apr 2012 - rh

THE RADICAL HUMANISTAPRIL 2012 Rs. 20/monthVol. 76 No 1

(Since April 1949)

Formerly : Independent India

(April 1937- March 1949)

Founder Editor: M. N. Roy

505

THE RADICAL HUMANIST APRIL 2012

The Radical Humanist

Monthly journal of the Indian Renaissance

Institute

Devoted to the development of the Renaissance

Movement; and for promotion of human rights,

scientific-temper, rational thinking and a humanist

view of life.

Founder Editor:

M.N. Roy

Editor:

Dr. Rekha Saraswat

Contributory Editors:

Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. R.M. Pal, Professor

Rama Kundu

Publisher:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Printer:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Send articles to: Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8, Defence

Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India, Ph.

91-121-2620690, 09719333011,

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Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836, 09811944600

Please Note: Authors will bear sole accountability

for corroborating the facts that they give in their

write-ups. Neither IRI / the Publisher nor the Editor

of this journal will be responsible for testing the

validity and authenticity of statements &

information cited by the authors. Also, sometimes

some articles published in this journal may carry

opinions not similar to the Radical Humanist

philosophy; but they would be entertained here if the

need is felt to debate and discuss upon them.

—Rekha Saraswat

Vol. 76 Number 1 April 2012

Download and read the journal at

www.theradicalhumanist.com

- Contents -

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

Remembering Roy

—Rekha Saraswat 1

2. From the Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism: A case for Atheism 2

3. Guests’ Section:

On Inclusiveness: Challenges of Inclusive Society,

Economy and Polity in India

—Sukhdev Thorat 6

The Need for Death Sentence for Capital

Punishmment

—H. Suresh 10

A book left open

—Amitabha Chakrabarti 13

Six Characteristics of Resonant Organizations

—Madhu Dandavate 16

Deconstructing Indian History: The Roots of Dalits

—B.P. Rath 20

4. Current Affairs’ Section:

U. P. tops in punishing those committing crimes

against Dalits

—Avatthi Ramaiah 23

Profit for me and debt-slavery with abuse for all

—Rakesh Manchanda 27

5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

We need to make our society a just & equitable one

—Kiran Nanavati 30

6. Teacher’s & Research Scholar’s Section:

K.S. Duggal: Grand Auteur of Punjabi Literature

—Ashok K. Chaudhury 31

7. Book Review Section:

Foot Prints on the Sands of Time

—Dipavali Sen 35

8. Humanist News Section 38

From the Editor’s Desk:

Remembering Roy!!

More than sixty years ago Roy, veryhonestly, wrote, while explaining about theessence of the twenty two theses of RadicalHumanism, that there was nothingaltogether new in the system “it being deduced

logically from the far-reaching implications of

modern scientific knowledge and the world-wide

lessons of recent experience. To coordinate the

philosophy of nature with a social philosophy and

ethics in a monistic system is the central purpose. It

is humanist as well as materialist, naturalist as well

as rationalist, creativist as well as determinist. It

deduces a humanist social philosophy and positive

(non-relative) ethics from a mechanistic cosmology

and a materialist metaphysics (Physical Realism).”The words may sound abstract but the meaning issimple. He was trying to elucidate to his friends thata humanist society would be an ultimate naturalresult of the evolution of scientific knowledge andthought and its logical use through varioustechnological devices, instruments and facilities byhuman beings in the years to come.

The present world society has sufficiently provenhis contention. Although, the concepts of socialism

and humanism are neither the objectives nor theideals in the context of science but the latter hasalways been the source of their outcome in directproportions to its progress. The competitiveadvancement in the ways and means of life throughthe use of latest technologies has opened the doorsof egalitarianism to the weakest and commonestinhabitants of this earth because science and itsapplications do not recognize the man-mademoney-wise, caste-wise, or status-wisesegregations of various societies. This fact hasgradually brought to the surface the realization thatneither mystic powers nor deeds of their past liveshave been the cause of their present predicaments.And that the reason lies elsewhere! They havebegun to recognize the culprits and are nowincreasingly showing their annoyance, anger and

opposition to the man-made systems ofexploitation, suppression and isolation.

Roy was making an effort to impress uponhis friends that a humanist society waspossible without the transcendental fearscreated by the seers. He wanted them to

come out of the labyrinths of the super and supranatural forces and identify and unravel their needsand problems on the basis of reason and rationality.He tried to explain to them that every line ofthought was an after-effect of a chain ofthis-worldly actions and reactions. And that theyshould find the motives and solutions behind themon this material surface only which is physicallyaround them. He talked of the existing system offormation of Parliament in various countries withthe lofty purpose of ushering in democracy andhow the very definition of democracy was beingbelied in the process! He discussed the adverse roleof political-parties in representing the demands andexpectations of the people in the governments andhow the parties’ leaders were usurping completepowers in the name of the people and besmirchingthe extra-ordinary ideal of people’s owngovernments! He had warned us, much in advance,that if social and political ethics were to dependupon metaphysical foundations wars and terror,corruption and sleaze would always havevariegated pretexts as safe havens to rely upon.

It was our misfortune that after propounding suchan all encompassing philosophy he could notdeliberate at length upon its cardinal principals dueto his untimely sad demise and therefore, a clearline of thought could not be defined and developedwith proper metaphors and similes for us all tounderstand, follow or propagate. It is an irony thatwhile celebrating Roy’s birth anniversary we seemto be shying away from his precepts and ideas. Weare not trying to invite intellectual luminaries to sitwith us to complete or at least to carry forward theunfulfilled task of associating the unattended andneglected doctrines of his ever-contemporarytheses with today’s political, economic, social andcultural problems to prove our point!

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From The Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism – A casefor Atheism

Translated by —Arundhati Khandkar

[The book Spiritual Materialism – A case for

Atheism, A New Interpretation of the

Philosophy of Materialism written by

Tarkateertha Laxmanshastri Joshi has been

translated by his daughter, Arundhati

Khandkar, who was formerly Professor of

Philosophy at S.I.E.S. College, University of

Mumbai, India. He passed away many decades

ago but his contribution in building up the

philosophical base of Radical Humanism has

been no less. Roy acknowledged it in his life time

and the followers of the philosophy continue to do

so. I had requested Ms. Khandkar to translate her

father’s major works from to Marathi to English

for the benefit of the contemporary readers of RH.

And to our pleasant surprise she informed that

there is already the above mentioned book in

English done by her. It is being serialised in The

Radical Humanist June 2010 onwards. She has

also promised to send us in English, gradually,

more of his Marathi literature.

Laxmanshastri wrote this essay with the title

Materialism or Atheism in 1941. How

meaningful and necessary it is, even now, 70

years later, can be understood by the following

paragraph given on the cover page of the book.

—Rekha Saraswat

Continued from the last issue.........

Science describes three relative hierarchical layersof scientific perception or understanding of objects.The concept of god does not fit in any of thesecategories.

1) The first top hierarchical layer in scientificperception includes the following. The knowledgeof objects established through definitiveobservations and experiments and founded onmathematical validation falls in the first layercalled demonstrated truth. Examples of this layerare 103 atomic elements in physics and thecountless compounds discovered and also newlyformulated in chemistry. No scientist has yet beenable to establish a laboratory for measuring god’sproperties.

2) The attributes of the middle hierarchical layer ofscientific perception are as follows. This layer ofknowledge includes the necessary and appropriateconcepts about objects not proved throughobservation or experiment. It fits in the perceptuallayer called hypothesis, meaning knowledgeobtained through inference. Examples of this typeof knowledge are evolution in biology, force ofgravity in physics, primordial nebula in astronomy,etc. These inferential concepts or objects offersupport to those in the first hierarchical layer,proven by experimentation and observation.Scientists construct these concepts with the help ofthose concepts that belong to the first layer.

Frequently, concepts of this middle hierarchicallayer either find a place in the top layer afteraccumulation of substantial evidence or arediscarded after falsification through theaccumulated evidence to the contrary. Planets likeHerschel or Neptune were first thought to exist onlythrough inference. Later, their factual discoverythey entered into the first category of knowledge.The concept of ether in physics becameunnecessary after the discovery of the theory ofrelativity by Einstein which treated space asspace-time continuum.

3) The third and lowest layer of hierarchical


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Laxman S. Joshi

perception is characterised as follows. The layerincludes concepts considered to be only probablytrue. For example, the concept of dual mind inmodern psychology. Some psychologists speculatethat man probably possesses two minds, one alertand clear and the other mysterious andsubconscious. Many psychologists, however, donot feel the need of such a concept of two minds.The concept of vital force in biology belonged tothis lowest layer of perceptual hierarchy. In eachand every science there exists a few theories whichare not fully acceptable to many experts in thatfield. some scientists formulate the concepts but toestablish their credibility and verifiability is verydifficult. The theories two minds and vital force arehighly debatable. The biologists of the oldgeneration had been postulating the independentexistence of vital force, the new generation,however, has never accepted it.

