab@gmail.com;
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Books, 49/5, Sushil Niwas, IVth. Cross, Mahadwar Road, Belgaum 590 002, Karnataka,
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For Copies
T. Vijayendra, C/o. Manchi Pustakam,
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PREFACE
These essays represent my engagement with various social and
political issues since the 1970s. The perspective is a mix of Marxism
and Anarchism.
The essays challenge some popular notions, beliefs and theories,
many of which are held even by progressive intellectuals. Thus
they have a tendency to influence the progressive movements in
the country.
Theses essays are not written in a polemic or academic style. They
are more in the style of education for activists. It is an attempt to
assist clear the mental clutter (in the reader) deliberately created
by the ruling class and the media.
All these essays were written for and published in the weekly journal
Frontier published from Kolkata. Established in 1968 by Samar
Sen, it has educated a generation of the activists born as a result
of the crisis in the late 60s. I thank Timir Basu, the present editor
of Frontier, who ably continues with the mission - in spite of
great hardships - for permission to reprint these articles.
Today, when we are in the midst of yet another major crisis of
Capitalism, a new generation of activists is emerging. These essays
are addressed to them.

All these essays are copy-left, that is, there is no copyright and one
may use them freely. I would of course be delighted to hear about
its use. A critique of my arguments is also very welcome.
22. 01. 2009
Based on socio political developments in the country since the
book's first publication, many of the articles have been updated.
Postscripts have been added to the second and third essays in the
book.
Nyla Coelho is the editor of this edition.
T. Vijayendra
June 2010
CONTENTS
Preface
1.
The Bihar Failure Syndrome: Myth and Reality
2.
Coal, Mafia and Miners
15
3.
Why do Naxalites Survive?
26
4.
Activists for the Poor: Naxalites and NAPM
38
5. The Logic of Ol Chiki: A Tribute to Guru

Gomke Pandit Raghunath Murmu
48
6.
Buddhism in Modern India
55
7.
Dakhni: The Language in which the

Composite Culture of India was Born
8.
Language and Biogeography: The Logic for a

Separate Telangana State
9.
66
77
Dumping on the Environment:

Class, Caste and Gender
81
10. Prolonging Death: Capitalism and Old Age
86
11. Vegetarianism and Communalism
95
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In writing these articles, publishing them in Frontier and finally

publishing them in this present book form, I have received help,
encouragement and love from a wide range of friends. It is perhaps
not possible to thank them all and if some names are left out it is
entirely my fault.
To begin with those who helped me in writing these articles the
help came in the form of provoking me to reflect on issues, giving
feedback on drafts, editing and feedback on the published articles
etc. They are: Alka Saraogi, Late Arvind Narayan Das, Aslam Saiyad,
Ashok Seksaria, Bhashwati, Binayak Sen, Dilip Hota, Ilina Sen,
Janardan V., Jogin Sengupta, Kalpana Ram, Lina Krishnan, Lindsay
Barnes, Mira Sadgopal, Mohan Mani, Nilanjana Biswas, Priti Anand,
Radhika U., Rajagopalan M.R., Ranjan Ghosh, Sagar Dhara, Sara
Jolly, Late Siraj Taher, Sitaram Shastry, Usha Rao, Veer Bharat
Talwar, Vidyadhar Gadgil, Vijay Kundaji and Vinay Kumar.
Timir Basu, Editor, Frontier, published all these articles. S. Srinivasan,
Editor, Medico Friends Circle Bulletin, published the article,
Prolonging Death: Capitalism and Old Age.
Shreekumar, Usha Sriram and K. Suresh have put together these

articles in the book form and printed it.
The book is being published by a collective. The co-publishers
are: Vina Bhatia of Sahitya Chayana, New Delhi, Man Mohan
Sharma of Bal Sanskriti Kendra, Chandigarh, S. Srinivasan of Shishu
Milap, Baroda and Nyla Coelho of Peoples Books, Belgaum.
I am aware that it is very inadequate to just mention their names.
Nevertheless, I express my heartfelt thanks to all of them.
ad
ada
THE BIHAR FAILURE SYNDROME

Myth and Reality
The May 2004 parliamentary election results have shown that the
debacle that Mr. Naidu, Mr. S. M. Krishna and the NDA government
faced was due to the failure of their development model.
Social activists have been criticising the development model, but
they have no praise for a place like Bihar where the development
model has already failed. It is like criticising the education system
but not praising a child for failing exams! If I were to be punished
for the sins I commit, then I should be rewarded for not giving into
temptation!
I owe much of my understanding about Bihar (including the present
day Jharkhand) to late Dr. Arvind Narayan Das and take this opportunity
to pay my respects to his memory.
For the purpose of this essay, the word Bihar includes Jharkhand.
The Failure of Bihar

Bihar is normally associated with failure. It appears to have failed on
every front - economic, political and cultural. All the traditional
economic development indicators as well as the contemporary human
development indices point to this failure. Articulate Biharies themselves
talk about it, quite often juxtaposed to the past glory of Bihar. Left
wing commentators point out the tradition of protest and struggle.
10
The Losers shall Inherit the World
Bihar played a leading role in the formation of Kisan Sabha. After

independence Bihar was the first state to have a land reforms act. In the
Bhoodan movement Bihar had a leading position. In the Naxalite
movement, only Bihar and Andra Pradesh have significant presence.
The Jharkhand movement is the biggest ethnic cum regional movement.
Even in the offbeat left movement - A.K.Roys trade union movement
- at Dhanbad was quite unique. Yet, these references are often coupled
with a melancholic statement that it has all failed.
The poor in Bihar are not significantly worse off than the poor in
Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. A similar situation
exists in large areas across Orissa, Maharashtra and Andra Pradesh.
Data on education, health care, atrocities and atrocities on women,
dalits and tribals are comparable. Yet it is Bihar that is singled out
as a model of failure. Why?
One obvious answer is that the middle class and the rich in Bihar do
not feel comfortable as their counterparts do in other states. It is
their legitimacy to rule that is threatened. Hence, the cry, there is
no government in Bihar. In short, it is the legitimisation crisis of
the ruling class. What has failed in Bihar is a certain kind of bourgeois
development and a certain kind of government and state that has
been held as a model. This includes the left democratic models too.
The Struggles of the People of Bihar

The people of Bihar have not failed in participating in these development
processes, or in protesting against it or even creating newer alternatives.
In this century, they have cleared jungle lands for agriculture and
mining. Capitalist agriculture has developed in several large areas of
Bihar. The working class of Bihar has worked in agriculture, mines
and in industries both in Bihar and outside, including plantations
overseas. In their protest movements, the people of Bihar have taken
part in all forms of traditional left and ultra left movements at significant
levels. That these have not led to successes of the kind seen in West
The Bihar Failure Syndrome
11
Bengal or in Kerala is a historical fact and has its historical reasons.

These have been well explored and argued by scholars.
What is not argued is that, to look for this kind of success itself is
wrong. Every latecomer social group in capitalist development has a
different response giving rise to a different kind of socialism. What
then are these different kinds of responses?
The Failures of the Struggle

In the last few years there is general talk of failure or crisis of Marxism.
In India, the issues generally raised are caste, gender, ethnicity,
regionalism/federalism and ecology. In Bihar the Far Left or Naxalite
movement is not just a breakaway group from the traditional Left.
There was hardly any CPI (M) presence in Bihar. And the CPI
remained intact during the Naxalite upsurge. The Naxalite in Bihar
inherited the socialist movement with its emphasis on caste and
oppressive social structures. Thus, it has articulated the caste question
in Left Wing politics both theoretically and in practice. We hear
this articulation more strongly in Maharashtra due to the PhuleAmbedkar - Naxalite Tradition. Bihar has no such bourgeoisie liberal
advocate of the issue. Here the advocacy is more radical (and hence
ignored).
Bihar is the only state, which has hosted the All India Womens
Conference for the second time. In the Patna conference the issue of
class/caste within the womens movements figured very strongly,
particularly on the issue of right to property. The Ranchi conference
threw up the ethnic issue within the womens movement and feminist
issues within the ethnic struggle. In many womens conferences women
from Bihar articulated that the condition of women in other states is
much worse than their own, including in Kerala. The official statistics
of crime against women also shows that Bihar is way down, 18th in
ranking, that is, almost all the major Indian states are worse off.
Only North East India is better.
12
The Jharkhand movement is a composite of several movements. Like

other regional movements, it combines ethnic issues with the issues
of internal colony. However, the ethnic issue is alive and separate as
can be seen from the leadership as well as the kind of ethnic energy
the movement has. In addition, the issue of tribals as peasant and
tribals as proletariat has also figured very strongly in Dhanbad and
Singhbum districts. And finally, the environment issue - the relation
of people to their habitat, peoples control over community natural
resources and the issue of big dams have also figured.
This brings us to the issues of ecology. Bihar is the only place where
an anti dam movement succeeded in stopping the Koel-Karo project.
When tribals from Koel Karo visited Bargi dam, the first dam on
Narmada, they were aghast. How did you let this happen? they
asked the NBA activists. How could they build when the locals
protest? The struggle against Subernrekha dam and the struggle of
dam oustees (displaced persons) have also been partially successful.
The north Bihar region perennially suffers from floods and ill-conceived
embankments and others flood control programmes have not really
helped. Every year about 4 lakh people migrate due to floods. The
struggle against these policies has been going on for decades. It also
represents one of the best-researched struggles by activists.
What emerges from the above is that their struggles have failed in
not allowing the hegemony of bourgeoisie liberal issues and leadership
of the movement. Instead, it has articulated and sharpened the
differentiation within the movement.
Alternative Forms
Everywhere there is a cry that there is no government in Bihar and
some even say that the state has ceased to exist. There is Anarchy!
What is surprising is that Anarchy has not been considered in a
positive way. It reminds one of Brechts poems about government in
crisis, in which he wonders how the farmers will plough the land
and mothers feed the babies as the government is in crisis.
The Bihar Failure Syndrome
13
We fail to see that the people of Bihar are alive, eating, working and
participating in full human cultural life. They are also protesting,
struggling and migrating. While peasants are committing suicide in
Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, in Bihar no peasant has committed
suicide. One may also add that in Bihar no encounter murders are
committed by the police. More importantly, they have devised strategies
to cope with the present difficult times with a genius of their own.
Public and state transport is running without salaries for more than
18 months. How? It is co-operation between the people and the
union of transport workers that is making it possible. Schools are
running with teachers collecting their salaries from their pupils in
the form of tuition fees. Post offices, railways and telephones are
actually functioning. More to the point is that, migrant workers are
able to send money home. The informal sector of the economy is
taking care of the needs of the people. So, the point is that people of
Bihar are coping with the situation in a viable fashion. Secondly,
they are throwing up new forms of organisation and methods of
doing so - struggle and co-operation being the key modes.
Whose Failure?
Why is it that we do not see this or see a positive future? I would not
dwell too much on the class bias of the observers. It is there. But
surely one can try to go beyond that. We are talking of the failure of
a certain kind of socialist model. Not only is it failing where it appeared
successful until recently, it is also not allowing us to see possible
newer models of socialism.
The 20th Century has been dominated by the theories of Marx, Darwin
and Freud. It has also been dominated by the revolution of Soviet
Union, China, Cuba and Vietnam. Their successes have blinded us
from looking at their weaknesses. It has not allowed us to look at the
possible truths on the side of those who have been defeated within
the movement.
14
An important aspect of this is that we have looked more at the struggle

aspect (within human psyche, in society and with nature) and neglected
to look at co-operation. For arriving at a concept of socialism we will
have to correct this balance. This socialism will be more like an
egalitarian, decentralised human society living in harmony with nature.
However, we cannot be revivalists and think of the noble savage.
Any vision of future society must combine the idea of sovereignty of
the individual within a co-operative society.
To arrive at this, we will have to look into the failure within the
movement, both in theory and practice.
Thus in the historical experience of the theory, we have to look at the
possible truths on the side of those who lost or failed in the past.
These will be Anarchist traditions, Rosa Luxembourgs Critique, Trotsky
and various opposition groups in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba.
Nearer at home, we have a range of left wing experience outside the
Stalinist Tradition of CPI, M, & ML. There are also socialist and
militant Gandhian traditions.This should enable us to look more
closely at the current movements where peoples energies are - both
in and outside Bihar. In Bihar there are issues thrown up within the
struggle, such as caste, gender and environment. There are also
movements of dam oustees, migrant labour, ethnic and regional
movements. Then there are emerging movements of struggle and cooperation. All these failures of Bihar will contribute to the development
of a new model of socialism for the 21st Century. Therein lies the
importance of the failure of Bihar.
Published in Frontier, October 3-30, 2004, Kolkata.
15
COAL, MAFIA AND MINERS
India is the third largest producer of coal in the world after China
and Russia. At the time of independence the country produced 30
million tones (mt) mainly in the private sector. On the eve of Coal
Nationalisation in 1972-73 the production was 72 mt. Today it
produces 345 mt of coal out of which 30 mt is cooking coal [Standard
Committee on Energy, 2001].
The principal user of coal is the power sector which consumes around
200 mt and is responsible for 63% of power generation in the country.
Cement is the other major user, consuming 17 mt. Coking coal is
mainly used in the iron & steel industry. India has a coal reserve of
over 200 billion tones which at the present rate of extraction will last
more than 200 years. Indian coal is relatively poor in calorific value
with high ash but low sulphur content.
Coal is the most polluting of fuels [Martin, 2002]. Globally, coal is
on its way out. World coal production reached its peak in 1997 and
since then has fallen by 7%. Coal is being replaced by oil which in
turn is being replaced by natural gas [Brown, 2002]. However, India
is likely to continue to produce and use coal because it is still the
cheapest fuel available. The import bill of oil and gas will otherwise
go up. As far as hydro electricity and nuclear power plants are concerned,
there are a large number of unresolved issues. Their share is not likely
to go up significantly [Das, 2002].
Production of coal today is mainly in the public sector except for a
few captive mines. It is organised under Coal India Ltd (CIL) which
16
has 500 working mines in seven subsidiary producing companies

spread over West Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra,
Chhattisgarh and Orissa. Singareni Collieries Co Ltd is jointly owned
by Govt. of Andhra Pradesh and Govt. of India.
While CIL as a whole is a profit making company, three of its Eastern
Indian subsidiaries ECL, BCCL and CCL have been making huge
losses.
Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) was formed on 17.10.1971. It
produces coking coal to be used mainly in iron & steel industry.
There are 81 working mines in Jharia-Dhanbad area. It has been
producing around 30 mt. There is a reserve of 17 billion tones in the
area out of which 4.6 bt is prime coking coal and 5.6 bt is medium
coking coal [Roy, 2002a]. However, the production is on the decline.
In 1999-2000 it was 27.90 mt. The production has high ash content
which is reduced in coal washeries. These are working at about 45%
capacity only. To meet the stipulated 17% ash content, the industry
is importing coking coal to the tune of 12 mt for purposes of blending
with the local coal [Das, 2002].
As mentioned above, the industry is in a crisis. Production is falling,
work force is dwindling, there is no new recruitment and there are
high losses. The losses increased from 140 crore (1997-98) to 1277
crore in 2000-01, that is Rs 3.5 crore per day! Some 19 mines have
been closed and there is fire below Jharia Township that is difficult
to douse and prime coking coal is turning to ashes! So while theoretically
coal and coking coal has a good demand in India, coal industry and
particularly coking coal industry is sick and faces insurmountable
difficulties in coming out of it. How has this situation come about?
What is the role of different stake holders that is government
management, workers and unions and the bystander population?
Jharia Coalfield
Coal mining in this area started at the end of the 19th century under
the British Raj by British Coal companies. Over the years and
17
particularly on the eve of independence it changed hands and came

to be owned by the Indian business community. It produces mainly
coking coal and it is one of the biggest and oldest coalfields in India.
It is also, due to its long history, the most labour intensive coal mine.
The mines are located in what was Santhal country in Chotta Nagpur
Plateau. The rural hinterland still has a significant Santhal population
and many mine workers have been and are Santhalis. The area has
seen significant Jharkhand movement in the 70s under the leadership
of Shibu Soren. The miners struggle also had hinterland support
and the struggle carried the overtones of the Great Santhal rebellion
in the form of bows and arrows carried by some of the miners!
The Situation in the 60s

Coal mining under the private Indian ownership had by this time
become predominantly slaughter mining. That is, companies paid
no attention to safety or to the future of the mine; undertaking unscientific
mining with an eye for maximizing profit. The owners had no capital
to invest, did not pay minimum wages and the musclemen originally
brought from the ABC (Arrah, Balia and Chhapra) districts of Bihar
to control the workers in the 40s had become powerful mafia type
contractors by the late 60s.
Nationalisation
The demand primarily came from the non-coal big industry such as
iron and steel and power and not from the coal industry. The demand
itself has a long history beginning in 1920 with the Coal Field
Committee. It was the 1936 Coal Mining Committee which for the
first time mooted the idea of state ownership. However, due to the
hold of private owners, the government dragged its feet although
committee after committee (1945 Coalfield Committee, 1951 Working
Party for Coal Industry, 1954-55 Estimate Committee for Lok Sabha,
1955 Balwant Rai Mehta Committee) pointed out issues with regards
to safety of workers, avoidable waste, increase in production through
a well considered plan, ruthless and haphazard exploitation of national
18
wealth and so on. It was however the inability of the private sector to
bring capital that made it imperative to nationalize coal. Kumara
Mangalams dream takeover of entire coal mining industry, marks
the end of an era of unhealthy and unscientific mining, exploitation
of labour and other malpractices. It represents the beginning of a
new period of management of the coal mines in the overall interest
of the nation [Roy, 2002]. But this dream did not come true, although
overall production, productivity (output per mine shift, 0.58 to
1.9 t) and employment definitely increased. Most of the production
has been in open cast mines - 19.8 mt to 22.5 mt; the increase in
the underground sector being 58.4 mt to 74 mt inspite of enormous
sums of money spent on mechanization [Das, 2002].
The Emergence of BCKU