God and Triplex Hierarchy of Knowledge

The concept of god, does not fit at all as mentionedearlier, in the triplex hierarchy of knowledge insciences. It is true that the early twentieth centuryphysicists such as Eddington, James Jeans,Whitehead, etc. were inclined to accept the validityof the concept of god. This is because, the body ofevidence for the existence of god presented in thebooks written by the above physicists did not passthe test of the scientific logic. They think that godexists on the strength of their emotions and faith.Their religious upbringing compels them to believein god’s existence.

Science and Logic

It is a fact that the twentieth century physicists haveraised the question during scientific investigationsof elementary particles, whether the fundamentaltheorems or rules of logic contained in the usage oflinguistic connectors such as And, Or and Not arevalid or not. Such questions had arisen out ofcertain discoveries in quantum physics. As a result,the twentieth century physics gave rise to multiplebranches of logic with application to a specificphysical phenomenon. The Aristotelian logic is

now only a branch of the giant tree of logic in thetwenty-first century.

Max Planck and Einstein were two researchersresponsible for those discoveries in physics whichraised these questions. They, however, say thatthose who think that the theorems of logic at theroot of physics are failing must have developedsome kind of misunderstanding.

Some Scientists do misunderstand Science

Max Planck in his book ‘Where is Science Going?’has given a clear warning that the advancement ofscience is impossible without its dependency on thetwo theorems of logic : X) The law of causality andY) The existence of the universe outside. At the endof that book, the editor of the English translationhas presented a dialogue between Einstein and MaxPlanck. In this Einstein states that even if thewriters such as Eddington, James Jeans and othersare great scholars, their books about god are goodonly from the point of view of literature. Thesebooks cannot be given much value from the point ofview of physics. According to Einstein, thejustification of god’s existence is only anindulgence in literary speculation and not a singleconcept therein, passes the test of pure reason. Ithas been shown earlier in this essay, that neitherbiology supports the vital force theory nor physicssupports the concept of god.

Philosophy of Physicists

Quantum mechanics (qm) of Max Planck and thetheory of Relativity of Einstein have producedradical changes in physics. Therefore, Eddingtonopines at the beginning of his book, ThePhilosophy of Physicists that one urgently feels,after the re-examination of new physics, that thereis need for a different formulation of the principlesof physics, deemed until the present-day to befundamental. Eddington thereupon tries toestablish his own theory for the existence of godbased upon qm and relativity. Therefore, we havequoted above the opinion of both Planck andEinstein. Scientists like Heisenberg, Schlick andothers have made additional contribution to qm and


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relativity through their own discoveries ofuncertainty-relation or indeterminism. Heisenberghas proven that Man will have to face for ever, thedifficulty of simultaneous and exact determinationof speed and position of electrons and atoms.Eddington infers from indeterminism that theremust exist an independent will-power that inducesthe atoms to move. The spasticity displayed in themotion of electrons or atoms is the indicator of theindependent will-power. The freedom in humanwill-power must lie at the root of movement ofelectrons. Children engrossed in play suddenlychange their mind and disorganise everything. Wetoo change our plans that seem to be runningsmoothly. Similarly, it is felt that there is somewhimsical power that controls the activities of theuniverse. This argument by Eddington is weakbecause indeterminism meaning uncertainty in thesimultaneous determination of position and speedof elementary particles does not suggest that theirmotion is not governed by the laws of causality. Itonly shows that instrumentation necessary forresearch in its minutest details containinadequacies. At the most, we can say that the lawof uncertainty has exposed only a human weakness.

Indian Philosophy: Soul and Supreme Being

We have presented hereinbefore, the fundamentalobjection to the concept of god from the point ofview of physics. The soul richly endowed withknowledge, will and creativity is of course bydefinition, god. But it cannot be proved that the soulis independent and separate from the body. If theprinciple that ‘Within a living body resides aseparate and an independent soul’ can bedemonstrated, then only some little support isavailable for the proposition that there exists at thesource of the universe a supreme being, theParamatman. We say here ‘some possibility’because the Sankhya philosophers, the dualists ofIndia, in spite of their acceptance of the separateand the independent individual soul, did not acceptthe concept of the supreme being. On the very basisof the concept of the separate and independent soul,man has invented the idea of supreme being, the

soul of the universe. Not only this, but if theconcept that there is inside a body an omniscientsoul living separate and independent is provedfalse, then the concept of the soul of the externaluniverse, the supreme being also falls apartautomatically. The concept of god is dependent onthe concept of the personal soul only. And we havealso said before that there is no powerful evidenceof either experience or logic that will justify theindependently existing soul.

From Microcosm to Macrocosm

Man of critical mind has formulated the concept ofgod, in order to explain carefully the mysteries anduncertainties of the human body and the universe atlarge. It is a big surprise, however, that a theist failsto understand that he is committing a huge logicalor an intellectual blunder, in such thinking concept.The blunder lies in the fact that the theist hasresorted to another exceedingly deeper mystery, forthe purpose of solving a given mystery. There is animportant law in logic called the law of parsimonyor Occam’s Razor that forces resolution of amysterious or a doubt ridden problem using onlyconcepts, precise and clear. Otherwise, it will looklike a situation in which a man born blind is guidinga man with defective eyesight. As it stands, it isimpossible to make sense of the concept that thesoul richly endowed with will and knowledge canbe separate from the body. Under this situation, theconcept of the omniscient soul at the origin of thecosmos also turns out to be indefensible. It is forthis purpose that a clear statement of admission hasbeen offered by a great philosopher of India, thegreat visionary Adya Shankaracharya that humanexperience or logic alone cannot provide a straightand simple explanation for the concept of thesupreme being as the source of the cosmos!

Discrepancy between Philosophy and Theology

According to philosophy, the rise and decline ofknowledge, desire and emotion are dependent ontheir proximity or contact with objects. The veryidea that these inhere in god is devoid of meaning.According to theology, god has created objects


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such as beauty, taste, smell, etc. If this is true, thenthe inference that their existence was not needed bygod for knowledge, desire and emotion isinescapable. The theological proposition that godcreated the objects such as beauty, taste and smell isinconsistent with the primary philosophicalprinciple that knowledge, desire and emotiondepend on proximity to objects.

A further question also needs to be posed. Areknowledge, desire and emotion in respect of god,permanent or impermanent? It will be impossiblefor anyone to explain how it can be that theseattributes of god are permanent. If they areimpermanent, it is automatically proven that theirexistence is object dependent. And it followsinvariably that god endowed with attributes suchas, knowledge, desire, and emotion is constrainedby objects just like the soul of a human being. Thekind of god, theists wish to prove is not ‘the god’bound by the objects. Their god is free. If it isproven that god is constrained by objects, noreasonable man will seek salvation from that god.One who himself is bound cannot free another. Thevery concept of independent god is devoid ofsignificance, is inconsistent and is flawed.

Once the concept of god is described, it cannot befitted in the framework of pure and consistentreason. God is the product of a collection ofconcepts, disconnected, disorganised, unclear andinconsistent. Sculpture of god erected by commonnaïve believers can at least stand in full view in

front of our mind’s eye. Even if the picture of godcomposed by poetic imagination is false, it doesattract our intellect and charm our mind. Similar isgod’s picture and biography narrated by believerswith hearts filled with devotion. That is, however,certainly imaginary. The subtle god of themetaphysicians, of the mahatmas and of the saints,during analysis turns out to be also similarlyimaginary, intangible and non-existent. Finally, allwhat is left is the body of evidence enough toconvince rational men that god does not exist.

Visionary Philosophers of the East

Men of gentle mind and men of impeccablecharacter such as Kanada, Kapila, Buddha, andCharvaka who also acted as the path finders formankind, did not go on the path towards god. Theyhave left the world with the message, not to go bythat path. By means of their spiritual character andnoble ideology, they have demonstrated that for thecultivation of pure character and behaviour, there isno need for the concept of god. There is also noderth of selfish people, in the world and in itshistory, who while exploiting the ideas about god,lead mankind down the path of degradation. Fromhere to eternity, the theistic doctrines of the otherworld, spiritualism, and mysticism will not onlyhelp socially and personally, the Ascent of Man,but will hinder it!

Concluded.......

Appendices continued in the next issue...............


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Dear Radical Humanists,

We hope you will organise meetings & lectures or informal get-togethers wherever you

are, in India or abroad, to acknowledge M.N. Roy’s contribution to modern Political

Philosophy and participate in the celebrations of his 125th Birth Anniversary Year. Please

send us the reports and pictures of the programs so that we may publish and post them in

the RH & its Web Portal regularly in Roy’s entire Birth Anniversary Year.

Guests’ Section:

[Prof. Sukhadeo Thorat, Professor of Economics,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, Chairman, Indian

Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR),

delivered the following M.N. Roy Memorial

Lecture on the occasion of Roy’s 125th Birth

Anniversary at Indian Law Institute, New Delhi

on 24th March 2012.]

On Inclusiveness: Challenges ofInclusive Society, Economy and

Polity in India

I feel honored to have been invited to deliver the2012, M.N. Roy Memorial lecture by the IndianRenaissance Institute and Indian Radical HumanistAssociation. M.N. Roy was a great visionary,thinker and a visionary with a particular vision forIndia. Everybody knows about his contribution andvision.

I wish to use this occasion to reflect on the vision of“Inclusive India”, - our efforts to develop a moreinclusive society, which ensures equal and dueshare and participation to all sections and groups, inthe governance of our economy and polity and inthe fruits of social and economic development inthe country.

I wish to address this issue in the contemporarycontext. I shall discuss the meaning of socialexclusion, the consequences of social exclusion

and as to why we should be concerned about socialexclusion, the insights from theoretical literaturefor remedies against discrimination and forinclusive society and application of these insightsto the Indian situation.

Social Exclusion and Need for Inclusiveness

Before we discuss the issue related to exclusion inIndian society it is useful to get insights on theconcept of social exclusion in its general term. Insocial sciences literature there is general agreementon the core features of social exclusion, itsprinciple indicators, and the way it relates topoverty and inequality. (Mayara Buvinic 2005).Buvinic summarizes the meaning of socialexclusion as “the inability of an individual toparticipate in the basic political, economic andsocial functioning of the society, and goes on to addthat social exclusion is “the denial of equal accessto opportunities imposed by certain groups ofsociety upon others”. (Mayara Buvinic 2005). Thedefinition captures the three most distinguishedfeatures of social exclusion namely, that it affectsculturally defined “groups”, that it is embedded insocial interrelation, (the process through whichindividuals or groups are wholly or partiallyexcluded from full participation in the society inwhich they live), and that its outcome is thedeprivation, low income and high degree of povertyof the excluded groups. (Arjan Hann 1997, SenAmartya 2000).

Consequences of exclusion thus depend cruciallyon the functioning of social institutions throughnetwork of social relations, and the degree to whichthey are exclusionary and discriminatory in theiroutcome. Social exclusion has sizeable impact onan individual’s access to equal opportunity ifsocial interactions occur between groups inpower/subordinate relationship. The groups focusrecognizes that people are excluded because ofascribed rather than achieved features, beyondindividual agency or responsibility. (MayaraBuvinic 2005 , Amartya Sen) draw attention tovarious meanings and dimensions of the concept of

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Sukhdev Thorat

social exclusion (Sen 2000). Distinction is drawnbetween the situation where some people are beingkept out (at least left out), and where some peopleare being included (may even be forced to beincluded) - in deeply unfavorable terms, anddescribed the two situations as “unfavorableexclusion” and “unfavorable inclusion.” The“unfavorable inclusion”, with unequal treatmentmay carry the same adverse effects as “unfavorableexclusion”.

Sen also differentiated between “active and passiveexclusion”. For the casual analysis, and policyresponse, Sen argued “it is important to distinguishbetween “active exclusion”-fostering of exclusionthrough the deliberate policy interventions by thegovernment, or by any other willful agents (toexclude some people from some opportunity), and“passive exclusion”, which works through thesocial process in which there are no deliberateattempts to exclude, but nevertheless, may result inexclusion from a set of circumstances.

Sen further distinguishes the “constitutiverelevance” of exclusion, from that of “instrumentalimportance”. In the former, exclusion ordeprivation have an intrinsic importance of theirown. For instance, not being able to relate to othersand to take part in the life of the community candirectly impoverish a person’s life, in addition tothe further deprivation it may generate. This isdifferent from social exclusion of “instrumentalimportance”, in which the exclusion in itself, is notimpoverishing, but can lead to impoverishment ofhuman life.

Within the social science literature more preciseelaboration of the concept of discrimination hascome from the economics in the context of race andgender (Darity 1995). The mainstream economicliterature throws more light on discrimination thatworks through markets, and non markettransactions and develops the concept of marketdiscrimination with some analytical clarity. In themarket discrimination framework, discriminationof a group may operate through restrictions on the

entry in market, and/or through “selectiveinclusion”, with an unequal treatment in market andnon-market transactions, which is similar to Sen’sconcept of unfavorable inclusion.

The labour market discrimination can occur inhiring when two persons with the sameemployment experience, education and training butdiffering in some non-economic characteristic facedenial in hiring. The differences are generallycorrelated with certain non–economic (racial,ethnic or religious) characteristics of individual.The occupational discrimination occurs whenbusiness persons from a group are faced withquantitative restrictions to enter into the occupationof majority group, or face differential treatment inacquiring access to factors and services necessaryfor production and business activity.

To summarize the development in social scienceliterature, the concept of social exclusion thus,essentially refers to the processes through whichgroups are wholly, or partially, excluded on thebasis of group identity from full participation ineconomy and society in which they live. It involvestwo crucial dimensions namely the “societalinterrelations” (causing exclusion), and their“outcome” (causing deprivation). Forunderstanding the nature of exclusion, therefore theinsight into the societal interrelations andinstitutions of exclusions is as important as theoutcome in terms of deprivation for excludedgroups. It is also necessary to recognize that in“Group Exclusion”, people are excluded because oftheir group identity and not because of individualattributes. Therefore, we need to recognizedistinction between exclusion of an individual andexclusion of a group. Exclusion of an “Individual”is different from “Exclusion of a Group”.Individuals often get excluded from access toeconomic and social opportunities for variousreasons specific to them. An individual often getsexcluded from employment due to lack of requirededucation and skills. An individual also getsexcluded from having access to higher educationdue to lack of minimum merit. Similarly people get

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excluded from access to input and consumermarkets due to lack of purchasing power. Theexclusion of an individual has no connection withhis or her social and cultural identity. In case ofexclusion of group, however individuals withcertain social and cultural identity such as socialorigin like caste, ethnicity, religion, gender orcolour are excluded from having access to sourcesof income, employment, education civil rights andother social needs .Thus Group exclusion is basedon social and cultural identity of persons,irrespective of the attribute of individuals withinthe social/cultural group.

This has important policy implications .While incase of “individual exclusion” the pro-poor policywill have to be focused on the individualcapabilities, in case of “Group Exclusion” the focusof the policy will be targeted on the group as awhole covering all individual in the social/culturalgroup.

Caste, ethnicity, religion and Social Exclusion

This theoretical literature and the insights from itare quite relevant in understanding the exclusion inthe Indian situation. In India, exclusion revolvesaround the societal institutions that exclude,discriminate, isolate, and deprive some groups onthe basis of group’s identities like caste, ethnicity,religion, gender and others.

The nature of exclusion associated with institutionsof the caste system particularly needs to beunderstood and conceptualized as it has been thebasis of reservation policy for scheduled caste andtribe and for other backward caste and there isgrowing demand to extend it to similar groups likereligious minority such as Muslim and low casteconverted to Islam and Christianity.

Theoretical attempts in social and economicinterpretation of caste system recognized that casteas a system of social and economic governance isdetermined by certain customary rules and norms,which are unique and distinct. (Akerlof 1976,Scoville 1991, Lal 1988, Ambedkar 1936 and1987). The economic organization of caste system

is based on the division of people in social groups(or castes) in which the economic rights of eachindividual caste are pre-determined or ascribed bybirth and made hereditary. Entitlement of economicrights is however, unequal and hierarchal. Theeconomic rights are unequally assigned andtherefore entitlement of rights get narrower andnarrower as one moves down in caste hierarchyfrom high to low caste. The system also providesfor a community based regulatory mechanism toenforce the system through the instruments ofsocial ostracism (or social and economicpenalties), and reinforces it further with thejustification from some philosophical elements inHindu religion such as theory of Karma and rebirthbased on the notion of eternity of soul. (Lal 1988,Ambedkar 1936 and 1987).

The caste system’s fundamental characteristics offixed social and economic rights for each caste,with restrictions for change implies “forcedexclusion” of one caste from the civil, economicand educational rights of other caste. Exclusion incivil and economic spheres thus is internal to thesystem, and a necessary outcome of its governingprinciples. In the market economy framework, theoccupational immobility would operate throughrestrictions in various markets such as land, labour,capital, credit, other inputs, and services necessaryfor any business and education.

This interpretation of caste system implies that inits original form, unlike many other humansocieties, the caste system does not recognize theindividual and his/her distinctiveness as the centerof the social purpose. In fact, for the purpose ofrights and duties, the unit of the Hindu society is notan individual (even the family is not regarded as aunit in the Hindu society, except for the purposes ofmarriages and inheritance). The primary unit in theHindu society is caste, and hence, the rights andprivileges (or the lack of them) of an individual areon account of him/her being a member of aparticular caste (Ambedkar first published in1987). Also, due to the hierarchical or gradednature of the caste system, the entitlements to civil,

8


economic and educational rights by different castesbecome narrower and narrower as one goes downin hierarchical ladder in the caste system. Variouscastes in their rights and duties get artfullyinterlinked and coupled with each other , in amanner such that the rights and privileges of thehigher castes become the causative reasons for thedisadvantage and disability of the lower castes,particularly the untouchables and other backwardcaste located at the bottom of caste hierarchy. Inthis sense, a caste does not exist in a single number,but only in plural (Ambedkar 1987 first time).Castes exist as a system of endogenous groups,which are interlinked with each other in unequalmeasure of rights and relations in all walks of life.Castes at the top of the order enjoy more rights, atthe expense of those located at the bottom.Therefore, the lower castes, such as former

untouchable and other backward castes located atthe bottom of the caste hierarchy has much lesseconomic, educational and social rights.