As mentioned above, the mafia had established itself. It was dominated
by upper caste male outsiders from ABC (Arrah-Balia-Chhapra) districts
of Bihar and Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh. A situation of a
very humiliating kind of exploitation against lower caste, tribal and
women existed. This chaos led to the workers movement against the
mafia under the banner of BCKU. It became more acute after
nationalization because the ABC mafia became stronger. Thousands
of telegrams were sent by the mafia to their cousins in ABC districts
on the eve of the coal nationalization inviting them to reap the harvest
in time.
Although the Bihar Colliery Kamgar Union (BCKU) has always been
affiliated to CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Union), from 1969 onwards,
it worked as an independent union. Politically too, its leader, A K
Roy, was thrown out of CPI (M) because he published an article in
Frontier stating that the questions raised by the Naxalites are valid
and deserve a debate and response.
BCKU developed its own political front called Marxist Coordination
Committee and allied with the regional movement for a Jharkhand
state. Specifically it allied with Shibu Soren who, under the banner
19
of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, raised the land question. The other

ally was Vinod Bihari Mahato, leader of the non-tribal local people
of Jharkhand. The front was a major intervention in the existing
political praxis. It raised the slogan - Lalkhand (Red Region). A K
Roy won the 1977 Lok Sabha election from jail! At the trade union
level it contributed to the agenda, form and style of the movement
and hinterland support. It became a mass-based militant movement
and won large scale recognition within the progressive movement in
the country.
In this context the main slogans of BCKU were (i) Goonda Bhagao
(throw out the muscle men) and (ii) Regularisation of Employment.
The first was aimed at getting rid of goondas from the coal mines.
Goondas meant mafia, musclemen, contractors and moneylenders.
Regularisation of employment meant jobs for local people and workers
who were already working in the mines as contract labour. Except
for a handful of skilled and unskilled workers, none of the local people
were permanent employees. On the other hand, out of a total workforce
of 2 lakh about 50,000 (who had never seen a mine) were inducted
from outside. This was the result of the telegrams mentioned above.
Many mines destroyed the evidence of contract labour and the mafia
burnt the records to induct their own people. People who worked
for years in the mines found no trace of their records. Managers were
forced to put these new people, who had never seen a mine face, to
work.
As a result of the workers struggle led by BCKU some 20,000 contract
labourers were absorbed as permanent labour in the decade of the
1970s. While this was a major victory, they could do nothing about
the 50,000 illegal recruitment. Nor could BCCL throw them out
because these people were well connected politically and economically.
And they had the good jobs overman, labour sardar and supervisors.
However, under the pressure of unions some contract labourers also
got some office and munshi jobs. On the whole, there is surplus
20
labour in every category except mine loaders. This is one of the major
contributing causes of the crisis of BCCL.
The mafia set itself firmly in the place of power within the BCCL
management, and in the coal field as contractors. They were no longer
interested in wringing the workers. They moved to greener pastures,
that of, looting the mines and government coffers. There was corruption
of every kind. This of course led to inter mafia or gang warfare. The
Dhanbad-Jharia coal field was completely dominated by the mafia.
During this period although the union had become strong there
were no major issues of struggle left. Workers were interested in wages,
bonus and covertly tried to get part of the loot. The trade union was
left dealing with day to day grievances of the workers.
Mechanisation
By the 1980s coal mechanization became a new mantra with the
coal bureaucracy and the government. Massive international loans
were raised to import mining machinery from Australia, Poland, UK
and USA. Many of these machines were never utilized and many
broke down due to unavailability of spare parts and inadequate repair
facility. Not many attempts were made to develop indigenous technology
and MAMC of Durgapur had no work. A dragline of Rs 50 crore is
standing idle in Block II of BCCL in the absence of any large virgin
area to utilize its capacity. At Amlabad colliery of BCCL two sets of
long wall machines costing crores of rupees are lying idle because the
technology does not suit our mines [Roy, 2002]. On the whole,
there is a yawning gap between the liberal norms fixed by CMPDIL
for the utilization of equipment and their actual utilization [Standing
Committee on Energy, 2002]. By the 1990s the idea of coal
mechanization was dropped. While there are options such as semimechanisation, BCCL has in the meantime become a sick unit of
CIL. Although BCKU was, from the beginning, opposed to
mechanization and VRS, (Voluntary Retirement Scheme) it was unable
to organize large scale opposition.
21
The sickness of the coal mining industry in the Dhanbad-Jharia

sector is thus a combination of many factors. The number one factor
being, mismanagement and corrupt practices of the senior level company
officials. The theft and loot at BCCL is estimated to be of the order
of Rs 100 crore, which is roughly same as its annual loss [Roy, 2002
a]. None of the government reports, BIFR, reports of CIL etc. mention
this but talk of problems that actually arise from this. These being:
1. A surplus of labour in all categories except the mine loaders category.
50,000 or 25% of the employees are in excess, most of them drawing
higher salaries. It is these people who are indulging in corruption
and looting. Their number increased till the 1990s.
For CIL as a whole, since 1971, the number of officers has increased
fourfold, monthly and time rated workers have doubled, but the
number of mine loaders has decreased. In BCCL there are 19720
mine loaders out of which on an average 10278 are present. The
other categories taken together are 93097 out of which 75995 are
normally present. Thus the ratio of direct and indirect workers is 1:7
whereas it should never be greater than 1:2 [Roy, 2002a].
2. Inappropriate mechanization locked up crores of rupees of investment.
On the other hand basic production tools like picks and shovels,
boots, torch helmets and battery are not available or in short supply.
This contributes to fall in production and a vicious circle emerges.
In this sort of a scenario the workers are mainly interested in keeping
their jobs. Their sons and daughters will not get jobs. The management
cannot retrench anyone. There are no new recruitments. Workers are
suffering from heart problems, TB, Black Lung (coal workers
pneumonoconiasis), blood pressure and so on. Alcoholism is on the
rise and many are dying beause of alcoholism and form consumtion
of illicit liquor. Although workers have high salaries, there are not
enough schools or hospitals. Jharia town is declared unfit for human
habitation. The railways have stopped using one main line, two others
are onsidered dangerous and trains run at 10 kmph.
22
There are four stake holders involved and each has a sort of solution
which is difficult to realize. They are the government, the private
sector, the workers and the bystander population.
The first is the government - management side. Their position is
that, unless the BCCL annual production goes up to 37 mt it is
impossible to save the company. This is possible only if it can take
out coking coal under Jharia town which is under fire. At present
this valuable coal is reduced to ashes. So the only way to take it out
is by open cast mining. This however means displacing the whole
population of Jharia town, acquiring land, giving compensation and
so on. Jharia is one of the largest markets in Eastern India. No one
has that kind of money to give compensation, nor is any one in
Jharia prepared to leave the town[Mukherjee, 2002].
The other option is to expand to new areas in Jharia or even outside.
Here the greatest difficulty is in acquiring land. Even for the land
acquired earlier, the jobs for land struggle is still going on in Jharia.
Today no one is prepared to give land, there is no guarantee of a job
nor is any land available for resettlement.
The only possible partial solution is limited mechanization in some
mines. All mines are not making losses. A comparison between profit
making and loss making mines will give some space for reorganization
and viability. When there is no money to buy picks and shovels,
where would money for this come from?
Privatisation
That is of course the current mantra for all problems. However the
main reason for nationalization, namely, lack of capital in the private
sector still exists. No one in the area believes that private sector will
sink capital in this scenario. Also, all sections of workers and particularly
the officer class that is living on the loot are opposed to it. As far as
private sector in new areas is concerned, the problem of land acquisition
remains.
Union Response
The workers and unions are firmly opposed to private sector, VRS
23
and retrenchment. They do not even talk of redundancy among the

officers class, but demand that officers should actually work and get
back to the half-pant culture! They want the theft/loot by the officer
class to stop. This, they estimate, is of the order of Rs 1000 crore
and that this alone could cover the losses. They would like the govt.
to have a pro-worker attitude, increase the manpower at the mine
loader level, plan mine by mine concretely, and take the workers and
the union into confidence and so on. It is only wishful thinking!
Another equally absurd wishful thinking is the workers takeover of
the mines and running them. It appears attractive but is wrought
with problems. Deep underground mines are difficult to take over
because of the technology involved and safety factors. Easy mines are
already over exploited and are well on their way of being exhausted.
Mining is a hazardous industry and will become more unsafe. Illegal
mines in Gridih are a good example. Many closed mines are already
being run by workers illegally and many accidents occur. While it is
possible to choose a few mines and run them, as a solution to the
industry, it is a non-starter. Apart from all this, even the union is
hardly prepared for it and is unaware of the kind of actual problems
it will face.
Mines, Minerals and People

MM&P is an alliance of individuals, institutions and communities
concerned and affected by mines. MM&P takes a wider perspective.
It holds that the destruction and diversion of pre-existing habitat for
mining industry undermines the possibility of any other use of the
resources of the area. It also has social and political implications when
the area is in the most forested region traditionally inhabited by
Dalits and Indigenous Peoples. It holds that mining should be the
last resort for the use of land and that there is much greater wealth
for humankind above these minerals. They advocate minimum mining
and replacement of non renewables with renewable solutions [MM&P,
2001].
24
While MM&P itself is not a large force they form a part of the debate
on development issues which is growing in energy and has a large
mass support. Development for whom? Who benefits from coal mines,
power and iron & steel and cement? In Jharkhand this is a powerful
movement which has tasted victory in Koel Karo Dam project and
forests of west Singhbhum district. There is strong opposition in
Hazaribag where Australians are trying to acquire land for new coal
mines. So the views and interests of the bystander population are
not only significant but decisive.
End Note
It is a depressing scenario. Jharia-Dhanbad coalfield is no longer a
destination for capital. The future is in closing down these mines - at
least that is the best alternative in the immediate future. Some 15%
of profit making mines will survive. From the workers point of view,
it is a losing battle which has to be fought because livelihood anywhere
in any condition remains important and cannot be given up. Some
form of struggle has to be taken up to windup this mess. A million
people are dependent on it and huge land mass is involved. You cant
drop a bomb and start in a new area. The people have to fight and
demand their rights from the state which is responsible for this.Having
said that, the situation in a long term sense, is not necessarily depressing.
A flight of capital does not leave an area destitute. As experience
shows, it is the coming in of capital that brought destitution of the
local population in Jharkhand. Less negative is positive. Left to themselves
people can manage for themselves quite well.
Postscript
This article was written in 2002. Much has happened since then.
1. Due to heavy demand from China, prior to the Olympic games,
demand for steel and coal have gone up and BCCL is no longer a
loss making company. In fact it is making good profits now.
25
2. No major change has occurred in the functioning of the BCKU.

No major change in leadership either. A K Roy is still the official
head, however, in its day to day routine, he has hardly any role.
3. The concept of a coal mine (new and old) has changed. There are
no coal mines any more. Now there are coal bearing areas, already
earmarked as area I, area II etc.
4. The most important development is the resistance against notice
of eviction to people of Jharia due to under ground fire. There is
also one case of resistance against a new project. This is in the
township of Bhuli where retired employees of BCCL and their
relatives who are still occupying the quarter illegally as well as
some small traders who are unauthorized occupants of BCCL
land are refusing to vacate the land earmarked for starting an
open cast project. They are getting support from political parties
of all hues.
References
Brown, L R (2002): Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth.
Das, Anjana & Jyothi Parikh (2002): Coal, Oil and Gas in India Development
Report, 1999-2002. Ed. Kirit S. Shah.
Standing Committee on Energy (2002): Dept. of Coal, Thirteenth Lok Sabha
Secretariat.
Martin, Max (2002): Black Burden The New Indian Express, July 15.
Mines, Minerals & People (2001): Brochure
Mukherjee, Uttam & Ashok Kumar (2002): Awaj, July 5.
Roy, A K (2002): Coal : Is Privatisation an Answer, Frontier Feb, 3-9
Roy, A K (2002a): Is Privatisation a Solution of the Crisis of the Coal Industry?
Workers Answer is: No, Dhanbad, BCKU (CITU), Pamphlet in Hindi.
Published in Frontier, April 6-13, 2003, Kolkata.
26
WHY DO NAXALITES SURVIVE ?
The Naxalite movement was born on May 27, 1967 when the CPI(M)
home minister Comrade Jyoti Basus police killed a few peasants in
the village Naxalbari in North Bengal. From such a small beginning,
today, according to government of India sources the Naxalites have
spread, out of a total of 630 districts, into 220 districts in 20 States
covering nearly 200 million people. This is about 40 per cent of
Indias geographical area and about one-fifth of the population- larger
by size and numbers than many countries in the world! However, as
will be seen later, on should treat the government figures with some
scepticism because it has a vested interest in showing it larger than
the reality.
The articulate section of our society has generally condemned the
Naxalites. However, some human rights activists and some people
who have worked in rural areas, though not agreeing with them,
seriously appreciate their efforts. The State has a mixed attitude.
While generally opposed to Naxalism, sometime it treats it as a law
and order problem and relies on the police and paramilitary
organisations to deal with it and at other times it is viewed as a social
and development problem, requiring socio-economic intervention.
Yet the fact remains that after nearly 40 years, Naxalites still survive
and their numbers have grown. Even today there are only 20,000
armed cadres. Compared to the state, their strength and armament
Why do Naxalites Survive ?
27
is miniscule. They have probably less than one per cent armaments
compared to our faction-fighting districts and other criminal groups.
So how do the Naxalites manage to survive and grow? Who supports
them and why? Where do the Naxalite cadres come from? Why is
the state not able to control/wipe them out? This essay attempts to
answer these questions and in the final section deals with the future
of Naxalism.
I. The Naxalites Serve a Constituency

The Naxalites survive because they serve a specific constituency, which
no one else is able to. These are the Dalit and tribal men and women
and some other sections of the poor. The Naxalites have protected
them and their women from the abuse and the violence of the ruling
class and the State. Earlier, these people were vulnerable to exploitation.
Even minor functionaries of the police and revenue department used
to lift any of these women for their pleasure. The Naxalites have
organised trade unions among them and have managed to increase
the wages of Bidi workers and the demand price of Tendu leaves and
other minor forest products. They have organised workers of mines
and quarries and have waged successful struggles. And finally, they
have carried out land reforms in a limited way in the areas they
control. The Naxalites have not always actually organised and led
the struggle in all these situations. In many cases their mere presence
and support enabled other groups and people to lead their struggles
successfully. What gives Naxalites this strength and reputation?
Violence is Necessary to Serve this Constituency
The answer is the Naxalite ideology, which permits use of counter
violence against state/class/caste violence, exploitation and oppression
against the poor. Very often the Naxalites dont have to actually use
violence. The very fact that they are prepared to do so and have
28
demonstrated it on several occasions suffices. The Naxalite constituency

has been facing violence for a very long time. From the time of the
Arthashastra and Manusmriti, that is around 2300 years ago, violence
against them has been sanctioned by law. It is after the birth of the
Indian Constitution, in 1950, that they have legal protection. But
as Dr. Ambedkar warned, unless this is translated into economic
upliftment of the poor such protection has no meaning, and we are
facing an explosive situation. And this is precisely why the Naxalites
are thriving. They are primarily militant trade unionists! Anyone
familiar with the history of trade union movements knows that the
very formation of a trade union involves violence, particularly in the
unorganised sector, in the rural and forest sector, in the mining sector
and so on. They are successful in organising formal and informal
trade unions among these workers and helping them get economic
relief. The Naxalites are more successful than others because it is not
an adhoc local effort. It is a large organised movement backed with a
trained and armed guerilla force that can strike at targets by choice.
Recognition and Use of this by Others
Naxalites are not the only people working with this constituency.
Historically Christians, Gandhians, and Ambedkar-inspired Dalit
and Buddhist groups have been working with the tribals and Dalits.
More recently a host of NGOs too have been working with this
constituency.
When these groups work alone, they have no answer to the rulingclass violence. They neither believe in violence nor are they prepared
to face it. When violence happens, they run to the press, human
right activists and to the courts. Most of it ends in failure and dejection
and frustration sets in. Some of them recognise and admire the Naxalites
from a distance because they can see that in the Naxalite areas the
poor cannot be insulted and humiliated easily.
29
Many of the NGOs get support and grants from the state and funding
agencies as a measure of counter insurgency towards the Naxalites.
Sometime they come in conflict with the Naxalites, but in most
cases they avoid and carve out areas of work that does not bring them
in conflict with the Naxalites. There is also a trend to move towards
advocacy so that they dont have to work in the field and face the
Naxalites. In general they treat the Naxalite problem as a social
problem and think that their way of doing it is better.
Finally there are groups that informally collaborate with the Naxalites.
This is in the form of offering shelters, medicines, and food supplies,
but more importantly they take up struggles of the people on issues
that have Naxalite support. Thus an issue-based alliance is formed.
Typically these can range from Tendu patta collection struggle, land
to the tiller, human rights issues beating, burning, murder, rape
and so on, and more recently antinuclear struggle in Nalgonda district.
After the recent peace talks the Naxalites set up a peoples land reform
commission in Andhra Pradesh. Most of the members of this commission
are not Naxalites and they are doing important work in finding out
the extent of land available and strengthening their own struggles.
Who are the Naxalites?
In the beginning, the Naxalite leaders were from their parent CPI(M)
party. Initially a large number of university graduates also joined.
However that period ended a long time ago. Today most of the cadres
are from Dalit, tribal and backward caste communities. Why do
they join? Broadly speaking, their condition is quite intolerable. A
small number of them have the courage/idealism to join, what appears
to them, a revolutionary movement. Still their numbers are so large
that very few of them end up joining. For one, there are severe tests.
Secondly, there are just so many that the movement can absorb. It is
said that there is a long invisible queue of young people wanting to
30
join the Naxalites and only the number of arms available limits it!
One government estimate gives the number as 3000 for Andhra Pradesh
alone.
II. The State and the Naxalites

Generally speaking the State is not interested in solving the Naxalite
problem. A real solution would mean a revolution, which the present
State is neither capable of nor interested in. The response of the state
is mainly fire fighting to keep its credibility. In the process, many
vested interests in the society use the Naxalite issue for their own
benefit.
Hawks and Doves
Hawks are those who want to treat the Naxalite issue as a law and
order problem. These are mainly the arms industry and their users the police and paramilitary organisations. Their very existence depends
on small controllable wars in which the State wont lose or win. There
is a whole nexus generally known as the military-industrial complex.
It can be a major part of the economy as it is in the U. S. A. There are
arms dealers, their political agents, kickbacks, unnecessary/bad quality
arms and so on. Then there is the police department and its own
special type of corruption - non-existent informers who are paid
unaccounted money, sale of ammunition passed off as ammunition
used, increased budgets and so on. Some encounters real or fake are
regularly carried out to justify continued hawk posture.
On the other hand, doves are those who treat the Naxal issue as a
social and development issue. The departments of social welfare,
education, labour, rural development and forest are involved in it.
Many NGOs too survive in the Naxalite shadow or what is called
the or else space. That is if the NGOs are not there then the Naxalite
will take over. In reality of course there is a peaceful coexistence with
31
an occasional skirmish. There is a lot of development in Naxalite

areas in terms of roads and other infrastructure. So there is a lot of
business in the Naxalite business! There is another aspect of
development that is triggered by the Naxalites. Normally a large
pool of semi-employed poor helps the employers to keep the wages
low because of the competition among the poor. This has a tendency
to pull down the entire wage structure from top to the bottom.
Conversely, when the wages of the lowest rung of the working class
goes up this has the tendency to raise the wage structure. The tendency
among the employers to keep profits high in the new conditions
leads to some industries closing down and others changing over to
new technology. Thus when the bottom is shaken the entire structure
is affected.
The Peace Talks
Peace talks were held after a new government came to power in Andhra
Pradesh. On the part of the government it was mainly a credibility
gaining exercise. However, the hawks in the government derailed it
very quickly. Interestingly the lower cadre officers of the police force
did it, because their earnings were hurt. They could do it - the tail
could wag the dog because the police chief himself was vulnerable.
His wife is accused of selling orphaned babies to foreigners! All the
chief minister could do was assure that he will try to restrain the
police. He could not order! The Naxalites were far clearer in their
objectives when they began the peace talks and achieved more. They
used the opportunity to have huge mass meetings all over the state
including Hyderabad. This established their credibility. They then
united with the Maoist Communist Centre of Bihar and Jharkhand
to create a larger party. They were prepared for the breaking of the
talks and successfully put the responsibility on the government. They
also used the opportunity to create links with other non-Naxalite
organisations, particularly on the issue of land reforms.
32
III. The Naxalite Strategy in the Future

To Continue to Serve the Constituency
Although the Naxalite discourse still talks of revolution, in practice,
their main activity is to directly serve their constituency, enable other
groups to do so and stand as guaranty to be available with violence
when needed. In this respect they are like the state. Any modern
society is actually two nations. The state with its violent apparatus
ensures that normally law and order is maintained for the ruling
and middle class. The Naxalites perform the same function with
their specific constituency. The poor see them as a last resort. Hence
even under torture they do not reveal information about them to the
police.
To Relate to Other Movements
Some Naxalite groups go for elections and form alliances with other
mainstream political parties. This is referred to as joining the democratic
process. Actually this is suicidal for them. The larger Naxalite groups
PWG and MCC (now joined together as CPI-Maoist) do not believe
in this. They do not seem to have an articulated position on alliances
except the theoretical position of worker-peasant alliance. However
in practice, as has been seen, the Naxalites collaborate with many
local organisations. These are issues of militant trade unionism and
land reform. In addition, they collaborate on issues of ethnicity, Dalit,
tribal and womens oppression, alcoholism and the antinuclear
movement. As a general rule, they seem to make local alliances or
extend support on practical grounds such as struggle of people on
various issues, opposing anti people government development projects
that serve nobody except money grabbers. It will be interesting to
see on what issues they collaborate with others. Some of these could
be from the agenda of NAPM- National Alliance of Peoples Movement.
33
This is not new in the Communist movement. Immediately after

the Russian Revolution, Lenin adopted the Agrarian Programme of
the Socialist Revolutionaries since the Bolsheviks did not have much
experience in these matters.
Some of the important issues will be relating to forests, water, neo
colonialism of the LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation)
kind and economic and cultural imperialism like the presence of
MacDonalds, Pepsi and Coca-Cola. For example, they can take a
stand against the timber mafia, they can support community-based
conservation programmes, oppose big dams and so on. It is interesting
to note that on most of these issues the initiatives are taken by nonparliamentary groups or what is called peoples movement. Thus the
Naxalites are not alone in finding the parliamentary path not useful
to the poor people. In that sense, these groups are natural allies of
the Naxalites.
To conclude, Naxalites are effective in some areas in India because
there are some glaring unresolved contradictions in our society. These
are basically aspirations aroused in our society by the Indian
Constitution but not fulfilled to date. And peoples movement alone
can resolve them. In Kerala and West Bengal, which have a long
history of such movements, the Naxalite movement did not survive.
So long as these basic contradictions remain unresolved in these areas,
the Naxalite movement will survive. Naxalites have proved more effective
than others because they have an ideology that inspires youth, an
organisational structure and armed groups. Is it possible that these
so-called backward areas will develop and Naxalite activities will die
down as in Kerala and West Bengal? Maybe, maybe not. The uneven
development can accentuate these differences rather than reduce them.
Some pockets of affluence in these areas and creamy layers from each
section of the society can and do emerge but that only worsens the
34
problem and does not resolve it. On the other hand, the so-called
developed areas are also facing deep crisis. Kerala is a prime example.
Everything is going wrong. Farmers are committing suicide on a
large scale because the international prices of rubber have fallen to
one-fourth. Tourism is creating child prostitution. The rate of crime
against women is higher as compared to any other state in India.
In such a scenario, maybe the backward districts will show us what a
sane society should look like.
Published in Frontier, October 2-29, 2005, Kolkata.
Postscript
1. This article was written in 2005. Some observations can be added
in the light of events in the last 5 years. The contradictions of
Indian society have sharpened because the policies of reforms,
that is, those of liberlisation, privatisation and globalisation have
allowed increased exploitation of people and natural resources.
This has further sharpened due to resource depletion, particularly
of petroleum products. Indian capital has been expanding in
the area of coal, thermal power plants, steel plants, sponge iron
plants, hydroelectric projects and SEZs. All these are affecting
livelihoods in terms of direct loss of agricultural land, crop losses
due to pollution, loss of jobs in rural areas and large scale
deforestation and environment degradation.
2. All these projects are facing large scale opposition from affected
people - by the local population, environmentalists and civil
society organisation. This translates into millions of people and
a diversity of organisations. Also at each location a local coalition
bearing a local name is created with the specific objective of
35
opposing the local project. Often they bear the name of the
project or region, such as Narmada Bacho Andolan, Save the
Western Ghats etc.
3. The response of the State has also undergone a sea change. The
old discourse is still maintained that there should be development
with a human face or that the Naxalite movement has socioeconomic roots. The essence of these discourses in the past was
that the protest should be democratic and open to negotiation.
The demand should be for transparency and fair and adequate
compensation. However peoples movements are increasingly
rejecting these discourses in the light of past experiences, and
the current emerging slogan is We will not give an inch of land.
People are questioning the concept of development and the goal
of GDP rates of 10%.
4. In response to this the state on one hand has adopted a policy of
ruthless suppression unleashing state violence wherever possible
and on the other hand the state has also evolved newer legitimizing
discourses. In the newer responses, peoples movements are branded
as undemocratic, violent, influenced by the Naxalites. In fact, a
discourse is generated that the Naxalites are preventing democratic
movements by violent interventions. In the same breath, non
Naxalites protesters are branded as Naxalites and dealt with violence
by the State.
5. The case of Bastar in Chhatisgarh illustrates these responses. In
Bastar, the Chhatisgarh government wants to give land for
development of coal mines, a large steel plant and a thermal
power plant. It does not go about acquiring land legitimately
like buying land from the land owners and offering compensation.
Instead it declares the area as influenced by the Maoists, raises a
vigilante army called Salwa Judam, arms them, pays them a stipend
36

and creates a reign of terror to evacuate the people from their
land. Nearly a 100,000 people have fled and have come to Andhra
Pradesh, without land, animals, papers etc. It also arrests the
President of the State Peoples Union of Civil Liberty and puts
him in jail for two years accusing him of being in league with
the Naxalites. It manages to gag the Chhatisgarh media completely.
6. The strategy of gagging the civil liberty movements takes many

forms. A discourse is generated that they defend only the Naxalites
and ignore other human rights violations. They accuse them of
condemning state violence in cases of false encounters but never
Naxalite violence. Although there is little truth in these allegations,
a few years ago, these discourses split the civil liberty movement
in Andhra Pradesh.
7. There is also a social basis of eroding of the middle class support,
including the support for the civil liberty movement. The Naxalite
movement is more than 40 years old. Many of the middle class
sympathizers have grown old. While a small section has kept its
allegiance intact, most have distanced themselves due to pressures
of everyday living. Thanks to the era of liberalisation, a small
section has gained economic prosperity in construction industry,
software, academics and the NGO sector.
8.
A section of this prosperous group, particularly among academics

and NGOs are vocal in their critic of the Naxalite movement.
Often this critic is fairly pedestrian in its quality and it does not
engage with the Naxalite movement seriously. While such a critic
gains currency, serious critic does not. Nor do the debates within
the movement, including its self criticism. When it apologized
for wrong killings, there was hardly any serious reporting about
it in the media.
37
9. As the crisis deepens, the struggle will be bitterer and bloodier.

The state will come out more and more brazenly on the side of
the capital. Democratic norms will be forsaken and fascist tendencies
will be strengthened.
10. The Naxalite movement will tend to get more support from the
affected poor people and may loose support from the middle
classes. For it to survive meaningfully, it may have to go through
a self appraisal of its policies, broaden its front by way of engaging
with issues of contemporary concern, evolve methods of struggle
that involve broader masses and other stakeholders in the struggle,
engage meaningfully with other political and social forces to
form a broad united front. While the historical trend will move
towards the direction of collapse of the capitalist system and
industrial society, time alone will pan out the role the Naxalite
will play.
11. In the wake of the situation in Bastar and world wide protest
against Dr. Binayak Sens arrest, many new voices on the situations
have come up. They explain the social background in which the
Naxalite movements exist and aslo how the ruling classes use
Naxalites as scapegoats to evict tribals from their homes. Arundhati
Roy, Nandita Haksar, Dayamani Barla, Himanshu Kumar and
many others have published important contributions on the
subject.
38 Do Naxalites Survive ?
Why
ACTIVISTS FOR THE POOR

Naxalites and NAPM
Obviously Naxalites and NAPM (National Alliance of Peoples

Movement) activists are not the only activists working for the poor
people. However, they comprise the largest of such coalitions.
Naxalites, who started as a breakaway Maoist group of the communist
movement in 1967, have today grown in the form of CPI (Maoist),
into a formidable peoples army of 20,000 armed cadres spread over
220 districts comprising a population of nearly 200 million covering
nearly 40% of land area in the country. They mainly deal with issues
of exploitation (wages and union rights of miners, agriculture labour,
forced labour, land to the tiller, wages of forest workers) and oppression
(insults, forced labour, dress code, use of separate tea cups in hotels,
insults to poor women including rape and so on). They also deal
with armed attacks of police, landlords armies and state - sponsored
anti - naxalite organisations.
NAPM grew around Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and today
encompasses various such movements all over India. They organise
mainly the victims of so-called Development, the displaced persons
from development projects, who have lost their sources of livelihoodland and forest - and have become destitute or on the verge of becoming
so. Before NBA, there were other important movements like Chipko
and Koel Karo.
Among other groups, Vahini, an offshoot of the JP Movement, has
its own network of such movements. It is called National Co-ordination
Activists for the Poor
39
of Democratic Forces, comprising of 21 organisations in 13 states of

north and central India. Vahini is mainly organising development
oustees. More recently they have been active against the Jharkhand
government for selling mining leases to the steel giants. Christian
groups have been active locally, mainly with tribals, collaborating
with other tribal groups. Dalit groups (including dalit Muslim groups)
by and large work in isolation with their own communities, suspecting
all others as tainted by Brahminism. They have also produced
significant literature. Specific womens groups and a large number
of fringe groups and individuals in many anti - authoritarian religious
groups also have been engaging meaningfully with poor people.
There are very few NGOs left who do constructive programmes.
Most of them are funder driven, engaged in advocacy. However, some
good work has been done around environment and livelihood issues
and organic farming for the poor. Some Gandhians and subsistence
anarchists have also done good work with poor with a voluntary
simplicity. While their achievements are not significant they are
contributing to a possible vision of the future that is based on low
consumption of earths resources.
Similarities and Differences

The common thing among all the above is that they have the same
constituency - the poor, which constitutes about 30% of Indias
population. The other important thing is that none of the parliamentary
parties support them and many actively oppose them. The State and
these parties are openly opposed to poor peoples movement since
the mid 80s, specifically starting from the Bhopal Gas episode where
none of these parties came to help the citizens of Bhopal. They all
support development policies, which amounts to genocide of a section
of the poor, immense suffering to rest of them and leads to ecological
disaster.
40
The main differences are:

1. Naxalite groups are prepared to use counter-violence, have an
aim of overthrowing the State, are illegal in many parts of the country
and live among the poor people as fish in water. 2. NAPM and
others do not use counter-violence as a rule, have a critique of
development, and work with development oustees. Their lifestyle is
middle class, with a church mission compound or campus culture
i.e. keeping a distance from the poor people. However many of them
practice voluntary simplicity.
Lack of Vision
All these organisations are fighting against something (NAPM against
development devastation; Naxalites against exploitation and
oppression, against capitalism and imperialism), but they are not
fighting for something. They do not have a vision of what a future
society should look like. This lack of a positive cause is a principal
weakness of the movement. It leads to a lack of moral energy, on the
one hand, and, on the other, lack of support of sympathisers people who share your vision but are unable to participate. This also
leads to a lack of support from middle class people, media and even
from sections of critical upper class, all of which is crucial for making
any movement a broad based success.
Compare this to earlier times in the twentieth century. For India,
during the first half of the century there was the independence
movement with various visions of free India. Then in the late 60s
with fall of the Congress monolith, various parliamentary and nonparliamentary alternatives emerged that gave rise to several social
movements. Today all the parliamentary parties appear corrupt, nakedly
opposed to the poor people, totally selling out to imperialist forces
in the form of liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation and defense
deals with the USA. On the other hand, China taking the road to
capitalism in the 1980s and fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s has
41
robbed the left of its vision of the future. Thus, while the Maoist are
gaining due to the fact that they are serving the poor in their dire
situation, a lack of vision is not allowing a general enthusiasm for a
revolutionary alternative to grow. A small exception to this scene is
Gandhian and anarchist groups who believe and practice for a future
based on low-tech options.
TINA or TINHFU
The lack of hope in a future is not limited to just these groups. The
entire society is suffering from this malaise. The ruling class tells us
that There Is No Alternative (TINA). Actually what they are telling
us that , There Is No Hope for You (TINHFU).
So it is not just the poor that are facing exploitation, oppression,
displacement, destitution and genocide. The entire trade union
movement is on the retreat for nearly two decades. Millions of people
have lost jobs. Schooling, medical and transport expenses have shot
up so much that much of the middle class is in debt. The rural
middle classes too are in debt due to rising costs of agricultural inputs,
schooling, health care and transport on the one hand and, on the
other, low yields and falling prices. Some rural farmers in desperation
are committing suicide. There is a general sense of giving up, a collective
unconscious of no hope!
The activists too are burying their heads in the sand and are refusing
to face reality a reality of acute crisis of capitalism and ecology. We
are all fighting losing battles and rejoicing in victories of little
skirmishes; stopping some dam, a weapon site or getting some guilty
people exposed and punished. Can we afford to time pass like this?
The fact is, time is running out. World capitalism is going through
an acute crisis and is therefore getting desperate and aggressive. It is
engaging in suicidal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and getting ready
to wage war in Syria and Iran. It is promoting aggressive consumerism.
In the last century, it has exploited the earths resources at such a
high rate that we have now reached an ecological crisis where natural
42
regeneration cannot replace what is being consumed. We also appear

to be very near to a point where a runaway ecological crisis can occur
when no corrective action will be possible. Added to this is the fact
that the world population has risen six times in the last century,
which by itself is capable of triggering an ecological catastrophe. In
as much as there is no visible and significant corrective trend, many
people believe that we have already reached a point of no return.
Need for a Dialogue