The caste /untouchability and ethnicity basedexclusion thus reflect in inability of individuals andgroups like former untouchables and otherbackward caste and other similar groups to interactfreely and productively with others and to take partin the full economic, social, and political life of acommunity (Bhalla and Lapeyere 1997).Incomplete citizenship or denial of civil rights(freedom of expression, rule of law, right tojustice), political rights (right and means toparticipate in the exercise of political power) andsocio-economic rights( right to property,employment and education) are key dimensions ofimpoverished live.

Continued in the next issue.......................

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[Justice H. Suresh (retd.) delivered this lecture on

the occasion of M.N. Roy 125th Birth Anniversary

celebrations by Centre for the Study of Social

Change (CSSC) at M.N. Roy Human

Development Campus, Centre for the Study of

Social Change, Mumbai on 21st March 2012]

The Need For Death SentenceFor Capital Punishmment

Years ago, we had a campaign againstDeath Penalty. It is unfortunate that this

campaign seems to have dissipated in recent years.At the same time, we are witnessing stridentdemands (largely political) for early execution ofdeath sentences of those convicts who arelanguishing in jail for several years. The Courtsalso display a certain amount of certitude that deathis the only apt solution in such cases.

The United Nations, on the other hand, has longadvocated abolition of death penalty, and, in theinterim, restrictions on it use, includingmoratorium on execution of death sentences. From1997 to 2005, the former U.N. Commission onHuman Rights adopted an annual resolution on thequestion of death penalty calling, inter alia, uponall States that still maintained the death penalty toestablish a moratorium on execution. On 18th

December 2007, the U.N. General Assemblypassed a resolution calling for a global moratoriumon executions. India, however, was one of the few

countries that abstained from voting. It isinteresting to note how the trend to abolish deathpenalty has grown. When the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights (UDHR) wasadopted in 1948, the number of countries that hadabolished the death penalty stood at eight. In 1977,just 16 countries had abolished the death penaltyfor all crimes. In 2007, that figure stands at 90.Eleven other countries have abolished the deathpenalty for ordinary crimes, and retained the deathpenalty for exceptional crimes, such as crimesunder military law, or crimes committed inwartime. Our own neighbours, Nepal and Bhutan,are amongst these abolitionist nations. A further 29countries can be considered ‘abolitionists inpractice’, as they have not carried out anyexecution for at least 10 years. That brings the totalto about 130 countries out of 192 U.N. MemberStates that have effectively abolished the deathsentence.

What is important is to note that there is acontinuing trend towards abolition, suspension, orthe imposition of a moratorium on executions. Oneof the first countries to abolish the death penaltywas the United Kingdom, in 1965. Now Europe isvirtually a death penalty free area. The continent ofAfrica is largely free of execution, with only six outof 53 countries having carried out executions in theyear 2006. In some countries, death sentences arebeing commuted to life imprisonment. In the AsiaPacific region, about 25 countries have not carriedout any executions since about 2006. In China,where regular executions take place (in 2010,roughly about a thousand), they have nowintroduced a compulsory review of death sentencesby the Supreme Court. In Latin American States,even though they have large incidences of crimesand armed resistance and terrorism, they haveabolished capital punishment.

Even in the United States of America, there is amove to abolish death penalty. In the State ofMontana, the Senate voted to abolish the deathpenalty in 2001. In New York, the State’s highestCourt, in 2004, found the State’s death penalty

10


H. Suresh

statute unconstitutional. The State of New Jerseyin 2006 appointed a Commission to study allaspects of death penalty. The Commission in itsreport in 2007 recommended the abolition of deathpenalty. In most of the Countries, even thoughthere has been no abolition of death penalty,virtually no execution has taken place for the lastseveral years.

I am referring to this trend and momentum to endcapital punishment in all regions of the world, onlyto lament upon what we have been doing inraucously demanding the execution of the ‘RajivGandhi killers’ and Afzal Guru, in particular, and incontinuing the death penalty provisions, in general,and in expanding and including the same in certainother laws which are, at present, outside the scopeof death penalty provisions. It is depressing to notethat while nearly two-thirds of all countriesrecognise that the death penalty cannot bereconciled with respect to human rights, we are noteven prepared to announce a policy of moratoriumon execution of death sentences.

In India, the law, as it stood before 1955, was thatthe Court was required to give reasons if it chosenot to pass a death sentence in a case where theoffence was punishable with death. Section 367(5)of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.) 1898stood: “If the accused is convicted for an offence

punishable with death and the Court sentences him

to any punishment other than death, the Court shall

in its judgement state reasons why the sentence of

death was not passed.” During that time, deathsentence was the rule and the lesser punishment oflife imprisonment could be given only for specialreasons.

Section 367(5) of the Cr.P.C. was amended in1955, and after that the judges were left with thediscretion to give either punishment. TheLegislature dropped that part of the sub-clausewhich made it necessary for the courts to state thereasons for not awarding the sentence of death.However, now S. 354(3) of the Cr.P.C. 1973provides that in all cases of murder, life

imprisonment should be given, unless there arespecial reasons for passing the sentence of death.This means that the extreme penalty of deathsentence could be awarded only in exceptionalcases.

How do we determine exceptional cases? Wheredo we draw the line? The criteria for awarding lifesentence when death sentence was the rule and lifesentence the exception, fundamentally differs froma situation where life sentence is the rule and deathsentence is the exception. In the former situation,the crime having being established (whatever bethe manner of committing the crime), the Courtwould take into account the factors that relate to thecriminal – the man – his general background, hisage, his family members and their dependence onhim, his general behaviour towards society, etc. Onthe other hand, when life sentence is the rule, anddeath penalty the exception, the criminal – the man– becomes irrelevant and the gravity of the crimebecomes more important. In the former case, theCourt could be legitimately induced to invoke itshumane approach, whereas, in the latter case, theCourt could regressively tread into the inhumansituation where life could be taken away. That isthe crux of the problem, and the only genuinesolution is to eliminate death penalty altogether.

The Supreme Court, in its anxiety to circumscribethe parameters for imposing death penalty, came upwith the solution of ‘rarest of rare cases’, where thedeath penalty could be awarded (Bachan Singh

1980). The very concept shows that the case – therarest case – the crime – becomes more importantthan the criminal – the man. The Judges posed thefollowing questions: is there something uncommonabout the crime which renders sentence for lifeimprisonment inadequate? Are the circumstancesof the crime such that there is no alternative but toimpose death sentence? The emphasis is on thefacts and circumstances surrounding the crime andto take a balance sheet of mitigating andaggravating circumstances.

11


Following this approach, the Supreme Court has,from time to time, laid down various criteria forawarding death penalty. The Supreme Court hasrepeatedly stressed that the manner of commissionof murder is an important factor. Whether murderis committed in as “extremely brutal, grotesque,

diabolical, revolting or dastardly manner so as to

arouse extreme indignation of the community?”Whether the motive indicates “extreme depravity

and meanness…?” Whether the crime is anti-socialor can be considered as socially abhorrent in itsnature? Whether the crime has aroused ‘socialwrath’? What is the magnitude of the crime – suchas multiple murders or murder of all the membersof a family? What is the personality of the victim ofmurder? Is he a public figure – such as IndiraGandhi or Rajiv Gandhi, etc.?

It is difficult to appreciate whether these could beconsidered as proper guidelines for imposing deathpenalty. The facts and circumstances surroundingthe incident may be relevant for determiningwhether a crime has been committed or not. Howwould they be relevant for prescribing anysentence?

The Court itself realised the difficulty in layingdown any standardised guidelines, because suchguidelines “leaves little room for judicial

variations in culpability…. It tends to sacrifice

justice at the altar of blind uniformity. Indeed,

there is a real danger of such mechanical

standardisation degenerating into a bed of

procrustean cruelty.”

This led to a series of cases in which judges evolvedtheir own criteria of “rarest of rare cases”, so muchso that Justice Aftab Alam, in the case of Swamy

Shraddhananda (2008) observed: “The question of

death sentence is not free from the subjective

element and the confirmation of death sentence or

its commutation by the Court depends a good deal

on the personal predilection of the judges

constituting the bench.” The learned Judge refersto a report called “Lethal Lottery, The DeathPenalty in India” compiled jointly by AmnestyInternational and the Peoples Union for CivilLiberties (PUCL), which is a study of death penaltycases from 1950 to 2006, showing lack ofuniformity and consistency in awarding deathsentence. He then refers to Article 14 of theConstitution which should apply to the judicialprocess at the sentencing stage. He finally observes: “In the ultimate analysis, it serves as an alarm bell

because if capital sentences cannot be rationally

distinguished from a significant number of cases

where the result was a life sentence, it is more than

an acknowledgement of an imperfect sentencing

system. In a capital sentencing system if this

happens with some frequency there is a lurking

conclusion as regards the capital sentencing

system becoming constitutionally arbitrary.”

Continued in the next issue.......................