Given the urgency of the situation, it is high time we look beyond
the immediate and plan for a viable future that fits the ideas we
strive for. Given the fact that all these groups are working with the
people and the people in turn support them it is reasonable to assume
that all of them have some ideals, which are in the interest of the
people. It, therefore, makes sense if we have a dialogue to arrive at a
more comprehensive vision of the future that can inspire all the activists
and sympathisers.
One may ask why a dialogue among these groups is more important
than any other since the whole society is in crisis? One answer is, it
is the greatest sufferers - the victims - who often provide the energy
for change. However, the more important reason is that in the present
crisis these are the people who are dying first and they have the
maximum skills for survival in a post doomsday scenario. Most of us
cannot even make fire without a matchstick! Or a rope out of grass!
For a dialogue to occur between different groups, some criterions
should emerge. These could be:
1. A readiness to listen to the other respectfully, assuming that every
one has something from which we can learn and modify our position.
2. A readiness to look critically at our own past, pose questions raised
by others and those emerging from our past/present practices,
and try to answer them.
43
For instance, the Naxalites have to re-examine their activites/operations

in the context of :
1. Ecological concerns, saving forests, conserving water resources
alongside their struggle for the exploited.
2. Is modern industry compatible with ecological concerns? Are tobacco,
alcohol, large dams, and nuclear weapons compatible with the
ideals of socialism, peace and ecology?
3. Relationship between technology, division of labour, power and
the state the problems that plagued the Soviet and the Chinese
experience. What can one learn from them?
4. Role of violence in peoples struggle. How to overcome its negative
impact within organisations and people. The question of ends and
means.
5. Stand on communalism.
Similarly NAPM may need to examine a few questions and answer
them:
1. Attitude towards the State. Why do they run to the State institutes
when the State and its institutes consistently oppose them?
2. Contradictions among their constituencies. The farmers themselves
(around Mandleshwar ) have caused an ecological havoc, much
before the dam came. They oppose the dam because it will submerge
their lands on which they were practising such irrational agricultural
methods.
3. Pacifism and the state. Can any State be peace loving?
4. Alienation between activists and people.
Christian groups have to face similar questions as NAPM and for
Roman Catholics, authoritarianism of Vatican, abortion etc. are added
questions.
44
Dalits have to pose the question of treating all other groups as

Brahminical. These are only examples of some of the questions and it
is not an exhaustive list. For the dialogue to be meaningful, we should
be prepared to be as thorough as possible and go as deep as possible.
The Quaker Method

The Quaker Method of conducting meetings has proved very useful
in political movements in recent times. Quakers real name is Society
of Friends. They are an antiauthoritarian Christian religious group.
They do not advertise themselves or practice conversion. You become
a Quaker by Convincement. In fact there are Quakers who are
agnostics. Quakers can be considered as belonging to pacifist anarchist
tendencies, which include the ideas of Tolstoy and Gandhi.
Quakers believe that there is divinity in every individual. This principle
translated in secular terms amounts to the idea that every one has
access to some aspect of the Truth. In meetings and dialogues, it is
assumed that all are searching for truth, that you listen to others
carefully and examine your own truth. The objective is not to arrive
at a compromise, consensus or agreement, but to realise truth collectively
as much as possible.
This method is not unique to Quakers. Quakers themselves observed
similar methods with American (Red) Indians. Nearer home there
are reports of tribals in Ghadchiorli discussing issues threadbare and
reaching a decision only when everyone is clear about it and agreed
to it. In recent times, in anti-globalisation demonstrations all over
the world, groups believing in non-violence and groups believing in
unconventional tactics including violence learned to work together
successfully. At the Seattle protest against WTO, the varied groups
involved, used this method to act in unison.
For our purposes even if we learn to respect each other, and understand
the others point of view and cooperate at the field level, it will be a
big step forward.
45
Appendix
THE QUAKER PRACTICE

By Leonard Joy
The ways in which society generally provides for collective discernment
and decision-making are ill designed to tap our collective intelligence
and do much to explain our collective inability to discern and pursue
the common good. The fact that adversarial debate is likely to fail to
respect all needs and legitimate interests - and, at best, provides for
compromise- is fairly readily grasped. Where not all voices are equally
heard, the neglect of some concerns may be acute. And where there
is no mutual caring between parts and whole there is pathology,
even death.
I have many experiences of sustained decision-making in which, in
my judgement, collective wisdom prevailed. I shall now examine the
practice that supported this and consider whether its preconditions
have general application. The practice in question is the Quaker practice
of decision-making. The fact that it is approached as a meeting for
worship for business, in particular, raises the question of its more
general applicability. Let me anticipate and say that, approached as
a meeting for discerning the common good, the practice stands up
well in secular contexts.
The appended extracts from a Quaker Faith and Practice describe the
practice. They also describe its mystical roots-the belief that there is
that of God in everyone, and that this can be experienced so that
discourse can be Spirit-led.
The essentials of Quaker practice, translated where necessary into
secular terms, are as follows (no special order):
46
1.
grounding of all participants in the desire for the common good
2.
ensuring that all voices are heard and listened to
3.
respect for all - both participants and those outside (but affected
by) the decision making process
4.
respect and caring for the agreed legitimate interests of all
5.
maintaining community-loving relationship - as a primary

concern
6.
grounding of all participants in their own humanity and their

experience of it during the meeting
7.
sensitivity to interdependence-open systems thinking
8.
speaking out of the silence (the state of being personally grounded)
9.
addressing the clerk/facilitator not one another
10. speaking simply and not repeating what has already been offered
11. contributing personal perceptions and convictions-speaking ones
own truth-without advocating that all should act on it
12. the commitment to air dissent
13. not using emotion to sway others while being authentic with
the expression of feeling
14. distinguishing threshing meetings from meetings for decisionmaking
15. preparing factual and analytical material for assimilation prior
to meetings for decision
16. the role of the clerk/facilitator in offering syntheses of the sense
of the meeting that are progressively modified until there is
unity
17. the role of the clerk/facilitator in resolving difficulty in coming
to unity
18. decisions are made not by majority vote, nor by consensus, but
by unity
47
19. the organisational structures that bring to bear the voices of

many collectivities.
In principle, Leonard Jays description of the Quaker Method is a
very good guide. However, real life always demands adaptation and
practicality. If undertaken from a position of standing on good principles
the end result is generally closer to the model.
Published in Frontier, Kolkata, March 25-31, 2007
48
THE LOGIC OF OL CHIKI

A Tribute to Guru Gomke Pandit Raghunath Murmu
Sometime during the mid 80s my friend Ms. Kaveri Dutt was joining
her husband at Rairangpur. She asked me what she could do in such
a remote place. I said why, the best thing you can do is to visit
Pandit Raghunath Murmu and write down his memoirs. She went
and visited his house. His son came out and said sadly How would
you know? After all, no newspaper published the news of his death,
let alone an obituary. He died last month.
I have never met Pandit Raghunath Murmu or read his biography. I
hope a good biography does exist by now. But I knew him by his
works and by legends about him. He was known for his knowledge
of a large number of languages. He certainly knew Santhali, Ho,
Mundari, Oriya, Bengali, Sadan and Hindi. Possibly he knew many
more. He has certainly given a lot of thought to the problem of
scripts. He was confronted with Santhali being written in Bengali,
Oriya, Devnagari and Roman scripts. He found none of them satisfactory
for his language. And so he invented a new script for Santhali called
Ol Chiki. He cut his letters in wood himself and printed them at his
own press at Rairangpur. He printed several books to help Santhali
people to learn to read their own language. I have met one very tall
and handsome Santhali person travelling all over Jharkhand and
propagating Ol Chiki. He was dressed in green and had a white strip
across his shoulder on which Ol Chiki letters were printed. He used
to sing beautifully Bono Jangalo Bhora Amaro Jharkhando.
The Logic of Ol Chiki
49
Ol Chiki was recognised by the West Bengal govt. in 1978 for the
instruction of Santhal children at the primary stage. When Guru
Gomke (the Great Teacher - the title conferred on Pandit Raghunath
Murmu) was reportedly asked by the former Maharaja of Mayurbhanj,
to cease propagating the script because it was divisive the Guru is
said to have replied that he would gladly do so if the Maharaja
would see to it that the Oriya script was also abandoned!.
Scripts in India
I dont know the reasons and logic Pt. Murmu had for the invention
of his script. I can only tell how I came to appreciate his efforts. I
believe this may throw some light on the vexed question of scripts in
India. India is a home of 10 syllaberies (scripts) that are used by
dominant national groups. These are: Devnagari (Hindi, Marathi,
Nepali, Sanskrit and as link script, officially, for the entire country),
Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Gujrati
and Panjabi.
For more than hundred years some voices have been heard asking for
a common script in India. Apart from Devnagari and Roman, several
attempts have been made to modify them or even invent new scripts
as a common script for India. All these attempts have failed miserably.
There is also a lot of energy for imposing Devnagari script on scriptless
languages, that is, mainly Adivasi languages. They have generally
been using Roman script, mainly due to the efforts of Christian
missionaries in the field of education among Adivasis. For Santhali,
it was P. O. Bodding a missionary, who introduced the Roman script
as a common script for Santhali spoken in different states. It is however
worth remembering that Christian missionaries have also taken a
lead in standardising many Indian scripts, preparing and publishing
their grammars and dictionaries.
Pandit Raghunath Murmu invented and printed in his own script
more than 30 years ago. Recently I have even seen a new script for
50
Ho language. I also understand that they have developed software

for using these scripts on a computer. Since they are all alphabetic
scripts, it is easy to design software for them.
Will the Adivasi use these new scripts or will they use one of the
existing scripts? It is for them to decide. Different historical conditions
will probably evolve a different solution for each language and region.
Let me describe how I came to appreciate Pt. Raghunath Murmus
position.
A Common Script for India?

I belong to the dominant/powerful national groups in India. However
being a Kannadiga, I belong to a somewhat middle position. Hindi,
Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and English etc. are more powerful groups.
So I ended up learning the languages of the dominant groups viz.
English, Hindi, Marathi and Bengali. My knowledge of my own
language, Kannada is the poorest.
I began, like many others, to think that India should have one common
script either Roman or Devnagari. The arguments for either of them
are quite powerful and many good people who are interested in the
subject have taken one or the other position.
I happened to come across Nagri Lipi Parishad and their journal
Nagari Sangam. I became a life member, and so, for the last 10
years I have been reading their views which mainly support Nagari
as a link script for India. Most of the articles try to prove the superiority
of the Nagari script, many authors advocate adoption of Nagari as
common script for India and some even pit for Vishwa Nagari for
the whole world, since, in their opinion, it is the best script! As I
read the journal, I began to think that if the Nagari script is all that
great why dont all the Indian nationalities (like Maharashtrians)
adopt it? Over time the reasons became clear to me. They can not
undo their written and especially their printed history. They have
51
much to lose and little to gain. That is how B.C. Roy, the then Chief
Minister of W. Bengal put it - If the whole country wants to adopt
Bengali script, I have no objection meaning to say that we Bengalis
will never change our script. The irony is that, it was a Bengali,
Justice Mitra, who in 1898 first began the Ek Lipi Parishad, proposing
a common script for India. It is also poignantly brought out by Sindhi
Sahitya Samiti which repeatedly rejected Devnagari script and retained
their Perso-Arabic script. Their logic was that Sindhi Hindus today
are landless people and if they lose their script, they will lose also
their cultural heritage of the great Sufi saints.
Contrast this with the tragedy of Panjabi. The Indian Panjabis changed
their script from Perso-Arabic to Gurumukhi. Now many important
Panjabi writers have stopped writing in Panjabi and are writing in
Hindi. They have been cut off from their own literary tradition of
Bulle Shah and other Sufi saints. They are also cut off from their
Pakistani brothers and sisters who continue to write Panjabi in PersoArabic. Only the T. V. with its shallow culture gives them a bridge.
The story of Outer Mongolia is also very instructive. When they
joined the Soviet Union, they changed their ideo-grammatic script
to Cyrillic (Russian) alphabetic script. After the break of the Soviet
Union, they have gone back to their original script. They have got a
UNESCO grant to transliterate important literary efforts during the
Soviet period into their original ideo-grammatical script.
So changing script is not such an easy matter. Today, no one will
change his script to another script, no matter how wonderful the
other script is. They can do so only at the cost of losing much of
their cultural heritage and identity.
But what about scriptless societies, that is Adivasi languages? This is
where dominant scripts like a Roman, Nagari, Bengali etc. are trying
to impose themselves with apparently rational arguments. As a general
rule, most societies today when adopting a new script, when they
52
had no previous script will go for an alphabetic script. In India it

means Roman. Or they will invent their own script like Ol Chiki,
which is also alphabetic. What are the reasons for it? Can one script
be better than others? Are syllaberies (Indian scripts like Nagari,
Bengali etc.) superior to alphabetic ( Roman, Arabic, Cyrillic) or
Ideogrammatic scripts (Chinese, Mongolian, Korean etc.)?
What then is a Script?

The most lucid work on this subject that Ive read is by Anthony
Burgess in his Language Made Plain. What then is a script? It is a
tool that converts language from a temporal (time) mode to spatial
(space) mode. When we speak, our thoughts are expressed one after
another in time. When we write it is converted to space. We can go
backward and forward, whereas speech is, as the wise old saying goes,
like an arrow, once released, it does not come back.
There are three kinds of scripts in the world - ideogrammatic, alphabetic
and syllaberies. All evolved independently and in different regions.
Pictograms in Egypt and in their more evolved form ideograms in
China and Korea. Alphabets in West Asia (Arabic) and syllaberies in
India. Outside India there is only one syllabery that is in Japan,
which has all the three systems!
Now each system has its advantages and disadvantages. The great
advantage of ideogram is that it is not phonetic. So people using
different languages can use the same script! That is how China remained
united over the centuries. There wont be any need for translations if
the whole world were to adopt it! In a limited sense the world has
adopted it in the form of mathematical symbols like those for addition,
subtraction, multiplication, division and so on. In most cases, the
Arabic numbers 1, 2, 3 - - - 0 are used universally and are ideograms!
The disadvantage is of course the large number of ideograms, nearly
4000 in Chinese, which one has to learn. Modem Chinese has reduced
53
it to 400 or so. Still, they could not have typewriters and till computers
came in the nineteen seventies all Chinese, Japanese and Korean
correspondence was hand written. That is why they have such a
wonderful tradition of calligraphy and why the computer revolution
quickly took place in these countries.
The advantage of syllaberies is that they are the most phonetic scripts.
This allows a new reader to pronounce correctly. It is particularly
useful when you are a foreigner to that language. The disadvantage is
that it is also a difficult script due to its half letters and vowel signs
(maatras). Secondly, being so true phonetically can also cause problems
due to problems of standardisation of spelling. The same word is
pronounced differently in different regions of the same language and
therefore it is spelt differently.
Alphabetic scripts historically did not have vowels to begin with.
Vowels were added on, hence they are not fully phonetic and have
some glaring irrationalities. Indians never tire making fun of English
spellings and quoting George Bernard Shaw who left a large sum of
money for spelling reform in English.
The great advantage of alphabets, particularly Roman, is its simplicity.
There are only 26 letters, there are no half letters, vowel signs and so
on. The greatest point is their adaptability to machines. Even with
computers, it is not easy to use Indian syllaberies or ideograms on
computers. These are the main reasons why so many scriptless societies
prefer Roman/alphabetic scripts.

So where does this leave us? Anthony Burgess said that most of the
irrationality of English spelling is due to the fact that Roman script
is suitable mainly for Italian language! This is the clue. Scripts are
like a dress. While we can adorn the dress of any culture, we are
54
comfortable only in our own. There are no superior or inferior dresses.

Each is suitable to its culture or for a specific activity. Similarly any
language can be written in any script, but it is best expressed in its
own script. That is the logic of Ol Chiki.
Development of various scripts for different languages followed the
requirement of the particular language. Furthermore, a script is also
a part of the effort to define and assert ones identity. A language is
mother, a script is father, goes a tribal saying.
It is of course for the Santhalis to choose their script. Different Santhalis
living in different parts of India may use those dominant scripts.
But in Jharkhand Ol Chiki may find its place of pride. That will be
the best tribute that the newly confident Jharkhandis can pay to
Guru Gomke Pandit Raghunath Murmu!
Published in Frontier, Sep. 29-Oct. 2, 2002, Kolkata.
55
BUDDHISM IN MODERN INDIA
Why do statues of Ambedkar sculpted with his index finger pointing

outward? Because he restarted Buddhisms Wheel of Dharma (which
had stopped in India for centuries) with his finger in its spokes! So
the story goes The mythology of resurgence of Buddhism in modern
India is charming and romantic.
It begins with a boy working in the fields, in Konkan, Goa.This boy
chances upon a story about the life of Buddha in a torn Marathi
newspaper. He is so charged by the story that he travels to Nepal (via
Pune and Banaras, studying Sanskrit and Pali) the birthplace of Buddha
in search of Buddhism, only to find that he has to go to Ceylon
(present day Sri Lanka) to look for it. Undaunted, he travels to Ceylon
and Burma and becomes a Buddhist and a scholar. Back in India, he
teaches Pali at Calcutta University, goes to Baroda, meets James Wood
of Harvard University and ends up editing and translating a Buddhist
tome at Harvard, published as one of the volumes in the Harvard
Oriental Series. Returning again to India, he teaches at Gujarat
University, then joins the Salt Satyagraha, spending six years in jail
and moving on to Banaras Hindu University. Towards the end he
decides to exit from his life in the Jain religion way only to be persuaded
by Gandhi to come to live in Sevagram, where he breathes his last.
Acharya Dharmanand Kosambi (1876-1947) remains one of the
greatest scholars of Buddhism and Jainism that India has produced.
He was also father of an equally illustrious son, Damodar Dharmanand
Kosambi!
56
Buddhism in Sri Lanka

What did Kosambi find in Sri Lanka? How come Buddhism was
flourishing there? There lies another romance. On May 18, 1880,
two colourful personalities arrived in Sri Lanka one a New England
puritan, Col. Henry Steele Olcott (1832-1907), and the other an
occultist, Mme. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891). They
identified themselves as Buddhists but not with the sorry state of
the Buddhist community that they found there. They created an
esoteric variety of Buddhism that was in essence the same as Vedanta,
since they had already founded the Theosophical Society in New
York in 1875. In fact within a month, on June 17 1880, they created
the Buddhist Theosophical Society.
Olcott had a missionary zeal for education. He had already created
agriculture education in the USA. Here, he campaigned for the access
of Buddhist children to English medium education, a privilege enjoyed
by Christians only. In 1881, he wrote the Buddhist Catechism and
also created the Buddhist Educational Association. He founded the
Ananda College at Colombo (1886), Dharmaraja College at Kandy
(1887), and Mahinda College at Galle (1892). In 1889 he went to
Japan, brought together 12 Buddhist sects and organised a convention
of Southern Buddhists of Burma, Siam and Ceylon.
This was the Buddhism that young Kosambi found flourishing in
Sri Lanka. The modern Sinhala bourgeoisie/middle class is largely a
product of this English medium education. In 1880 a young Sinhala
boy came under the influence of Olcott. Son of a furniture merchant,
the youth was impressed by the simplicity of Buddhist monks. Olcott
took him to Adyar in 1884 and brought him back in 1886 to collect
funds for the Buddhist Educational Association. The young Bhikku
Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) was moved by the plight of
rural people. He became a great Buddhist scholar and propagandist
57
who brought Buddhism to India, pioneering the revival movement

at enormous personal sacrifice.
Buddhism Comes Back to India

Before Anagarika Dharmapala established the Maha Bodhi Society
in 1891, Buddhism in India was in a chaotic condition. Holy places
connected with the life of the Buddha were neglected and dilapidated,
and the shrines were considered as show pieces under the control of
non-Buddhists. Dharmapala was heart broken when he saw the
lamentable condition of Bodhagaya Temple, then in the possession
of a Hindu Mahant. He resolved to recover the Bodhagaya Temple
and other places of Buddhism and spread the dharma in the land of
its birth. To this end he founded the Maha Bodhi Society.
The Buddhist revival movement initiated by Dharmapala spread to
many parts of India. Branches of the Society were established at Sarnath,
Bodh Gaya, Calcutta, Madras and Sanchi. He influenced many scholars,
such as, Rahul Sankrityayana, Bhadant Anand Kausalyayan, Jagdish
Kasyap and Dharmarakshita. They trained in Sri Lanka and propagated
Buddhism in India by translating the Buddhist religious books lost
to India for centuries.
Dharmapala established Upasana centres, libraries, schools, colleges,
orphanages and hospitals in India and Sri Lanka for the general public.
He was a great patriot and an unflinching advocate of independence
both in India and Sri Lanka. He helped India to rediscover Buddha
and take pride in Buddhism and Buddhist culture. The present
flourishing condition of Bodhagaya, Sarnath, Kushinagar and Sanchi
and many other sacred places of Buddhism in India are the direct
result of Dharmapalas untiring and selfless efforts.
He died on 29th April 1933 at Sarnath. His last words were: Let me
die soon. Let me be reborn. I can no longer prolong my agony; I
would like to be born again 25 times to spread the Buddha dhamma.
58
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956)

Ever since the 1935 Depressed Classes Conference, when he had
shocked Hindu India with the declaration that though he had been
born a Hindu he did not intend to die one, Ambedkar had been
giving earnest consideration to the question of conversion. Further
consideration made him increasingly convinced that there was no
future for the Untouchables within Hinduism, that they would have
to adopt another religion, and that the best religion for them to
adopt was Buddhism. Some scholars think that John Dewey, the
American philosopher - his teacher, influenced him.
In 1950, he visited Sri Lanka at the invitation of the Young Mens
Buddhist Association, Colombo, where he addressed a meeting of
the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Kandy and appealed to the
Untouchables of Sri Lanka to embrace Buddhism. In 1951, he wrote
an article defending the Buddha against the charge that he had been
responsible for the decrease in womens status in ancient India. The
same year, he compiled the Bauddha Upasana Patha, a small collection
of Buddhist devotional texts.
In 1955, he founded the Bharatiya Bauddha Mahasabha or Buddhist
Society of India. Addressing thousands of untouchables assembled
there for the occasion, he declared that, henceforth he would devote
himself to the propagation of Buddhism in India. He also announced
that he was writing a book, The Buddha and His Dhamma, explaining
the tenets of Buddhism in a simple language for the benefit of the
common man. It was published after his death in November 1957.
Many describe it as his magnum opus. On 14 October 1956, Ambedkar
took the Three Refuges and Five Precepts from a Buddhist monk in
the traditional manner and then, in turn, administered them to the
3,80,000 men, women, and children who had come to Nagpur in
response to his call. Ambedkar died on 6th December 1956.
59
Although Ambedkar had been a Buddhist for only seven weeks, during
that period he probably did more for the promotion of Buddhism
than any other Indian since Ashoka. At the time of his death three
quarters of a million untouchables had become Buddhists, and in
the months that followed, hundreds of thousands more took the
same step - despite the uncertainty and confusion created by the
sudden loss of their leader.
Why did Revival of Buddhism Fail to Help the Dalits?

Ambedkars contribution to the cause of Dalits has undoubtedly
been the most significant event in the 20th century India. His conversion
to Buddhism shook India and gave an enormous sense of pride to
the Dalits. It also strengthened the liberals among caste Hindus who
were uncomfortable/ashamed of the practice of untouchability in
India and oppression of the Dalits. The socialist and the communist
trends in India were also strengthened. It should also be remembered
that Ambedkar played a big role in drafting the Indian Constitution
with affirmative justice (reservation) clauses in it.
While Ambedkar is still a very important name in the Dalits struggle,
Buddhism has not played any significant role in it. Certainly not the
kind of role it played for the Sinhala middle classes. Among the
lower - income, rural neo - Buddhists there is practically no change
in the worldview. Their village Buddhism tends to make new gods
out of Buddha and Ambedkar and fit them into Hindu pantheon.
Even the ideas of purity and pollution directed at castes lower than
themselves remain widespread. The fault is not entirely theirs. Buddhist
Viharas in poor Dalit areas are neglected and priest/Buddhist Bhikkus
never come there. Dalits have repeatedly demanded that they be
taught at least some Buddhist prayers. But no one comes. It is only
the more educated, politically mobilised minority among the neoBuddhists who take the scientific temper of the Buddhist teaching
into their lives. In simpler words, it means it helped them acquire
middle-class status.
60
Hindu Revivalism in the Nineteenth Century

The revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and later in India bears a marked
resemblance to Hindu revivalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Like in Sri Lanka, they, the middle classes, faced the criticism and
threat of Christianity. They faced two contrary pulls. On one hand
they wanted the colonial jobs and to socialise with the colonial masters,
on the other they did not want to become Christians as some of their
more daring countrymen did. The way out was Hindu reform in the
form of Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj. Undoubtedly these reforms
also served the cause of anti-colonial struggles. A similar mix of reforms
took place all over the country and most of them were aimed at
educated middle classes though they did talk in the name of the
country as a whole. The important fact is, they all harked back to
ancient India, back to the authority of the Vedas, ignored the medieval
period of saints and remained authoritarian and sectarian. They also
implied that the plight of the Hindu society was due to Muslim
invasion. This led to, even in the 19th century, Hindu-Muslim divide
in western Uttar Pradesh.
Both Gandhi and Tagore were aware of this problem. While Gandhi
called himself a sanatan Hindu, Tolstoy and the anti-authoritarian
Christian Quakers influenced him. He sought and found such traditions
in Hinduism, using them effectively both in South Africa and later
in India. Therefore, he was able to work with and inspire a wider
section of Indian society.
Tagore had Acharya Kshiti Mohan Sen with him at Shantiniketan,
probably the greatest scholar of his time on medieval religious
movements in India. His great work, Madhyayuger Sadhana influenced
Tagore. Tagore learnt a large range of Indian folk music ranging from
boatmens song in Bengal to Panjabi Tappa. Most of it was from
rebel, anti-authoritarian religious tradition of Indian society. The
point to note is, it was relatively less sectarian and often cut across
the Hindu-Muslim divide.
61
However, in as much as the leadership of the movement was largely

middle class it remained culturally revivalist, authoritarian and sectarian.
As independence began to loom over the horizon, particularly after
the 1937 assembly election when only propertied classes voted,
sectarianism was vigourously articulated, fighting to inherit the rule
from the British, which led to the well-known tragic consequences.
Ambedkar found that his community was losing out and he was
desperately looking for cultural rejuvenation of the community. For
a variety of personal and historical reasons (some outlined above), he
chose Buddhism. He died within months of conversion and all he
could contribute was his book, Buddha and his Dharma. It remains
marginal to the Dalit movement. Like the Hindu reform movement,
Ambedkar also harked back to ancient India. Having been exposed
to Western education, he too lacked respect for the culture of his
people. Thus, addressing his people he scolded, Tolerance of insults
and tyranny... has killed the sense of retort and revolt. Vigour and
ambition have completely vanished from you. All of you have become
helpless, unenergetic and pale. Everywhere there is an atmosphere of
defeatism and pessimism... His response to the medieval saints was
that they did not oppose the caste system. In his complete neglect
and disparagement of the cultural tradition of his own people, he
was not unaware of it. His own father was a follower of Kabir. Thus
his Buddhism, again a product of the New England Puritanism of
Olcott and Deweyan rationalism, could only help a Dalit middle
class to rise but could not help the Dalit poor. Also, one must not
forget, Buddhism too is an authoritarian religion!
What Happened to Buddhism in India?

The Cultural Traditions of the Working Poor
The Chinese traveler, Huen Tsang gives evidence, that in the 7th
century, Buddhism, particularly its Mahayana sect was flourishing
62
in North India. What happened to Buddhism after that? There is no

clear picture about it, but it could not have vanished without a trace.
It is said that Buddhism left India due to Vedantic and Mimansak
Acharyas like Shankaracharya, Kumaril and Udayan. While that is
historically untrue, what it means is that the world of pundits and
intellectuals lost faith in it and the ordinary people were never interested
in its theology. When Buddhism lost its patronage, many Bauddha
Mathas got converted to Shaiva Mathas. Even today, people in millions
worship there. Buddhism itself turned to attracting people through
Tantra, magic etc. During IXth and Xth centuries in the Nepal Terai
region a mixture of Shaiva and Buddhist Sadhana gave rise to the
Nath Panthi yogis. In Nepal even today Buddha and Shiva are respected
equally. The founder of the Nath Panthis was Gorakhnath. There is
a tale that he met with Allamprabhu, the founder of the Lingayat
tradition in the South at the Srisailam hill in present-day Andhra
Pradesh. The winds of change were flowing across the land.
There was continuous pressure for religions to turn towards people
and peoples language. In the Apabhransh (pre-modern language)
literature we find Buddhist songs and couplets. Later the same metaphors
keep on reappearing in the writings of many saints. The culmination
of this trend came with Kabir and the Nirguna tradition. Kabir and
many of his successors like Dadu and Jayasi grew in an Islamic social
atmosphere. Sufis had spread in many parts of India and most of
these saints were familiar with their ideas. At a later date, in Guru
Nanaks travelogues, there are scores of encounters with Sufis. Sikhism
also created the Granth Sahib, a collection of all the important saints
songs and poems - until then in the Nirgun tradition. This tradition
did not accept the authority of the Vedas and the Gita. A majority of
the saints who followed it came from the artisan castes.
There was also the tradition of Krishna Kavya, written mainly in
Braj, which also had an all-India spread. For instance, the Krishna
63
Kavya in Braj was written in Kerala! Bengal and Orissa also had a
strong Braj tradition. The Ram Bhakti tradition was equally widespread.
These traditions accepted the authority of the Vedas and the Gita,
and many of the saints were Brahmins, like Surdas and Tulsidas.
Scholars often use the term Bhakti Movement for the movement of
medieval saints, in Indian tradition. The term however, tends to see
the many trends within it without differentiating. But it is possible
to differentiate between those that have accepted the authority of
the Vedas and the Gita and the other or Ved Bahya traditions that
have not. I believe that it is the latter, the anti-authoritarian traditions,
that represents the continuation of Buddhism in India.
An important element in anti-authoritarian traditions is the use of
secular themes. In the Sufi tradition love among different caste and
communities was used to establish that all are equal in the kingdom
of God and that one does not need intermediaries like Mulla or Pandit
to reach God. Kabir repeatedly made fun of Brahmins and Mullas
and of Sanskrit. These saints constantly used images from daily life
of ordinary peasants and artisans. This attitude is reflected in the
writings of relatively recent poets like Ghalib. I believe these traditions
are important precursors of secular literature, ideology and organisations.
Today we find that the working people, both rural and urban,
particularly those from artisan castes have inherited these traditions.
Most workers do not distinguish between different traditions. In
general, they respect all (in the style of the Hindu pantheon!). But
many stick to the main tradition of their caste, and generally speaking
the artisan castes belong to the Nirgun tradition. In any workingclass district, groups of workers gather and sing these songs. Weekly
market pavement bookshops often carry chap literature of these saints.
These traditions articulate themselves in various festivals and in the
day-to-day cultural life of ordinary people. These traditions are also
found among the wives and parents of many modern westernised
64
middle-class persons who reject them while swearing by esoteric ancient

India or atheistic/materialistic modernism.
One may sum up thus:

1. The Hindu revivalist movement of the last couple of centuries
has harked back to ancient India because the middle classes, being
exposed to English education and facing the criticism of Christianity,
felt ashamed and contemptuous towards their illiterate countrymen.
They also blamed the Muslim invasion for the loss of Hindu
power. Thus, the nature of such revivalism was sectarian, on the
one hand leading to the Hindu-Muslim divide while on the other
looking down on the peoples multi-religious and composite cultural
tradition.
2. Ambedkar also harked back to ancient India, yet it was to a tradition
that was anti-Brahmin and opposed to the authority of the Vedas.
But, having been molded by Western education he failed to respect
the culture of his people. In discounting the medieval saints for
not opposing the caste system, he failed to recognise that the
people were at that time (and are still) holding onto aspects of
those anti-authoritarian traditions. His Buddhism, a product largely
of Olcotts New England puritanism and Deweyan rationalism,
could only enable a Dalit middle class to rise but could not help
the Dalit poor. And all in all, Buddhism too is an authoritarian
religion!
3. One may attempt to arrive at a thumb rule of what kind of tradition
is useful for people. Any tradition that is sectarian, ignoring the
multi-cultural and multi-religious composite identity of present
India is likely to be harmful. More specifically, any tradition that
ignores the medieval period, ignores Islam, the saint tradition of
this period including the Islamic tradition of Sufism, the Sikh
tradition and the Lingayat tradition of the South.Harking back
to ancient India, is likely to be either of no use or even injurious
65
to the common people. This includes the Hindu revivalism of

the Arya Samaj, the Brahmo Samaj, and the Ramakrishna Mission
as well as Buddhist revivalism.
4. The choice is not between rationalism and irrationalism, atheism
and theism, or materialism and idealism. The real choice is between
authoritarian and anti-authoritarian traditions. And, on their own,
what people tend to choose is the latter.
5. It is the anti-authoritarian tradition that leads to secular trends
like socialism and anarchism and organisations like trade unions
and peoples co-operatives.
Published in Frontier, Kolkata, Sep, 24 - Oct 21, 2006.
66
DAKHNI
The Language in which the Composite Culture of India was Born
Dakhni: Mother of Modern Urdu and Hindi

When Wali Dakhni (also known as Wali Aurangabadi and Wali
Gujarati), a famous poet of Dakhni visited Delhi in 1700, he astonished
the poets of Delhi with his ghazals. He drew wide applause from the
Persian-speaking poets, some of who, after listening to Wali, also
adopted the language of the people, Urdu, as the medium of their
poetic expressions. Prominent poets - Shah Hatem, Shah Abro and
Mir Taqi Mir - were among his admirers.
At that time in Delhi, the court poets were composing in Persian
and Arabic. For others, Braj and Awadhi were the languages of literary
and religious expression. The spoken language of all was Khari Boli.
When the poets listened to Walis renditions in Dakhni (which is
also a variant of Khari Boli), they were astonished to say the least,
that the spoken language of the people was capable of such rich
literary expression.
Wali Dakhni, born as Wali Muhammad (1667-1731 or 1743) was
born in Aurangabad and went to Gujarat in search of a Guru. He
became a disciple of Wajihuddin Gujarati and soon became famous.
He came back and settled in Aurangabad but travelled twice to Delhi.
His first trip produced the dramatic results mentioned above, and
made him known as father of Urdu poetry. He died in Ahmedabad
and Hindu fascists recently razed to ground his tomb in the aftermath
Dakhni
67
of Godhra riots. Wali Dakhni composed 473 ghazals besides masnawis

and qasidas. His ghazals are still sung by several singers including
Abida Parveen.
It was in the early eighteenth century, after Walis visit, that Urdu as
a literary language was born. Both modern Hindi (written in Devnagari
script) and Urdu (written in Perso-Arabic or Urdu script) are variants
of Khari Boli spoken in the Delhi and Meerut region. Court circles,
Persian and Arabic scholars and especially the Muslims of Delhi adapted
this language with much eagerness, and from the end of the 18th
century the Mughal house turned only to Urdu. For the first 60
years or so, the influence of the Dakhni poets, Sufi thinking and an
Indianness of diction prevailed over Urdu. The term Four Pillars of
Urdu is attributed to the four early poets: Mirza Jan-i-Janan Mazhar
(1699-1781) of Delhi, Mir Taqi (1720-1808) of Agra, Muhammad
Rafi Sauda (1713-1780) and Mir Dard (1719-1785).
Although Amir Khusro (1253-1325) and Kabir (1398-1448) used
Khari Boli in the 14th and the 15th century, Hindi became a literary
language only in the latter half of the 19th century. Till then the
authors were mainly writing in Braj and Awadhi. It was Raja Shiva
Prasad Sitare Hind (1824-1895) and Bharatendu Harishchandra
(1849-1882) who first started writing in Khari Boli in the Devnagari
script. They were obviously influenced by the popularity of Urdu,
which was written in Perso-Arabic or Urdu script. In the beginning,
the difference was mainly in the script and the authors knew both
the scripts. In fact, the famous Hindi author, Premchand (18801936), first wrote in Urdu under the name Nawabrai. Thus modern
Hindi is only about 150 years old and like Urdu, has also been inspired
by Dakhni.
A twentieth-century Kerala Hindi scholar, Dr. Muhammad Kunj
Mettar, established Dakhni as the source for modern Hindi. Dr.
Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay also maintained that it was Deccan
that established the use of Khari Boli replacing Braj in the North. In
68
fact, even the name Hindi for the language originated in the South.
A Tamilian, Kazi Mahamud Bahari in 17th century used the word
Hindi for Dakhni in his Sufi poetry called Man Lagan.
What is Dakhni?
Dakhni is the lingua franca of the Deccan. The Deccan is roughly
the area between the Narmada and Tungabhadra or Krishna. On the
east it is bounded by the Mahanadi and on the west by the Western
Ghats. It is the great southern Indian plateau. Politically it is comprised
of Berar (present-day Vidarbha with Nagpur as its important city),
the ten Telangana districts of Andhra Pradesh, the Maharashtra districts
of Latur, Nanded, Ahmednagar, Beed and Aurngabad, and the Karnataka
districts of Bijapur, Bidar, Gulbarga, Raichur and Bellary.
However as a spoken language Dakhni is widely used even outside
this region. It is the lingua franca of all the Muslims in South India
and is understood by all those who have access to Hindi. In many
Hindi films, Dakhni words and dialogues are used and in films like
Hero Hiralal, Sushman and more recently in Well Done Abba' (a
2010 release), Dakhni is the main language. Films like Angrez and
Hyderabadi Nawab also used Dakhni profusely. There are no current
census figures for speakers of Dakhni because no one reports Dakhni
as a mother tongue. Still the estimates of Dakhni speakers will run
into crores, because its variants are spoken in Gujarat, Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamilnadu. As folk tradition,
in the urs of Sufi saints, in the songs used by beggars and fakirs,
Dakhni is still widely used.
Linguistically it is a variant of Khari Boli as spoken in the Meerat
region in Uttar Pradesh. However, it has some specific differences.
For no it uses nako instead of nahin, for the word only as used in
Indian English it uses cha instead of hee and for OK it uses hau
instead of han. In terms of vocabulary, up to 30% is constituted of
local words so that in Telangana it has Telugu words, in Karnataka
Dakhni
69
Kannada words and in Maharashtra Marathi and so on. As a rule, it

is the first language of the Muslims in the region but most people
exhibit bilingualism.
The Origin of Dakhni