12


PLEASE DO NOT SEND ARTICLES BEYOND 1500-2000 WORDS.

Dear Friends, Also, inform me whether they have been published elsewhere. And, please try to email

them at [email protected] instead of sending them by post. You may post them (only if email is

not possible) at C-8 Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India. Do also email your passport size

photographs as separate attachments (in JPG format) as well as your small introduction, if you are

contributing for the first time.

Please feel free to contact me at 91-9719333011 for any other querry.

—Rekha Saraswat

Musings from France

[Prof. Amitabha Chakrabarti is M.Sc. in Applied

Mathematics from Kolkata University and

Doc.ès. Sc. from Univ. of Paris, France. He first

worked at National Physical Laboratory, New

Delhi and later entered C.N.R.S. and joined

Centre de Phys.Théor. (CPHT) of Ecole

Polytechnique, France in 1965. He still continues

to work there. Apart from a large number of

papers on varied problems of mathematical

physics in various scientific journals and

conference proceedings he has published a series

of articles (covering scientific, philosophical,

historical and other cultural aspects) in Bengali

in ‘Jijnasa’ (edited by Prof. Sibnarayan Ray).

These have been collected in a recently published

book by Renaissance Publishers. A few articles in

English have also appeared in the earlier issues

of The Radical Humanist.]

A book left open

A delightful anecdote in Aubry’s “BriefLives” describes the first encounter with

Geometry of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes(1588 – 1679) at the age of forty:

Being in a Gentleman’s Library, Euclid’s Elementslay open, it so happens, on the page demonstratingPythagoras’ theorem. “By G – says he (he wouldnow and then swear an emphatic oath by way ofemphasis) – this is impossible!” He reads thedemonstration and finds that it refers to a preceding

theorem. So he reads that one, which again refers toa preceding one. He continues thus to movebackward till he is satisfied. “This made him in lovewith Geometry.” Possibly T.H. continued to movebackward until he arrived at the starting point —Euclid’s axioms.

The story “beautifully captures the force ofGreece’s most important contribution tomathematics, the deductive method” writes JohnStillwell in “Mathematics and its history”. “Thales(624 BCE – 547 BCE) is thought to be theoriginator of this method, and by 300 BCE it hadbecome so sophisticated that Euclid’s Elements setthe standard of mathematical rigor until thenineteenth century.” (Stillwell)

Bertrand Russell wrote (Autobiography, Vol.1):“At the age of eleven, I began Euclid … This wasone of the great events of my life, as dazzling asfirst love … I had not imagined there was anythingso delicious in the world.”

Ancient Greece was certainly not steepedeverywhere in clarity and logic. When Thales and afew others like him lived and thought, many morewere carrying gold and varied treasures to Delphi,hoping that the Pythia would answer their questionsand provide omens. One story told by Herodotus isboth funny and pathetic:

Spartans, planning to attack their Tegeanneighbors, solicited the Oracle. The answer was, asalmost always, involved and ambiguous. Spartanssomehow interpreted it to mean their certainvictory and attacked. Thoughtfully, the invadingarmy brought a supply of shackles to bring backTegean slaves. They lost. Many Spartans werecarried away fettered with those very shackles.Some of those shackles decorated for centuries aTegean temple of Athene.

Did the Spartans lose faith in the Oracle? Not at all.They continued to carry loads of treasure to Delphiand to prostrate themselves, asking for otheranswers.

Possibly, I have started to think about Greekscience and religion as an evasion from the present


13

Amitabha Chakrabarti

reality. It is difficult not to think about Greece withthe media daily reporting on the desperate presentsituation. Television screens show Atheniansrioting, the police charging, wielding batons frombehind transparent shields, tear gas shells burstingeverywhere.

The European Union lends more money (172 bneuros), cancels more debts (100 bn euros) butimposes yet more austerity measures. Minimalsalaries, so low (for Europe) to start with, are againreduced twenty to thirty percent. The OrthodoxChurch (massively wealthy, owning vastproperties, paying no taxes) has at last started todistribute food. Hungry men, women and childrenstand in queues.

The film Director Costas Gavras appeals “It is not amessage, but a prayer: Do not humiliate the Greekpeople any more. They have suffered so much,specially the poorer ones.”

A thoroughly corrupt administration has broughtthe country to the brink of ruin. Tax evasion hadbecome a way of life. (Is the stench familiar toIndian noses?)

I think of my Greek friends, brilliant physicists,who also teach me how to pronounce correctly thefamous names of ancient Greece. I think of thecountry I have travelled in. Anastasia, you whowere our guide on a tour and said that I remindedyou of your father who also likes mathematics—-how are you? You were thinking of marryingand settling down, but you were worried. You saidto me in a low voice “If I am so often away, guidingtourists, how can that be possible?” What are youdoing now?

I may as well take shelter in less troubling thoughts.But are they really so?

Somebody (I do not remember who) wrote that theGreek gods, so callously unconcerned with justiceto human beings, so obsessed with sex, are a joke.The fact that one cannot take them seriouslypossibly liberated the Greek mind, opening it torational thinking. I do not think that the conclusionnecessarily follows. But indeed the terrible wail of

blinded Gloucester:

“Like flies to wanton boys are we to th’ Gods

They kill us for their sport” (King Lear)

is a banal situation in the Iliad. According to theirwhimsical spites and sympathies, the Gods takesides —-Athene for the Achean Greeks, Ares forthe Trojans, and so on. Smugly safe in theirimmortality, they enjoy the “sport”. They alsoindulge their mutual hatreds. Athene guidesDiomedes’ spear for a savage thrust in the belly ofAres. Howling with pain, Ares flies back toOlympos. There, Zeus treats him with contempt.Such is the Olympian milieu.

Does such a pantheon necessarily, as a reaction,help rational thought bloom? I do not know. Butsome achievements of the Greek miracle are indeedexalting.

Long before Copernicus, Aristarchos of Samos(310 –230 BCE) gave the first heliocentric modelof the solar system. He also gave the first (thoughquite approximate) estimate of the distance Earth –Sun. The idea behind the method is of awesomesimplicity. On day when just the half of the lunardisc and the Sun were both visible in the sky,Aristarchos took two sticks and, holding thembefore his eyes, pointed one to the Sun and the otherto the Moon. He measured the angle between thetwo sticks. That gave him the distance Earth -Sun!

The Greeks had already estimated the distanceEarth –Moon. The method was again conceptuallysimple and a triumph of the human mind. To makethings short, let us assume that distance to beknown and come back to Aristarchos. From hisheliocentric model, he knew that when just half thelunar disc is visible, the lines Moon -Earth andMoon –Sun must be mutually perpendicular,subtending a right angle. So, after measuring theangle between the two sticks, he knew two anglesand one side of the triangle Earth - Sun - Moon. Sohe knew the triangle completely and hence thedistance Earth – Sun. His estimate was not veryaccurate numerically, but the geometry wascorrect!


14

Aristarchus's 3rd century BCE calculations on

the relative sizes of (from left) the Sun, Earth

and Moon, from a 10th century AD Greek copy

I learned about the achievement of Aristarchosfrom a television program on a Sunday morning. Iwas alone in the room. But I rose up and cheeredlike a football fan in a stadium. I distinctly heardhundred thousand fans cheering with me.

Turning to India one finds that great mathematicaltalent can coexist with convictions which some(including myself) would consider as superstitions.

Bhaskara was the greatest mathematician andastronomer in twelfth century India and head of theobservatory of Ujjain. His most famous work,Leelavati, was named after his daughter — toconsole her!

“The story goes that Bhaskara used hisastronomical knowledge (which in those daysincluded astrological “knowledge”) to choose themost propitious day and time for his daughter’swedding. As the time approached, one of her pearlsfell into the water clock as she leaned over it,

stopping the outflow of water. Before anyonenoticed, however, the crucial time passed and thewedding had to be called off. The hapless Leelavatinever married.” (Stillwell)

Advances made by Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta, andothers were transmitted to Europe in a diluted formby Arab mathematicians such as Al Khwarizmi,who thus became famous. They also transmitted thesystem of decimal numerals.

Stillwell writes “Brahmagupta’s work … muchmore advanced... predated Al Khwarizmi and verylikely was known to him. Why then did AlKhwarizmi’s work rather than that ofBrahmagupta’s become the definitive “algebra”?”

Quite different was the role of Al Biruni. Heentered India in the wake of an invader—Mahmoud of Ghazni. But he stayed. He learnedSanskrit and Hindi. He travelled widely, met anddiscussed with philosophers, mathematicians andother scholars. Then he wrote his celebrated work“Hindustan”.

My wife Michelle and I were touring Uzbekistanwith a group. To my surprise, I found Al Biruni’swork has still a high prestige there. Presumablyvery few read it. But the aura lingers.

The historical little city of Khiva has still towersand a rampart (and also a fine reclining statue of AlKhwarizmi). We bought tickets giving access to therampart. Michelle presented them to the ladycollecting tickets at the foot of the stairs leading tothe top. Taking the tickets, pointing to me, sheasked Michelle “Uzbek? Uzbek?” Michelle replied“No, Indian.”... “Hindustan!” exclaimed the lady.Respectfully she bowed to me twice. Feeling likean impostor, I bowed in return.