The standard understanding of the origin is as follows. Medieval
Deccan, known as Al Hind in the Arab world, was extremely rich. It
attracted adventurers, traders, scholars and saints from all over the
world. Turks and later Mughals came from the North. The sea route
through Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala was equally flourishing.
Egyptians, Abyssinians and Arabs came through this route. Afsani
Nikitin a Russian traveller, who spent several months in Bidar, took
it to be the capital of India!
Allauddin Khilji, after conquering Northern India, moved to the
Deccan to attack Devagiri in February 1295. He again attacked the
city in 1306 and 1307. Malik Kafur carried out the third attack to
defeat the last of the Yadav kings of Deccan. Muhammad Tugluq
transferred the capital from Delhi to Devagiri in 1326. In its wake,
thousands of families shifted from Delhi to the Deccan. Thus in the
14th century, soldiers and traders with their own dialects moved to
the Deccan and settled among the Marathas, Kannadigas and Telugus.
There were also many Hindus among them, such as Rajputs, Jats,
Banias and Kayasthas. They brought dialects spoken in the Delhi
region and these formed the basis of a literary speech, known as
Dakhni.
In 1347 Hasan Bahamani became the ruler at Gulbarga. Soon the
Bahamanis (1350-1525) became very powerful. Around 1489 the
Bahamani state broke into four new states of Ahmednagar (14601633), Bijapur (1460-1686), Bidar (1487-1619) and Golconda (15121687). Aurangzeb defeated all of them one by one in the late 17th
century. One of Aurangzebs Subedar, Asifjah, established an
70
independent state around Hyderabad in 1723, which comprised

areas within present-day Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
The Nizams rule lasted till it was overthrown by independent Indias
Police Action. Dakhni flourished in all these courts. For the Bahamanis
it was the official language.
Dakhni historians divide the history of the literature into four periods.
The key figures of the period and their main works are:
1. 1300-1500: Khwaza Bande Nawaz Gesu Daraj (1332-1437):
Mairajul Ashkin, Hidayatnama, Shikarnama etc; Nizam Bidri (146292): Kadamrao va Padamrao
2. 1500-1700: Muhammad Kuli Kutub Shah (1571-1611): Kulyate
Muhammad Kulukutubshah; Mulla Vajahi: Sabrag; Mulla Gawasi:
Maina Satwanti; Kazi Mahamud Bahari: Man Lagan
3. 1700-1850: Wali Dakhni (1668-1741); Shah Turab: Jahur Kulli,
Ganjul Asrar.
4. 1850- Present: Purushottam (32 Plays inspired by Parsi Theatre).
Wali Dakhni signifies the beginning of the end of the great period of
Dakhni. After him Urdu began to gain prestige, and in the Deccan,
too, Urdu became popular as a literary language. Thus Dakhni had a
rich cultural and literary history for four hundred years (1350-1850).
Today Dakhni is no longer a significant literary language in the South.
First, Urdu and, then, Hindi replaced it. Later with the formation of
linguistic states, the major Dakhni area, namely Hyderabad Nizams
state, was split up, with portions going to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka
and Maharashtra. Later the status of Urdu, Persian and Arabic declined
rapidly. Since most of Dakhni was written in Perso-Arabic script,
access to it also declined for the new generations in the linguistic
states.
Dakhni
71
The Nirgunia-Sufi Link

There are some lacunae in the standard account of the origin of Dakhni.
For example, if the language was born with the Muslim invasion in
the 14th century, how did such sophisticated poetry as that of Bande
Nawaz emerge in so short a period? And why has Dakhni remained
so popular?
Deccan, as already mentioned, is an area that can be defined as lying
between the Narmada and the Tungabhadra rivers. The area south of
the Deccan is called Dravid. The Deccan has been a meeting point
of southern and northern cultures. This has given its culture a special
quality. It does not keep its independent existence but spreads and
accepts influences from north and south. It is a home for Kannada,
Telugu and Marathi, and also has contributed to Hindi and Urdu.
So the contact with the North is far older than the Muslim invasion.
Both Buddhists and Jain religions that were born in Bihar had
significant presence in the South. The Jains even today have an important
presence. After the decline of the Buddhists, it was the Shaivaite and
Nathpanthis who inherited the Buddhist tradition. There was a
significant movement of Nathpanthis, Nirgunias, Sikhs and Sufis
from Punjab to Gulbarga, through Gujarat and Maharashtra. In
Maharashtra, Gyaneshwar and his elder brother Nivrutinath are in
direct tradition of Gorakhnath. Hence we find Namdev (1270-1351),
a saint from Maharashtra and a tailor by caste, writing in Dakhni.
His son Gonda also composed in Dakhni. Some 50 of Namdevs
poems are included in the Granth Sahib. Eknath and Tukaram are
two other Marathi saints who wrote extensively in Dakhni. However
the bulk of Dakhni literature is in the Sufi tradition. Sufis too travelled
from the North to the South, as did Nanak. Nanak reached up to
Nanded and Bidar. Sufis spread all over the Deccan and every district
has at least one important Sufi dargah. All Muslims poets were not
Sufis nor all Sufis were Muslim. For example Nizam Bidris Masanavi
72
Kadam Rao va Padam Rao is a Jain Charit Kavya. Even today, countless
number of Hindus visit Sufi dargahs and many sing Sufi songs.
Distinction of Nirgunia Sadhana in Indian Tradition

Indian medieval sadhana is generally referred to as bhakti in English.
This is a bit confusing because in Indian tradition, bhakti tends to
mean the sagun sadhana or revering God with guna or qualities.
Nirgunias, on the other hand, revere a formless God without qualities.
This distinction has important social implications. Sagun sadhana
means God with a form, which in turn means images of God and
temples. It means a priest, a mediator between man and God, offerings
and so on. Its manifestations in literary tradition have been Krishna
Kavya and Ram Katha. Nirguna, on the other hand, implies no temples,
offerings and so on. Nirgunias used simpler spoken language, which
was akin to Khari Boli. Thus Kabir used some Khari Boli and later it
generally became the language of nirguna sadhana. It thus travelled
with the Nathpanthis, Sikhs (Nanak visited Bidar and Nanded) to
the South. In fact the Indian tradition maintains that Bhakti (saguna
sadhana) travelled from South to North whereas the nirguna sadhana
travelled from North to South! There is a tradition that Allamprabhu,
the guru of Lingayats, had a meeting with Gorakhnath at Srisailam!
They certainly had much in common and it was probably a historic
turning point for the Lingayats.
The Sufi Context

The Sufis were quite close to the Nirgunias in terms of their world
view, language and geography (western India and the Deccan). They
were also simple people wandering around. They met one another
quite often as the places of rest and worship tended to be common.
In Nanaks travels known as udasian, there is a constant reference to
the Sufis, many of whom became his disciples. The Sufi tombs known
as dargah are places of worship for all communities. The famous ones
in the North are those of Moiuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Salim Chishti
Dakhni
73
in Agra and Nizamuddin Aulia in Delhi. In the Deccan the most

famous is that of Khwaza Bande Nawaz Gesu Daraz at Gulbarga. All
over the Deccan, at the annual urs or anniversary at the local Sufi
dargah they hold a festival where one gets to listen to good Dakhni
Sufi singing.
The Social Basis

By and large saguna had a peasant base - people who had a stable
base and some wealth. The priests tended to be Brahmins. Many of
the major saints, like Surdas, Tulsidas and Chaitanya etc. have been
Brahmins. On the other hand, Nirgunias were wanderers and their
followers were poorer people because it did not cost anything to be a
Nirgunia or Nirguna follower. Most of the Nirguna saints came from
artisan castes-weavers, potters, carpenters and cobblers. As a rule they
had greater geographical and social mobility as against the peasants
who were tied to their lands or agricultural labourers who were generally
bonded. The conversion to Islam, mainly due to the Sufis, also occurred
among the artisans because of their mobility. To this day, a majority
of the Muslims in India are workers, artisans and petty traders. And
finally, in the South there were Lingayats who had a very similar
religious and social basis. Geographically, saguna sadhana centres/
temples are located in relatively prosperous river valleys whereas the
Nirgunias move around the relatively dry Deccan plateau.
There is another small tradition. It is the Lambada and Pardhi
migration to the Deccan. Lambadas are the great Roma gypsies of
the world who spread from north Rajasthan to most of western India
and through Central Asia to Russia and Europe. They have retained
their language to this day all over the world and thus also contributed
to Dakhni. Pardhis are a bird-trapper community, also from Rajasthan,
and are thinly spread all over the Deccan. They too retain their language.
So the picture one gets is that, in medieval India there was great
social and religious mobility among the artisans and traders comprising
74
the Nathpanthis, Nirgunias, Nanakpanthis and Sufis. It is these people

who also carried a common language from the North to the South.
It went back to the North in the eighteenth century with Wali Dakhni!
The Ugly North Indian

Visitors from North Indias Hindi belt are often puzzled by the
contradictory signals they get about Hindi in South India. On the
one hand, they feel that every one understands them in the street rikshawalas, shopkeepers, bus conductors and so on. Some of these
visitors, like the Ugly American, patronisingly approve that the natives
are speaking tolerably understandable Hindi!
On the other hand, they find strong anti-Hindi feelings among the
middle-class educated people. They conclude that actually Hindi is
understood and accepted by the common man in the South but it
is being opposed by the 'vested' interests who want to keep English
alive for a better edge in the job market. So English, and for the
leftists among them imperialism, is the enemy and hence indulge
in the Angrezi Hatao movement. Of course none of these movements
make a dent in the non-Hindi regions.
The problem with these people is that they think that Hindi is their
language, which is inherently so good that the rest of India has accepted
it as the national language. They endlessly quote Rajagopalachari or
Acharya Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay for this purpose. In fact, they
are again puzzled that these stalwarts of Hindi later denounced Hindi
chauvinism.
They fail to understand that the Hindi that they hear in the South
is actually Dakhni and that it has a much older literary history and
in fact was the source of inspiration for modern Hindi to emerge as a
literary language. The lingua franca of India is not their Hindi but
the street Hindi that evolved from Dakhni and reached the Indian
masses through the Parsi theatre and the Bombay film industry. It is
Dakhni
75
their highly Sanskritised Hindi that is opposed all over the nonHindi region. In fact, Acharya Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay, in his
article Bharater Rashtra Bhasha Chalti Hindi even proposed Bombay
Hindi - whose grammar can be written on a post card - as a national
language!
The Inheritors of Dakhni Language and Cultural Tradition

In the final analysis, it is not the modern Urdu and Hindi that have
inherited the tradition of Dakhni. As Dr. Veer Bharat Talwar has
shown in his book Rassakashi, people of the Muslim and Hindu
upper-class in western Uttar Pradesh fought with each other over
job opportunities in colonial India. To this end, they used the campaign
for replacing Persian (written in Persian script) with Hindi (written
in Devanagari script) in all government communication. This resulted
in the Hindu-Muslim divide with its tragic consequences. It also led
to Urdu becoming a language of the Muslims with Persian and Arabic
words, and Hindi as a language of Hindus with Sanskrit words,
replacing commonly spoken words. Hindi and Urdu have become
the standard language, and therefore the language of power or as
some linguists call the standard language, the language with a gun!
These standardized languages have carried power, sectarianism, hate
and violence! This Hindi has grown at the cost of more than a dozen
languages in the Hindi Commonwealth (a term used by Acharya
Kishoridas Bajpai) making its users second-class citizens in their own
land. How can such a language serve as a national language to unite
Indians?
The true inheritor of Dakhni is the language of the common people
often called Hindustani, which the vast majority of the working people,
particularly in urban India, understand. Its literary tradition continued
in modern India through Parsi theatre, Hindi theatre in general, and
the Bombay cinema and Hindi film lyrics. Some authors in Hindi
still write in peoples language and the chap literature (religious
76
tracts like Kabir Ke Dohe) sold on the pavements and rural weekly
markets and popular magazines still use this language. This language
carries the common composite cultural tradition of India, a culture
of love, assimilation and tolerance.
The Future: The Rich Potential of Dakhni Film and Theatre

Although Dakhni has been eclipsed by Urdu and Hindi in the big
tradition, it still has a lively presence in the small tradition. Now
that the protagonists of the small tradition are becoming vocal, they
can tap the vast potential of Dakhni in their activities in the peoples
movement. Dakhni songs and theatre have immense potential. I feel
that a Dakhni theatre group will be as viable as the Jatras and Tamashas
have been. Of course there are newer issues, particularly those of
communalism and environment. Theatre activists have an interesting
challenge before them. And if theatre succeeds, will video and cinema
be left behind?
References
1. Bajpai, Kishoridas (1988): Hindi Shabdanushasana, Kashi, Kashi Nagari
Pracharani Sabha.
2. Chattopadhya, Suniti Kumar (1977): Bharatiya Arya Bhasha aur Hindi,
New Delhi, Rajkamal Prakashan.
3. Chattopadhyay, Suniti Kumar (1945): Bharater Bhasha o Bhasha Samasya,
Calcutta, Rupa & Co.
4. Dhage, Pandurang (1993): Dakhini Sahitya: Samanvit Sanskriti, Hyderabad,
Hindi Prachar Sabha.
5. Sharma, Sriram (1954): Dakhini ka Padya aur Gadya, Hyderabad, Hindi
Prachar Sabha.
6. Talwar, Veer Bharat (2002): Rassakashi, New Delhi, Saransh Prakashan Pvt.
Ltd.
Published in Frontier, December 17-23, 2006, Kolkata
77
LANGUAGE AND BIOGEOGRAPHY

The Logic for a Separate Telangana State
Our Understanding
Let us begin with some ideas about languages. To begin with, let us
first define the term language, standard language and link language.
In the popular terminology, standard language is just called language
and other languages are called dialects. We will use the example of
Telugu to clarify this. For us, Telugu represents a set of languages
whose broad divisions are the four broad divisions of Andhra Pradesh,
namely 1) North Coastal A. P., 2) South Coastal A. P. or Kosta, 3)
Telangana and 4) Rayalseema. The standard accent free Telugu is
from somewhere between Khammam and Guntur. It also has a full
Sanskrit alphabet and many Sanskrit words. For example, in spoken
language in Telangana, aspirants like kha, gha, etc., are often dropped.
All these regions have been brought together somewhat artificially
due to a political understanding of language and viable economic
size of the state. Language (or dialect) is defined biogeographically.
Thus, Telangana is a biogeographic region separated from the Coastal
Andhra by the Eastern Ghats in the East and from Rayalseema by
Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers in the south. Within this, broad
region one can still detect smaller subdivision, both biographically
and language wise. Also, language and accent change occur in a
continuum and bilingualism exist across all borders.
Standard language on the other hand, is a political power entity.
That is why; it is sometimes called language with a gun. It can stretch
78
or be imposed on widely different regions. Such is the case of Standard