15

“I told the sun that I was glad, I'm sure I don't know why;

Somehow the pleasant way he had Of shining in the sky,

Just put a notion in my head That wouldn't it be fun.

If, walking on the hill, I said "I'm happy" to the sun.”

— John D.

Reflections from the U.S.

[Mr. Uday Dandavate studies people, cultures

and trends worldwide and uses the understanding

gained from such studies to inspire people

centered innovation strategies. Uday Dandavate

heads up a design research consulting firm called

SonicRim. He frequently writes and speaks on

topics related to people centered design and

innovation in international journals and

conferences. [email protected]]

Six Characteristics of ResonantOrganizations

The concept of “disruptive innovation” hasbecome a buzz word, a silver bullet for

business survival. Businesses are turning tocreative professionals to conceptualize the idealproduct that will increase competitiveness in amarketplace depressed by economic downturn. ButI would like to offer an alternative to this popularnotion—instead of focusing on revolutionaryproducts or services, businesses should focus onnurturing resonance.

Building a business is like raising a child. Youcannot hope to nurture character, conviction, andsurvival skills in a child just by giving themoccasional gifts. The popular proverb, “It takes avillage to raise a child” best clarifies why resonanceis the key requirement for building a thrivingbusiness. How much the stakeholders are tuned intoeach other and into the changing market conditionswill determine the health, vitality and growth of thebusiness. In turn, the entire value chain will beinspired to innovate. In this article, I propose that acompany can thrive in a fast changing marketplaceonly by turning itself into a resonant organization.

Marc Van Der Erve, the author of the book“Resonant Corporation,” suggests that “the art ofcreating business is in finding characteristics thatreinforce one another or resonate.” He does notwant business leaders to be blinded by revolutions;rather he suggests that businesses should “focus onchanges inside and outside your organizationwhich might reinforce one another.”

The idea of resonance is borrowed from the field ofPhysics. It refers to sound that is produced orincreased in one object by sound waves fromanother object. Resonant organization thereforemeans an organization in which people havecultivated an instinctive ability to understand eachother’s perspectives, sense and respect each others’emotions and to learnand grow from the deepconnection they have developed with each otherand with other stakeholders within their valuechain. I have identified six characteristics of aresonant organization: creative curiosity, sense ofpurpose, synchronicity, empathy, mentoringnetworks, and sense of self.

Creative Curiosity: The responsibility forinnovation often falls on professionals trained increative thinking skills. Companies commissioncelebrity designers or well-known design firms tocreate disruptive designs. However, the secretbehind the creativity of design professionals lies intheir ability to observe, interpret, and be inspired bytheir surroundings. Creative individuals approachmundane moments of life with a childlike curiosityand an opportunistic attitude.

Leo Burnett, founder of Leo Burnett Worldwide,once said “curiosity about life in all of its aspects, Ithink, is still the secret of great creative people,”Curiosity opens minds to new ideas and directs ourperceptions to things that escape our attention on anormal day. This curiosity can be directed throughan opportunistic lens.

When an individual or an organization is driven bya sense of purpose in pursuing one’s curiosity, itcan be termed as creative curiosity. This creativecuriosity can be directed at solving a problem,


16

Uday Dandavate

interpreting a natural phenomenon, or indiscovering the truth. And when an entireorganization activates its curiosity to track theenvironment for opportunities, the chances ofbreakthrough discoveries increase exponentially.

Sense of Purpose: In order to direct the creativecuriosity of its work force, leadership must provideclear messaging to communicate the purpose of itsexistence in the marketplace—both from theperspective of the company and its customers—just as Steve Jobs told his stakeholders to “ThinkDifferent,” John F. Kennedy mandated NASA toput a man on the moon in ten years, and Gandhiinspired an entire nation with a simple call for theBritish to “Quit India”. In all these instances,leaders inspired their followers to use theirimagination and curiosity to find their own ways todevelop appropriate response to a broad frameworklaid out by their leader.

Your employees and trade partners will bemotivated to independently apply their imaginationto creating, communicating and deliveringinnovative ideas to the market if they have a clearsense of what your company stands for. If yourstakeholders perceive a sense of purpose in yourvision and relate to it, they are more likely to usetheir experience, relationships, and creativity togenerate ideas that are guided by that purpose.

Simon Sinek, in his popular book, “Start with Why:How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to TakeAction,” says, “The goal [of a business] is [orshould be] not to do business with everybody whoneeds what you have. The goal is to do businesswith people who believe what you believe." Thepurpose of a company may be clarified through amission statement, a tagline, or an evolvingconversation with stakeholders about thecompany’s relevance in the marketplace and itsdreams for the future. A good leader, therefore, isone who provides a sense of purpose to thecompany through projection of his or her vision forthe future.

Inspired by the TED talk of Simon Sinek andchallenged by the questions of our employees, thepartners of SonicRim conducted rigorousconsultations last year on why SonicRim shouldexist and what the relevance of its services is. Thesequestions led us to create a new website thatreflected our clearly defined sense of purpose. As aresult of this exercise, we find a renewedenthusiasm among our employees to write regularblog posts for the site. This exercise also led thepartners of SonicRim to seek out new ways ofapproaching potential clients with the message that“together we can make the world a better place.”

Synchronicity: An organization that is clear onpurpose and keen on fostering a culture of learningneeds to implement programs and create spaceswithin its premises that allow for cultivation ofsynchronicity between its employees and otherstakeholders. Informal socialization andparticipation in activities that have meaningbeyond work help generate a sense of synchronicitybetween people. For example three years ago, webrought together our employees and their familiesto plant 5000 trees in rural Ohio. Sweating in barrenland for hour to plant trees, helped inculcate a senseof connection to a larger ecological cause that boththe employees and their families believe in.

The concept of synchronicity was first introducedby Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analyticalpsychology Carl Gustav Jung as “meaningfulcoincidences.” In his view, the idea ofsynchronicity refers to the relationship betweenminds at abstract level. These relationships are amore profound connection between people which,cultivated over time through shared memories,values and purposes, can manifest as simultaneousoccurrences that are meaningfully related. An eventthat brings people together on a platform that ismeaningful to them allows synchronicity to growbetween them.

Empathy: Most organizations suffer from lack ofempathy between people who are separated bydistance or culture. Lack of empathy for people


17

working in unfamiliar contexts often createsbottlenecks in learning. Organizations need tocultivate two types empathy: internal empathy andexternal empathy. People within an organizationneed empathy for colleagues (internal empathy) tofoster respect for the diversity of perspectives thatexist within the organization. And they needempathy for your trade partners and your customers(external empathy) in order to best understand thecultural and psychological frameworks that guidethe thoughts, ideas and feelings of people fromdifferent backgrounds. Cross-cultural empathy canhelp tap into the wisdom and insights of people whohave a stake in the success of your organization,and help them come together to drive innovationand bring imagination to life. Often seeds ofbreakthrough innovation reside in the wisdom,ideas and local knowledge of regional teams inglobal companies, which gets lost due to lack ofempathy between corporate and regional teams,and between executives and creative teams.

To help cultivate external empathy, organizationsoften conduct segmentation studies and developpersona caricatures of their target customers andtrade partners. However, this exercise is not aneffective as a tool unless theorganization—especially the leadership team—goes through an experiential learning process tounderstand the lives of their target audience. This isimportant because empathy Is formed throughdirect immersion in shared experiences, andthrough genuine efforts to understand each other.Empathy cannot be gained from reading personaprofiles depicted in PowerPoint presentations or byreading personas displayed in corporate corridors.

Organizations must also use similar methods todevelop archetypal profiles of people within theirorganization to help employees develop empathyfor each other.

Mentoring Networks: Every organization hasresource limitations on how many people they canemploy. At the same time rapidly expanding socialnetworks are enabling people to learn from people

and sources outside the confines of theirorganization. As a result, new forms of mentoringnetworks are being formed on Twitter andFacebook. Organizations can develop their humancapital by harnessing the potential of socialnetworks in expanding people’s opportunities forgrowth through internal exchanges and mentorshipfrom people outside of their organization.

SonicRim researchers Chris (L) and Isha (R)

presenting their collage.

At SonicRim we have formed a new initiativecalled “Engage”. The sole purpose of “Engage” isto bring together the community of designresearchers and clients of design research in anopen-source learning platform. We haveestablished a monthly whiteboard meeting wheredesign researchers— even those who compete witheach other during their day jobs— meet to askquestions, share ideas, and enjoy time together.Tamara Christensen from Portigal Consulting, saidafter a recent Whiteboard session, that “[theWhiteboard session] spoke to my head, touched myheart, and nurtured my soul!” Her reflection bestarticulates the value of efforts in building an opensource network for learning.

We are also launching a SonicRim Book Club, inwhich we open up our company blog to reviewsfrom professionals in our field. This platform willhelp practitioners in the field consume theknowledge from a range of resources while alsoconserving their limited time, effectively creatingan opportunity for design research professionals toenrich themselves and create new value within thefield.