Telugu, Official Hindi and English. Children in Telangana region
fail in Telugu because they make mistakes in the use of standard
Telugu used in school. People from Telangana are looked down because
they cannot speak proper Telugu. Sometimes people from Telangana
themselves say that they do not speak proper Telugu just as people
from Bidar say that they do not speak proper Kannada!
Link language is a language, which spreads over a well defined large
biogeographic region due to trade, travel, religious and cultural
communication. We will consider Dakhni as an example. Dakhni is
spread across Deccan. Deccan is a well-defined biogeographic region
bounded by the Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats both of which almost
meet near Nilgiri hills. In the North it is bounded by Satpura range
(and the river Narmada) and in the West Vidarbha (Nagpur) or the
river Mahanadi appears to be its border. Deccan Plateau as such is a
bigger region. Here, we are also limiting it by the spread of Dakhni
language.
Now Dakhni, linguistically is of the same origin (Khari boli of Meerut
division) as are Hindi and Urdu. It came to South through Nirgunia
wandering Sadhu, Sufis, armies of Allauddin Khilji, Malik Kafur,
Tughlaq and Aurangazeb and traders, artisans who came along with
them. Even some gypsy communities like Lambadas, Pardhis, etc.,
brought the language to the South. It acquired specific literary
characters of its own from 12th century onward through the writing
of Nirgunia and Sufi saints. Gulbarga, Bidar, Golconda, Bijapur and
Aurangabad appeared as the major literacy centers between 14th to
17th centuries. Today, it is the common lingua franca of all Muslims
in this Deccan region, the language of Sufis and traders and
understood by almost all people and spoken as a bilingual language
by most urban dwellers. Dakhni is significantly different compared
to its origin in Meerut region. It has borrowed vocabulary from
Marathi, Kannada and Telugu in varying quantities in the different
Language and Biogeography
79
sub regions. These languages, in turn, have borrowed phrases and

words from Dakhni in the Deccan region. Another example of a link
language is Nagpuria or Sadan spoken in Chhota Nagpur/Jharkhand
region. Although linguistically it is quite different from any of the
tribal languages spoken in the region it is understood by all. And
like Dakhni, there is a mutual exchange of vocabulary in different
sub regions of the area.
The Logic for a Separate Telangana State

Thus, there is a biogeographic logic for the demand for separate
Telangana state. A biogeographic region defines its flora, fauna and
human society. Thus, Telangana defines a people, a speech community
or if you like a nation. They are defined in terms of the food they
grow and eat, the kind of houses they live in, kind of dresses they
wear, kind of religious/ local deity festivals they have. There are even
festivals across religions such as pir panduga where the ancestors are
brought alive and carried around to a common worship ground, fed
and appeased with dances and songs! All communities take part in
it.
The Federal Republic of Deccan

Using similar logic, we can propose a Federal Republic of Deccan.
The region is linked together with a common language, Dakhni,
and is comprised of Republics of Telangana, Rayalseema, Hyderabad
Karnataka and Bombay Karnataka regions of Karnataka, Marathwada,
Khandesh, and Vidarbh regions of Maharashtra. Let me hasten to
add that this is just a general utopian proposal. There can be more or
less regions or republics in it and of course, people of each region
have to agree to it and have a right to secede. Generally again, it will
be like the 1924 constitution of USSR (the later version strengthened
the center under Stalins leadership), which is indeed a model federal
document.
80
It ma be appropriate to mention that the alternatives proposed here

are not viable in todays world. They are possible only in a noncapitalist and more egalitarian, peaceful world where love replaces
power! The idea of proposing these alternatives is to answer questions
like, Ok. Capitalism is bad. But what do you want?
If Telangana is created today, it will go the same way as Jharkhand
and Chattisgarh have gone. These mineral rich regions are attracting
rapacious capitalist sharks. The ruling politicians in these states are
not equipped to deal with them and will sell the resources cheap.
Thus, the exploitation of natural and human resources will increase
enormously. So the demands for these identities can give good results
only if they are achieved along with socialist or libertarian demands
of freedom from exploitation, equality and rational use of resources.
Published in Frontier, March 2-8, 2008, Kolkata
81
DUMPING ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Class, Caste and Gender
In the last decade, a new and disturbing trend has emerged in dealing
with the contradictions involving class, caste and gender. They are
no longer dealt directly. An easy way has been found, namely, to
dump it on the environment.
Class Struggle versus Encroachment on Forest Lands

Let us take class first. For more than seventy years all left and centrist
parties have talked of land to the tiller. There have been some glorious
struggles and some notable victories. This has helped these parties to
come to power one after another. But the problem largely remains
unsolved. Majority of people working on land dont own them, semi
feudal/capitalist exploitation goes on and rural poverty and misery
remains.Today, in many parts of the country, this issue is being dealt
with by encroaching on the forestland. Many political parties, NGOs
and sometimes government too are involved in this. This is contributing
to reducing the already decreasing forest cover to dangerous levels.
These very organisations in other places cry hoarse about decreasing
forest cover and related environmental issues such as water crisis.
Environmentalists are split on the issue. Some oppose any encroachment
on forests whereas some others take the stand that it is a livelihood
problem of the poor and should be resolved in a sustainable manner
- whatever that means. Meanwhile, class struggle has taken a back
seat and the environment continues to get degraded.
82
The Glass War

In many parts of rural Andhra Pradesh a glass war has been going on.
This refers to the struggle against keeping a separate glass outside a
teashop for the scheduled caste customers. They are expected to wash
it themselves and tea is poured into the glass from a distance. This is
practising untouchability, which is unconstitutional and unacceptable
to the members of the scheduled castes as well as to many progressives
including the Naxalites. There have been violent incidents and some
victories. But the problem has remained. Recently this issue sought
its solution in the miracle of technology. You guessed right-by
introducing use, destroy and throw plastic glasses! Its impact on
environment need not be spelt out. Surprisingly, the environmentalists
themselves have not created much noise. Maybe they think it is a
small issue or maybe they themselves use a lot of plastic! Meanwhile,
yet another win-win solution has been achieved at the cost of
environment.
Gender and Tap Water

In many villages in India tap water is introduced. This is done by
pumping water from a village pond or river into an overhead tank
and supplying to the village households through pipelines and taps.
Sometimes some chlorination is also done.This has replaced the earlier
practice of villagers going to the village pond or riverfront. There
they used to bathe, wash clothes and utensils and carry some water
back essentially for drinking and cooking. This also used to keep the
pond/riverfront relatively clean. With the introduction of tap water,
the amount of water used in the rural household has increased at
least fivefold. Obviously, only a very small portion of it goes back to
the pond and over a period of time the pond starts drying up. The
pond and the riverfront get filthy and the pumped water requires to
be purified. The impact and load on environment is obvious. When
this was articulated one feminist response was But you males dont
Dumping on the Environment
83
think of the reduction in drudgery of women! Thus, a gender issue

is sought to be resolved through dumping it on the environment
rather than tackling it head on.There is no denying that privacy for
women in the use of bathroom and toilets is important particularly
in the face of population pressure. However, this need not be done
only through pumping water and supplying through tap water. Proper
rainwater harvesting and a hand pump will meet the need in most
difficult situations where the source of water is far. What is actually
happening is that with the tap water easily available even wells -both
private and community- are not in use and are getting filthy and
unusable. India is actually very rich in water resources and the present
water scarcity is a creation of technology.
Rural Development
Rural development assumes that rural people need roads, schools,
agricultural extension Programmes, Green Revolution (HYV-High
Yielding Variety seeds, Fertilizers, and Pesticides), irrigation, tap water,
latrines, elimination of child labour, womens development and so
on. The underlying assumption is that rural people are backward
and need to be developed. There is no appreciation of the fact that
they have been living for a very long time in an environment friendly
sustainable/subsistence existence. The aim seems to be that rural
people should enjoy all the benefits that urban people do. The net
results of most of these efforts are:
1. The wealth in rural area increases.
2. The rich become richer and poor become poorer.
3. There is an environmental disaster. The water table is falling every
year. Drought and failure of crops occur every second or third year.
In the long term, productivity falls and rural people migrate to urban
areas. And who pays for all this? The environment and health and
84
lives of poor people! Reports of farmers committing suicide are coming

from all these rurally developed areas!
What needs to be done is also well known. Water is scarce because it
is being over used and its source, the forests, are getting denuded. So
the forests need to be protected and the water guzzling green revolution
technology should be replaced by organic farming. The rural economy
can be sustainable only if it is close to a subsistence economy. This
will eliminate most of these rural development programmes and villagers
can live in peace. But who will let them live in peace? It is the urban
economy that is looting the forests and land resources. It is the urban
people who need to change their outlook and life style. They and
their life style are responsible for the degradation of the environment.
They have to reduce the load on the environment. This can be done
by reducing conspicuous consumption, reducing waste, productive
waste management by recycling waste (metal and paper) composting
the green waste, water conservation and improving and better utilization
of public transport system. In fact, there is a whole tradition of urban
planning known as the Garden City movement. Much can be learnt
from this movement. So what we need is urban de-development
like de-schooling.
The Environmentalists Response

Today probably there are more environmentalists than Marxists. In
fact there are Eco-Marxists, Eco-Feminists and there are people who
take trouble to show that Marx, Phule, Ambedkar and Gandhi were
also environmentally conscious. Then there are people who will find
environmental consciousness in Buddha, Vedanta, Islam, and
Christianity and among Tribals . So everybody is an environmentalist!
Then why is there so little success? I think most of these people are
anthropocentric. So it is easy to dump the issues on the environment.
There is much talk about sustainability. Well, capitalism or even
anthropocentrism and sustainability dont go together. Only a
Dumping on the Environment
85
subsistence economy is sustainable economy. This implies that much

of the way that the human society is organized today is not sustainable.
This includes most of the military-industrial complex most of the
state organs such as police and jails, many industries and agri-business
such as tobacco, alcohol, cosmetics, such bizarre industries as fortune
telling, pornography and so on.
How to combine contemporary human sensibility and subsistence
economy is the question. Obviously the answer has to be evolved by
practice. This means learning from various Anarchists kind of practices.
These include Primitivists Anarchist Groups, Quakers, Tolostoy and
Gandhian Groups and many tribal groups. None may have a full
answer. Maybe each group has to evolve its own answers. But some
basic premises may be spelt out.
1. The world belongs to all. Human beings have no primacy.
2. Within human society no authoritarianism State, Family, Gender
etc.
3. Human society has to be organised on the principle of Free
Association of Free People.
4. Technology has to be as primitive as possible. Appropriate
technology-mainly to undo the damage caused by the last few
thousand years of human history and to preserve, restore and
celebrate the environment.
Published in Frontier, Kolkata, January, 2-8, 2005.
86
PROLONGING DEATH
Capitalism and Old Age
I. Who Wants Old People?

Id like to be working upto three days before I die. But I am not
likely to. I envied my father because he died at the age of 80 managing
his affairs on his own till the very end. On the other hand, my mother
was incapacitated for many years; in the last few months of her life
she developed bedsores and died in misery. Everyone was happy to
see her go! I am 62 year old and it scares me (like it does so many of
us) that I may have the same fate as my mother. Since the age of 50,
I have been on medication for asthma; from the age of 60, I am on
medication to keep my blood pressure and cholesterol under control;
and now, my knees are getting really painful. What has triggered
this essay is the news coverage of deaths in France.
Deaths in France
Sometime back, about 15,000 old people died in France during an
unusually hot summer. France has a longevity figure of 84 years.
Most of these old people lived in old age homes. Most doctors and
relatives had gone on vacation to hotter climates. The bodies stayed
in morgues for weeks. Even on their return, many relatives did not
want to claim these bodies and were happy to let the State arrange
the funeral. Everybody blamed everybody, including global warming.
One unstated loud fact was - everyone was relieved that these old
people died, perhaps including, some of the old people themselves.
Prolonging Death
87
What happened in France is, of course, an extreme case. In most

affluent countries the number of old people is increasing at an alarming
rate. In developing countries too, the rich and the middle class are
living longer. India has an average longevity figure of 67 years.
Community centered lifestyles are dying and so are traditional support
systems for the old. There are not enough old-age homes and even
fewer, among them, are with adequate failities.
II. Old Age is a New Phenomenon

Till the 19th century most people died before they reached the age of
50. Even today, most poor people in Asia, Africa and Latin America
die early. Thus, the longevity figure of 67 years for India actually
means that the affluent here are living much longer than 67 years
and that the poor are still dying before they reach 50 or so. Today, in
India, there are about 75 million old people above the age of 60
years, which is about 7.5 % of Indias population. In the developed
countries, this percentage is higher and in the poorer countries it is
lower.
Old people, on the whole, are a burden on the planet (including the
author). Most of them (inluding me) are pure consumers. And since,
they are from affluent societies, their consumption levels are far above
average. In the market it is the young who are sought after. Older
people are forced to retire. They do not find any productive or
meaningful work. But now the reverse is also true in the West because of the pension crisis people are being warned that they will
have to work till 70, like it or not! Possibly, the pension fund managers
want people to die before they can claim their pensions! A few old
people are of course very rich and powerful. Most of these are corrupt
politicians and business people. At the other end, there are a few old
people who are nice people, that is - wise, caring, lovable and respected.
But the overwhelming majority of old people are ordinary unwanted
people!
88
III. Old Age is a Racket!

The Medico-Industrial Complex
Old age is a racket created by the medico-industrial complex. This is
the second largest business after the armament industry. Both control
people and nations. The medico industrial complex controls people
and nations by creating dependencies. Just as the military-industrial
complex survives on small-scale continuous warfare, the medicoindustrial complex also survives in rich people with prolonged illnesses,
involving expensive treatment-but not dying. People above 60 years
of age ideally suit this purpose and they pay nearly 70% of the medical
bills. This is a nexus of loot between the health care system, medical
technology, drug industry, pension and insurance schemes and housing
industry. Britain is an exception, where the National Health provides
health services free.
Capitalism survives on individualism and insecurity. A fear of old
age is generated right from the day one starts work. Social security,
pension and insurance scheme vultures arrive with ones first paycheck.
Credit cards, loans for consumer durables and housing loans follow.
A big chunk of ones paycheck vanishes into pension and insurance
scams. Lovely media images are created as to how a wise old man is
enjoying his old age with children and grandchildren! Now each of
these is a well-known racket. Everyday somewhere or the other a
pension or insurance scam is being exposed.
When old age actually arrives the problems show up. The house has
to be repaired regularly because the construction is poor. With every
breakfast one is swallowing half a dozen pills to keep this or that
symptom under check. Obviously the pension is not enough! And
like we said before, the old people are unwanted, lonely, unhealthy,
depressed and unhappy. They are living in what the naturalists call
zoo conditions. For example, in nature a sparrow lives about 3 years.
Prolonging Death
89
In a cage, however, it can live upto 13 years! But a bird in a cage is

also lonely, unhealthy, depressed and unhappy. Just like our old people.!
The Abuse of Medical Ethics
There is plenty of literature on how rapacious the drug industry is.
Irrational tests and surgical procedures take a big toll on money,
health and sometime on life too. However, it is in the interest of the
industry to keep the patient ill but alive. One of the worst abuses of
the health care system is prolonging death. As Ivan Illich has said,
death is defined as the stage when the patient is unable to pay. A
new culture has emerged that claims - life per se is precious and that
a person has to be kept alive no matter how much he is suffering or
whether he himself wants to live such a life. Some times, the converse
can also be true. Recently, a man with an incurable disease went to
the Court of Human Rights to make sure that doctors dont stop life
support systems. In other words, he wants to go on existing, even in
a vegetable state. In this, the religious organizations, and particularly
the Catholic Church, have played a powerful role. This has led to an
enormous amount of suffering to the patients and their families. In
many cases it has broken the family financially. On the other hand,
millions of young people are dying all over the world from curable
diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, cholera and diaorrhea.
Since they cannot pay for treatment, they have to die!
IV. A Natural Life!

What is a typical natural life? We just have to see a tribal family,
which is not yet seriously affected by modern life. Up to the age of
five or so the child stays near the mother and the family. Many children
die at childbirth or during infany if they are weaklings. Then, the
child starts going out with the elders and helps in some activities
that helps the family. This can be food gathering, carrying and fetching.
It is also an apprenticeship. The child learns a lot. By twelve years s/
he starts venturing alone or gangs of children begin moving on their
own, exploring, learning and getting to be self-sufficient. By eighteen,
90
young adults start their own families, by thirty all the children are
born and by the time they are forty they are ready to go! Most old
people in their forties continue to work till a few days before they
die. They usually die with very few days of illness or none. The
causes of death are more natural and not zoo condition deaths of
contemporary old people. These can be hunger and famine; encounters
with wild life-poisonous insects, reptiles; bacterial and viral disease
attacks and accidents. Such a life does not face the diseases of our
time, such as cancer, heart attack, backache, diabetes or even menopause.
Most of these occur after 50 and are related to lifestyle patterns.
Their life cycles are similar to other living beings in nature. Most
people till the 19th century lived this kind of life. Until 200 years
ago, there was no population problem. In 10,000 B.C. the population
of humans on earth was less than a million!
Lessons From the Past
What was the basis of life in the past? For one thing, everybody
worked, although they did much less than we do. This was so because
there was no leisured class (which consumed enormous resources) to
be supported, and the natural resource base available was much higher.
Today there are huge wasteful industries such as armament,
pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, tobacco, alcohol and so on which guzzle
natural resources. They also demand human labour and consumerism,
all of which are the cause of much of our problems . Secondly,
individualism and consumerism in modern society is breaking down
communities. In the past, the family and community provided much
of the caring needed in illnesses. Physical labour, reviving communities
and reducing consumerism is the main lesson we can learn from the
past.
IV. Living with Dignity

Reviving Communities / Communities of a New Type
To revive communities, first we have to understand why communities
are breaking down. They are breaking down because the old society
Prolonging Death
91
was unfree in many ways and curbed peoples aspirations. Now that
cannot be reversed. Old type of communities will have to go.!The
driving forces are individualism and cash economy. If you have money
in your pocket you are free to do what you want to do! Now, individualism
has come to stay because people cannot give up the freedom they
have achieved. But dependence on cash economy and consumerism
can be reduced. The need for community will always be there because
the human species is a social species. What we need is a new type of
community. A community not based on power and authority but
on freedom. A free association of free people! In such a situation the
insecurities will be less and one can avoid, to a large extent, the
rapacious nexus of medical industrial complex, insurance scams and
housing loans.
A Rational Health Care
Rational health care will essentially be based on community care. It
will be based on caring and not fleecing. It will be based on a healthy
life style - a good mix of mental and manual outdoor work, a healthy
diet and a stress-free, peaceful tranquil life! Illnesses and diseases can
and will still occur but they can be more effectively dealt with in
such a situation. In health care there are three components - knowledge
based reassurance, relief and cure - in decreasing order of importance.
A well-trained and experienced doctor can indeed play a very important
role. However, he will be much more effective in delivering health
care in a community based health care system than in the present
market based system.
VI. Dying with Dignity: Doctors and Death

Most classics in medical literature, in all systems of medicine, ask
the doctor to respect people, reduce their sufferings and when death
is inevitable, not to prolong the misery. However, as we have seen
above, a new culture has emerged wherein prolonging life at all costs
has become a lucrative business at the cost of the patients and their
92
families. Often, doctors are helpless because of the pressure of this

culture and the possibility of the patients families taking them to
court. Family members, in turn, feel helpless lest their neighbours
say that to save money these people let the patient die! We need to
restore the concept of living and dying with dignity.
Euthanasia and the Living Will

There are many cases where it is no longer good to prolong life,
which in fact amounts to prolonging death. In some countries medically
assisted death is legal. However, in most countries it is not and many
may not want it. For such cases, a Living Will / Advance Directive
is useful. It is made when the person is of sound mind and gives his/
her directive to doctors, relatives and friends for such situations.
Essentially, it asks them not prolong their death with medical intervention
or treatment, not to put them on life support systems and manage
their last hours with painkillers only, even if it shortens their life.
Cultural and Religious Traditions

In most societies there is a tradition and ritual of meeting death with
dignity and peace. In essence it is similar to the living will. However,
here it is not solely dependent on individual will but there is a
community support. The Christian tradition of Hospice comes closest
to the living will, where medical care is provided to reduce suffering
but not to prolong death. Some Hindus build a cottage next to a
holy river and spend their last days peacefully. Jains have a tradition
of systematic fasting to death with religious rituals. Some tribes in
Fiji believe that after death they will live eternally at the age at which
they died. So they prefer to die in their prime! In the polar region
some communities send their old on a boat with provisions. It is
possible to build secular traditions too. In Hyderabad, there is an
old-age home run by the Communist Party!
Published in Frontier, June 26, 2005 and also in Medico Friends Circle
Bulletin, October, 2005.
93
Appendix
LIVING WILL
TO MY FAMILY, MY PHYSICIAN AND ALL OTHER PERSONS

CONCERNED. THIS DIRECTIVE is made by
me______________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
at a time when I am of sound mind and after careful consideration.
I DECLARE that if at any time the following circumstances exist,
namely:
(1) I suffer from one or more of the conditions mentioned in the
schedule; and
(2) I have become unable to participate effectively in decisions about
my medical care; and
(3) Two independent physicians (one a consultant) are of the opinion
that I am unlikely to recover from illness or impairment involving
severe distress or incapacity for rational existence.
THEN AND IN THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES my directions are as
follows:
1.
That I am not to be subjected to any medical intervention or

treatment aimed at prolonging or sustaining my life;
2.
That I am not to be put on any life-support systems;
94
3.
That any distressing symptoms (including any caused by lack

of food or fluid) are to be fully controlled by appropriate analgesic
or other treatment, even though that treatment may shorten
my life.
I consent to anything proposed to be done or omitted in compliance

with the directions expressed above and absolve my medical attendants
from any civil liability arising out of such acts or omissions.
I wish it to be understood that I fear degeneration and indignity far
more than I fear death. I ask my medical attendants to bear this
statement in mind when considering what my intentions would be
in any uncertain situation.
I RESERVE the right to revoke this DIRECTIVE at any time, but
unless I do so it should be taken to represent my continuing directions.
SCHEDULE
A
Advanced disseminated malignant disease
Severe immune deficiency
C Advanced degenerative disease of the nervous system and/or

muscular systems with severe limitations of independent mobility
and unsatisfactory response to treatment
D Severe and lasting brain damage due to accident, injury, stroke,
disease or other cause
E
Other conditions of comparable gravity.
95
VEGETARIANISM AND COMMUNALISM
Is there a relation between vegetarianism and communalism?

Vegetarianism is supposed to be related to non violence and
communalism has often led to violence.
Vegetarians and Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is not the same as being a vegetarian. From the beginning
of human evolution man as depended on animals for proteins in his
diet. Animal protein has remained an essential part of the human
diet till today. Vegetarian food can be defined as consisting of animal
proteins derived from milk products alone. The logic being that there
is no direct killing of animals. Using the same logic some people
permit eggs as vegetarian food. There is even a concept of treating
infertile eggs as vegetarian eggs!
Throughout history most people had less than 15 % non-vegetarian/
animal protein, food in their diet. However it was a very important
source of essential protein and was and has always been relished.
Most of it was food from water - crabs, prawns and fish. Different
ecological zones produced different sources of meat. For American
Indians it was bison. Wild boar, rabbits, game birds etc. were and
are common dietary omponents in many parts of the world. Regular
meat became possible only when domestication of animals and
agriculture became more important than hunting and gathering.
This happened only about 10,000 years ago.
96
Domestication of animal made it possible to have milk and milk

products as part of the diet. And in some areas in India where agriculture
was highly productive and domestic animals were more important
as draught animals, beef eating was discouraged. That is the origin
of taboo on beef in India. Religions like Buddhism and Jainism
discouraged beef eating. However, most Buddhists all over the world
are not vegetarians. Having animal proteins exclusively from milk
products is relatively recent. It began about 2600 years ago with
Jainism and the Jain community. Later some trading communities
like the Bania caste (Gandhi was a Bania) and some Brahmin castes
in the Western, Central and Southern regions also became vegetarians.
Historically only in India this concept seems to have taken some
root. Even then, today more than 80% of Indians eat non-vegetarian
food some time or the other. Vegetarianism, that is propagating and
extolling it, was never an important issue.
Today, these vegetarian communities in India, that is the Jains, the
trading castes of Banias and Marwaris, and the Brahmins of South
India are socially and economically very powerful and therefore
vegetarianism in India has become far more powerful than the numbers
(15-20%) indicate. Prime situations in the market are taken by these
so called pure vegetarian eating places in Western and Southern
India.
Outside India, vegetarian food never took root. Although domestication
of animals was widespread, use of milk and milk products was not.
Historically, the American and the African continents never used
milk. In Asia, the Chinese and the South East Asian countries did
not use milk either. Even within India many tribal communities do
not use milk. They rear cattle mainly for production of bullocks and
use the dung for fuel and farming and dont use the milk at all for
themselves. The general logic appears to be that milk is produced by
nature only for offspring and not for other species. Only in the last
three hundred years, European culture has taken milk consumption
Vegetarianism and Communalism
97
all over the world. Today there are probably 1-2 percent vegetarians,
that is, people in whose diet the animal protein comes exclusively
from milk and its products.
With the advent of industrial revolution, production of meat, poultry
and fish began to get commercialized. By twentieth century, the
consumption of meat in wealthier and working class families increased
enormously. At the same time, the scale of production made it highly
unhygienic and unsafe. The butcheries were and still are extremely
filthy and cruel to the slaughtered animals. Upton Sinclair in his
book The Jungle 1906, and more recently Robin Cook in his book
Toxin have documented it forcefully. Reading these books made
many give up eating meat and poultry produced by the industry
and some people began to propagate the virtues of vegetarian diet.
This was the birth of vegetarianism in Europe and the USA. It was
and still is a small movement and most people regard them as cranks.
There is an even smaller trend called Vegans. These people do not
use milk products either. Gandhi tried it once and had to give up.
He settled for goat milk.
Vegetarianism in India
In his book The Mahatma and the Ism E M S Namboodripad
described Gandhis first visit to England. While all the progressives
were talking about publication of Marxs Capital, Gandhi, being a
Vaishnava Bania, was searching for vegetarian hotels/boarding places
in London. In that search he came across vegetarianism. These British
people who were considered cranks in England were quite happy to
discover a brown person who spoke good English and was actually a
vegetarian! In my opinion, it was Gandhi who brought vegetarianism
to India. In fact the term, vegetarian and non vegetarian, does not
exist in Indian tradition. They have been created for translation purposes
only. To repeat, vegetarianism is an ideology as against preference for
vegetarian food which is a choice which one may exercise as an individual
98
or group for short or long periods without adding a value judgment

to it.
Gandhi made vegetarianism an important component of his Nonviolence movement. It became a must in the ashram life and almost
all followers were under pressure to become vegetarians. It also became
a part of upward mobility of many lower castes and in at least one
case, among tribals (the Tana Bhagat movement among Oraons of
Jharkhand), vegetarianism came to be associated with a moral superiority,
requiring moral courage similar to practicing non-violence in the
freedom movement. However, the practice of vegetarianism did not
become very popular. Lower castes and poor people could not stop
eating the little protein that was available from home range poultry
or pork. Most tribals could not afford not to eat some wild life food
that was easily accessible. But vegetarianism did become associated
with higher value system, an ideal, which while one could not achieve
in ones own life nevertheless was respected. However, this was not
so in areas like Bengal, Kerala, Goa and in most of the coastal regions.
And it is not accidental that these areas are relatively free from communal
violence. Communal violence is by and large a Hindi heartland or as
it is called the cow belt phenomenon. The Muslims as a social group
never accepted vegetarianism, although several Muslims, like Khan
Abdul Gaffar Khan and Maulana Azad were important followers of
Gandhi. This paved the way for vegetarianism to be used as a tool for
communalism.
Communalism
Image of Muslim community as the other have been built around
some facts that make them different from Hindus in India. Because
they are different, poor, and have less power, therefore they are lower
human beings. That has always been the logic of racism and
communalism. The specific image here is that they are beef eaters,
dirty, highly charged sexually (again associated with eating beef ),
99
have four wives, ready to seduce Hindu women, convert them and
add to their harem, potential rapists and so on. Other innocent
differences are added to make the picture complete. Like they shave
their mustache and keep the beard, whereas the Hindus keep the
mustache and shave the beard. After the partition of India, another
addition is the charge of loyalty to Pakistan and other Islamic countries.
This image has been built over a period of the last 150 years or so.
The Hindu Muslim divide also has this long history. It has resulted
in the partition of the country and a series of communal riots after
independence. Riots and killing are possible because the communities
on the whole believe in these images and end up endorsing the riots.
Deconstructing these images and building saner understanding about
these differences is part of the secular agenda. Here, we are dealing
only with one part of it, namely vegetarianism.
A Sane Attitude
Vegetarianism, as we noted above, came as a reaction to capitalist
production of meat and poultry in the West. It is, on the one hand,
an extremely cruel and unhygienic process; it also led to over consumption
of red meat.
Why cant one have a moral attitude towards ones choice of food?
The problem with a moral attitude is that it has a tendency to become
righteous and to impose it upon others. Otherwise every one is free
to have his own opinion based on morality or reason or both. In this
instance the vegetarians feel that killing is morally wrong. On the
other hand, several communities feel that stealing milk from other
species is morally wrong.
Vegans agree with the both the above and reject both forms of animal
protein. There is also an ecological argument against red meat. Meat
is produced by animals which eat grass and grain etc. The conversion
ratio in terms of energy and nutrition is as high as 1:8. So, where
100
agriculture production is good it makes sense to avoid eating meat.

In grass lands, where rearing domestic animals is the main activity,
meat eating becomes natural. In coastal regions and in areas like
Bengal, fish and other food from water become naturally part of the
diet.
Capitalist production of agriculture and hence, vegetarian food, is
not innocent either. The use of pesticides makes it highly toxic. It is
capitalist production of animal food like oil cakes that helps in
production of beef and meat. The case of soyabean production in
India is illustrative. It reduced the acreage under lentils thus increasing
the price enormously and reducing the protein intake of vegetarians.
The oil cake is exported to Europe where it is fed to cows and pigs.
The export is probably handled by the vegetarian oil kings of Gujarat.
Thus, beef in Europe is supported at the cost of reduced intake of
vegetarian protein by vegetarians themselves. Then, production of
milk sweets is similar to beef production in terms of load on ecology.
It requires a large quantity of milk to produce these mawe ki mithai'
and chhene ki mithai. So, as a part of sane policy we should reduce
production of soyabean, restore acreage for lentils and reduce production
of milk.
As a naturalist or ecologist, one would see a lot of violence being
carried out by all (vegetarians and non vegetarians) in the capitalist
society. A large number of species are endangered and some have
become extinct due to what the naturalists call haibtat loss. Human
society is taking over a large amount of space and resources from
other living beings resulting in this environmental and ecological
disaster. In the final analysis, global warming is essentially a violence
done by human being on the planet. It is this over exploitation of
resources of the earth and depriving other species their habitat place to live, access to food - that is real violence and not eating so
called non-vegetarian food by people.
101
And so, within the constraints of ecology, one still has a choice of
what to eat. A variety of balanced diet menus are available for different
ecological regions of the world. There is absolutely no need to preach
vegetarianism. In fact, one should stop using terms like vegetarian
and non vegetarian which divide people unnecessarily. Passages from
the Guru Granth Sahib infer that only fools argue over this issue.
Guru Nanak said that any consumption of food involves a drain on
the Earths resources and thus on life.
Published in Frontier, August 31-September 6, 2008, Kolkata
aada
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T. Vijayendra (1943- ) studied B. Tech. (Electronics) at I.I.T.

Kharagpur (1966). His involvement over the past four decades in
trade union movements, alternative journalism, libraries,
bookshops, publishing, socio - political research, health, education,
and environment have given him unique insights into Indias people
and problems. He lives on an organic farm at the foothills of the
Western Ghats, writing occasionally. All his writings are directed
towards activist education. They are published regularly in the
weekly journal Frontier from Kolkata.
More Books by the Author

The Teacher and Child Labour, 2009, Telugu and English
Regaining Paradise: towards a fossil fuel free society, 2009
Cell : +91 94907 05634 email : t.vijayendra@gmail.com
aada
About the author

T. Vijayendra (1943- ) has done B. Tech.
Electronics, from I. I. T. Kharagpur (1966).
He has been involved in trade union
movement, alternative journalism,
libraries, bookshops and publishing,
research, health, education and
environment. He lives on an organic farm
in the Western Ghats, watching birds and
writing occasionally, mainly for activist
education in the journal Frontier, from
Kolkata.
He has published scores of such articles
in Hindi, Bengali and English in various
alternative journals. Has published
booklets on occupational health of the
workers of textile industry and coal
industry (in Hindi and Urdu), how to run
hobby libraries and bookshops (Hindi and
Telugu), The Teacher and the Child Labour
(Telugu).
About the book
The U. S. never lost a single battle in
Vietnam but lost the war. The book is a
series of essays, looking positively, at
some of the losing battles that the Indian
people have been waging against forces
of exploitation and obscurantism. The
essays, published in the journal Frontier,
from Kolkata, are not written in a polemic
or academic style. They are more in the
style of education for the activist. The idea
is to clear up the mess in our minds
created by popular notions, beliefs and
theories created by the ruling class and
media. Today, when we are in the midst of
yet another major crisis of capitalism, a
new generation of activists is coming up.
These essays are addressed to them.

The Losers Shall Inherit The World

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T. Vijayendra (1943- ) has done B. Tech.

THE LOSERS SHALL INHERIT THE WORLD

Sangatya Sahitya Bhandar, 7-67 P, Jayadurga Compound, Temple Road, Kannarpady,

are addressed to them.

The Bihar Failure Syndrome: Myth and Reality

Coal, Mafia and Miners

Why do Naxalites Survive?

Activists for the Poor: Naxalites and NAPM

5. The Logic of Ol Chiki: A Tribute to Guru

Buddhism in Modern India

Dakhni: The Language in which the

Language and Biogeography: The Logic for a

Dumping on the Environment:

10. Prolonging Death: Capitalism and Old Age

11. Vegetarianism and Communalism

In writing these articles, publishing them in Frontier and finally

Shreekumar, Usha Sriram and K. Suresh have put together these

THE BIHAR FAILURE SYNDROME

The Failure of Bihar

The Losers shall Inherit the World

Bihar played a leading role in the formation of Kisan Sabha. After

The Struggles of the People of Bihar

The Bihar Failure Syndrome

Bengal or in Kerala is a historical fact and has its historical reasons.

The Failures of the Struggle

The Losers shall Inherit the World

The Jharkhand movement is a composite of several movements. Like

The Bihar Failure Syndrome

The Losers shall Inherit the World

An important aspect of this is that we have looked more at the struggle

COAL, MAFIA AND MINERS

The Losers shall Inherit the World

has 500 working mines in seven subsidiary producing companies

Coal, Mafia and Miners

particularly on the eve of independence it changed hands and came

The Situation in the 60s

The Losers shall Inherit the World

The Emergence of BCKU

Coal, Mafia and Miners

of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, raised the land question. The other

The Losers shall Inherit the World

Coal, Mafia and Miners

The sickness of the coal mining industry in the Dhanbad-Jharia

The Losers shall Inherit the World

Coal, Mafia and Miners

and retrenchment. They do not even talk of redundancy among the

Mines, Minerals and People

The Losers shall Inherit the World

Coal, Mafia and Miners

2. No major change has occurred in the functioning of the BCKU.

The Losers shall Inherit the World

WHY DO NAXALITES SURVIVE ?

Why do Naxalites Survive ?

I. The Naxalites Serve a Constituency

The Losers shall Inherit the World

demonstrated it on several occasions suffices. The Naxalite constituency

Why do Naxalites Survive ?

The Losers shall Inherit the World

II. The State and the Naxalites

Why do Naxalites Survive ?

an occasional skirmish. There is a lot of development in Naxalite

The Losers shall Inherit the World