18

Sense of Self: Finally, the most important aspect ofa resonant organization is the importance of senseof self, and its impact on an individual’s work. AtSonicRim we have learned that people have greatersense of self-esteem and a positive self-image whentheir experience of work is synchronous with theirvalues and aspirations outside of work. We havedeveloped a method for helping employees reflectupon the alignment between their aspirations forlife and job through a collage activity. By askingpeople to select words and images that representtheir ideal life and job, we help them to examinetheir evolving aspirations and realities, andunderstand the symbiotic relationship betweentheir ideal job and ideal life outside of work. Thecollage serves as a framework for understandingone’s sense of self as the conditions at workchange, and also helps the employer understandhow experiences from within and outside theorganization to can create a sense of fulfillment.

During the times of recession, when employees feelfrustrated by lack of external motivation orinspiration, a resonant organization plays a greaterrole in providing meaning and a sense of purposefor innovation. British macro economist JohnMaynard Keynes, best summarized the currentcontext for building resonant organizations:

“The day is not far off when the economic problemwill take the back seat where it belongs, and thearena of the heart and the head will be occupied orreoccupied by our real problems: the problems oflife and of human relations, of creation andbehavior and religion."

The point is, we can no longer afford to obsessabout the recession and simply wait for consumerconfidence to return. Resonant organizations willuse the period of economic downturn to inspiretheir employees to focus on applying theirimagination to serve their customers in meaningfulways.


19

Important Announcement

Encyclopedia of the Radical HumanistsTo be loaded on the RH Website (http://www.theradicalhumanist.com)

Dear Friends,

This is to request you to send in your personal details, contact numbers etc. (along with yourpassport size photographs) as well as a brief account of how you got associated with M.N.Roy/Radical Democratic Party/Radical Humanist Movement directly or indirectly through thephilosophy of New Humanism.

This is also a request to all those friends, whose deceased parent/parents were involved in orwere sympathetic with Radical Humanism and its Movement, to send in accounts of theirparent’s/parents’ association (as much as they can recollect and recount). This will be a lovingand emotional tribute to their memories from your side.

All this effort is being made to form an encyclopedia of the Radical Humanists right from thedays of the beginning of M.N. Roy’s social and political activities in India and abroad.

All this information will be uploaded and permanently stored on the RH Website in the Profilesection for everyone to read and come in contact with one another.

This will be a historical check-list to connect with all the crusaders who worked or are stillworking for the human cause on the humanist lines.

—Rekha Saraswat

[Mr. Bhagwat Prashad Rath, who calls himself a

heretic, is a Gandhian socialist. He built

educational institutions, got elected as a chairman

of a Panchayet Samiti, resigned and worked as a

lecturer in English. A believer in Lokayata

philosophy, he is an editor of

journals—Vigil-English, Sarvodaya-Oriya. He is

also a writer of several novels, poems (in Oriya)

and essays (in Oriya and English). He has often

been subjected to police harassment, false cases

and threats from anti-socials due to his association

with people’s movements and connection with

human rights organizations. Presently, he is

researching upon the works and literature on

ancient Indian culture.

[email protected]]

Deconstructing Indian History:The Roots of Dalits

In his essay ‘Exploring the HistoricalConsciousness’ published in the Social

Scientist (221-22); Ravinder Kumar Wrote, “As Itraversed the gallery of art, it became obvious that ittook Canadian artists about two generations torecord faithfully the characteristics of thelandscape that stood before their eyes……..Theproblems of visual perception that confronted earlyCanadian artists illuminate the dilemmas ofhistorical writings in Third World societies”.Ravinder Kumar’s remarks are relevant in thecontext of exploring the roots of Dalitization in

India. The unique dismal nature of the problemcomes out in the writings of Swami Vivekananda.In a letter to his young admirer Alsinga in Madras,he wrote, “No religion on earth preaches the dignityof humanity in such a lofty strain as Hinduism andno religion on earth treads upon the neck of the poorand the low in such a fashion as Hinduism”.

Vivekananda’s heart-felt remarks find powerfulexpression in the writings of Ambedkar. “Theexistence of these classes (The Criminal Tribes, theAboriginal Tribes, the Untouchables) is anabomination. The Hindu civilization, examined inthe light of such social products (Untouchables)can hardly be called a civilization. It is a diabolicalcontrivance to suppress and enslave humanity. Itsproper name would be infamy”. The untouchables:Preface. (B.R. Ambedkar’s writings and speechesvl.7)

Many sordid episodes narrated in the Jataka storiesindicate how degraded the position of theChandalas was in ancient India.

“……. The sight of Chandalas was inauspicious(Jat-377), and daughters of a sresthi and priestwashed their eyes after having accidentally seen aChandala because he was not fit to be seen. Theywere considered low by caste (Jat-498)”. Beyondthe Four Varnas: Identification, Rejection andSegregation (Prabhati Mukherji).

No wonder, Dalit intellectuals mince no words incondemning Brahmin-dominated Hinduism inIndia.

Indian civilization is not without its share of gloriesthat dazzle the world. India gifted two of thegreatest world figures to human history. They werethe Buddha and Gandhi.

Amartya Sen writes, “Schopenhauer added, “Thatin contrast with the old, the new testament ‘mustsomehow be of Indian Origin: This is attested by itscompletely Indian ethics, which transforms moralsinto asceticism, its pessimism and its Avatar (i.e.The person of Christ)”. The Argumentative Indian:Indian Traditions and the Western Imagination.

Suniti Kumar Chatterjee writes in his Bengali


20

B.P. Rath

Book. Indian Culture, “I consider three valuesfoundational to Hindu culture: integration(Samanwaya), search for truth and non-violence”.

In India, how could the horror co-exist with theglory? How could atheistic rationalist India of theBuddha, Mahavir and Charvak coexist with the -Pseudo – Dharmic India of Dalit and Mlechha –haters? No other country contains so many bookswritten by atheists and agnostics. Amartya Senwrites, “Sanskrit (including its variants Pali andPrakrut) has a larger literature in the atheistic andagnostic tradition than exists in any other language(Greek, Roman, Hebrew or Arabic)”. TheArgumentative Indian : The Indian identity.

Andre Betelle made a telling comment to illustratethe paradoxical nature of Indian Civilization.

“But the growth of Indian Civilization was basedon a very distractive pattern of accommodationwhich the noted anthropologist and writer IravateKarve described as accretion. She observed, “…thehistorical process is one of continuous accretion.There does not seem to be a stage where choice wasmade between alternatives, a choice involvingacceptance of one alternative and a definite finalrejection of the other” India’s Identity. TheBhagavad Gita illustrates these contradictionsco-existing in the culture of India. D.D. Kosambihas rightly observed, “Practically anything can beread into the Gita by a determined person”‘Tolerance of diversity’ or in Vivekananda’s words‘acceptance of diversity’ has preserved the unity ofIndia. But structural inequalities must be combatedto preserve healthy diversity.

To quote the historian R.S. Sarma, “Untouchablesare not found in any other country. But in Indiathey are as old as 400 B.C” Rethinking the Past:Problems of Members of Lower Orders.

Why did this abomination occur in India? Dalitintellectuals have the right to be heard withattention in this matter.

Thus say Dalit intellectuals: “From the beginningtill today, Brahminism has established itshegemony over land, resources and people; Dalits

reject any such hegemony…. Since the castesystem has been firmly established in India,Brahmins claim to be superior to all other castesand have been pressing the Dalit oppressionthrough millennia.”

Dalitology: Introduction: Most of the upper classpeople believe that because of bad deeds (Karma)in previous lives, people are born as Dalits, butDalits believe that their present degraded status isdue to some historical accident or trickery playedon their ancestors. (Suvira Jayaswal).

Dalitization and Brahmin dominance (Brahmansoccupying the highest rank in society) are two sidesof the same coin Without Brahmins becomingreligious lawmakers in Indian society, their effortsof social ostracism would not have succeeded. Whydid the warriors submit to the hegemony ofBrahmins? No Aryan society accepted the supremestatus of the ritualizers. The supreme status wasthat of the warriors. The cattle raiders were thesword arm of Aryans. The priests sang the praisesof warriors for Dana and Dakshina. In the book‘From Lineage to State’ Ramila Thapar writes.

“At the core of the Jana, the substantial divisionwas the bifurcation of the Kshatriya and Vis. In theinitial structure of the varna system, both theBrahman and the Sudra could have been as it wereaddenda” Lineage Society.

S.C. Malik writes in the Book ‘UnderstandingIndian Civilization, “Early Rig- Vedic period: twotypes of social categories, the nobles or theKshatriyas and the tribesmen or vish. Butsometimes a third category of poct-priest‘Brahman’ was added.” Structural Elements andFormation.

Describing the unique nature of Indian civilization,Louis Dumont writes in the book HomoHierarchicus, “In ancient Egyptian or Sumeriankingship, or in the king ship of the Chinese empire,the supreme religious functions were vested in thesovereign, he was the priest par excellence”.Appendix –C: In India separation occurred.

21


Kingship was secularized. Only priesthood wassacralized.

That Yogi Chiefs (later categorized as ‘Brahmins’:The Mahabharata, Shantiparva), ruled pre-Vedicnon-Aryan societies cannot be doubted. In theBhagawad Gita (4th canto), it is written thatRajarshees who ruled India in the past were Yogis.Then for a long time, Yoga remained unknown.Evidently, Rajarshees lost power and the newrulers, the Vedic nobility, fond of sacrifices, had nointerest in Yoga. The Mahabharat (Canto-232)reveals that in Satyayuga, there was no sacrifice, noVedas: there was only Yoga or Tapa (Santi ParvaCanto-79 explains Tapa as non-violence, truthcompassion and control of senses which are thevalues of Yoga, Tapa had nothing to do with anytype of torture of the body as believed in later days).‘Namuchi appears to be noble (R.V. 10.73.7:‘Asura’ by W.E. Hale). Non-violent chiefs likeVritra and Namuchi could easily be killed by Indrawithout any war. Ramila Thapar writes in her essay‘Some appropriations of the theory of the AryanRace and the Beginning of Indian History’, “Thequestion of theory of Aryan invasion arose from thepaucity of archeological evidence suggesting suchan invasion”. Death of their key leaders led to theflight of the indigenous city people from theirhabitations. (R.V.1.30.12; 1.33.6.7; 1,51,5,1.53.8;1.101.1; 1.117.2; 1.149.3; 1.15.4; 6.27: OroonGhosh’s Bengali essay ‘Aryavijaya, KuruPandaband Krishna’). Ramila Thapar writes, “It wouldseem that most of these cities were in the Sarawatiand Punjab region. It is stated that the darkinhabitants fled and migrated. This would agreewith the archeological evidence” (Her above–mentioned essay). Both Vritra and Namuchi,prominent Dasa Chiefs (Rajarshees) were killed byIndra and Rajarshee Bali was exiled. Indra had tosuffer because of Brahmahatya (Brahmin –murder). The Mahabharata (Shanti Parva) also tellsabout Indra’s killing of a large number of Brahmins(Canto-33). In Prof. R. N. Dandekar”s felicitationvolume ‘Amritdhara’ H.W Bodewitz writes,“Being ascetics, (non-violent), the Yatis cannot be

killed by Indra with weapons. Therefore they aresurrendered to the wolves or hyenas (Sala Vrikas).”Yatis (called ‘Brahmins’ in the Mahabharata) wereforced to accept Vedic rituals performed in UttaraVedis (Sacrificial place) to save their lives. Toquote Bodewitz. “…. Bhrigu, according toSatapatha and Jaimininya Brahmans only became aritualist after he had seen some horriblevisions……” Pre-Vedic nobility, the Yogis’(Yatis) accepted sacrificial rituals because ofthreat. To make them join the Vedic Brahmins,Aryan leaders had to make the compromise ofmaking sacrificial rituals bloodless. A myth of theMahabharata makes it clear.

Once a quarrel took place between Devas (deities)and Rishis. Devas wanted the killing of animals insacrifices. Rishis disagreed. Both the parties madeKing Uparichara Basu the mediator. When he sidedwith the Devas, Rishis became furious and cursedhim. Ultimately the killing of animals in sacrificeswas abolished. This myth shows that Vedic priestshad to accept the dictates of the Rishis (Yogis) whodominated pre-Vedic Indian societies. Both Devapower and Kshatriya power proved futile in thepresence of Rishi power. Rishis got absorbed in theBrahmin community because they acceptedsacrifices as their Dharma. Regarding theprevalence of animal killings in sacrifices, in IrfanHabib-edited book ‘The Growth of Civilizations inIndia and Iran’ K.M. Shrimali writes, “Amongsthunting cultures, small but symbolically parts ofanimals slain during hunt is offered… . Slaying hasthe twin objectives of not only maintaining thecosmic order, but also furthering the cause ofmaterial sustenance.” Further Srimali writes,“Sacrifice of both male and female animals,including Gav (Cow including bull) was practicedat all these shrines (Parsi shrines in Iran). It wasonly after the visit of Manoj Hatji Hataria, the firstemissary of Parsis of India who came to Persia in1854, that the sacrifice of cows at Banu Pars wasstopped”. ‘The Rigveda and the Avesta’.

Continued in the next issue........................

22


Current Affairs Section:

U. P. tops in punishing thosecommitting crimes against

Dalits—by Avatthi Ramaiah

[Dr. Avatthi Ramaiah is a Professor at the Centre

for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive

Policies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences,

Mumbai.]

The growing number of crimes againstDalits (Scheduled Castes) in recent years

particularity in Uttar Pradesh has become a majorissue of concern and debate among human rightdefenders, politicians and academics. “UttarPradesh, which has the distinction of giving thecountry its first Dalit woman Chief Minister, alsotops the list of states with highest number of casesof crime against Scheduled Castes”, reported theTimes of India, Delhi on 4.5.2008. “Despite beingrun by a Dalit Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh isamong those states where the percentage ofatrocities on Dalits is ‘much higher’ as compared toother places in India” said P. L. Punia, theChairman, National Commission for Scheduled

Castes on January11, 2011 at Varanasi town in thestate of Uttar Pradesh (Website-1). These are someof the frequently voiced views of the popular Indianmedia (both print and electronic) in general and theState-sponsored custodians of the ScheduledCastes (SCs) from parties other than the Bahujan

Samaj Party. Moreover, the recent decision of theMayawati government not to register complaints ofcrimes against Dalits (SCs) under the ScheduledCastes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention ofatrocities) Act, 1989 (POA Act) unless they are ofserious nature such as rape and murder has alsobeen criticized vehemently to have undermined thespirit of the law and seriously affected the interestof the Dalits. What do all these views reveal andwhat do they hide? The primary objective of thispaper is to bring to light, relying mostly on thedata1 provided by the National Crime Records

Bureau (NCRB), not only the nature and magnitudeof crimes committed against Dalits in differentstates but also to identify the state that has taken alead in punishing those violating the rights anddignity of Dalits/Scheduled Castes (SCs) throughthe existing legal measures. The recent NCRB datareveal that prior to the year 2003 Uttar Pradesh(UP) did not rank even third among the statesknown for high percentage of crimes against Dalitsin India. In 2003 it was Madhya Pradesh (MP) thatranked first with 5507 (21%) incidence of crimesagainst Dalits, followed by Rajasthan with 3559(13.6%) and Andhra Pradesh with 3559 (13.6%).But in 2005, UP took the first position with 4397(16.8%), very closely followed by MP with 4356(16.7%) and Rajasthan with 3795 (14.5%). UPcontinued to remain at the top also in 2007 and2009 with 6144 (20.5%) and 7522 (22.4%)respectively as the state with highest number ofcrimes against the Dalits in India. While Rajasthanrose from third position in 2005 to second in 2007with 4174 (13.9%) crimes and remained at thesame position in 2009 as well with 4985 (14.8%).What may be noted from these data is the fact thatthere has been a steady decline over the years in thepercentage of crimes against Dalits in the case ofMadhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, but a steadyincrease in the case of UP: 10.7% in 2003 and22.4% in 2009. The other states that witnessed anoticeable increase over the years in the percentageof crimes against the SCs include Bihar (6.7% in2003 increased to 11.4% in 2009) and Orissa (4.4%in 2003 increased to 5.1% in 2009). Even in brutalcrimes such as rape and murder, the percentageshare of UP and MP is very high. While thepercentage share of rape cases that MadhyaPradesh accounted for was as high as 29 in 2004and 2005, 27.5 in 2006, 25.4 in 2007, 24.5 in 2008and 23.8 in 2009, the percentage share that UttarPradesh accounted for was 22.3, 19.1, 18.8, 23.6and 25.7 respectively, and it was 10.9, 11.6, 10.8,11.3, 10.5 and 12.1 respectively in the case ofRajasthan. The above analysis at the first instanceseems to give a negative picture of UP. But if we


23

care to ask as to (a) why crimes against Dalits in UP is on

the increase and (b) what has been the state response in

punishing those committing crimes against the Dalits,

we would get a different picture.

(a) Reasons for increase in crimes against Dalits:The most important reason of all is the growingintolerance among caste Hindus towards Dalits.There are more than one reason for it. First, theDalits have become increasingly conscious of thevalue of their votes which has resulted in theirleader Ms. Mayawati capturing and holding thepost of Chief Minister in Uttar Pradesh since long.Second, the Dalits have become conscious of theirself-respect and dignity and have also beenattempting to replace their caste-assignedstigmatized untouchable identity and ultimatelytheir caste itself with an unstigmatized, secular anddignified identity against the wishes of the casteHindus. Third, the Dalits have also been attemptingto disassociate themselves from the caste basedstigmatized dirty occupations like sweeping andmanual scavenging and occupying position ofpower and dignity in bureaucracy, politics and inother spheres which are traditionally not permittedto them. Fourth, the relative improvement that theyachieved in their educational and subsequentlyeconomic status and their access to bureaucraticand political power through various protective,legislative and developmental measures guaranteedin the Indian Constitution have themselves becomea major cause for the growing intolerance amongthe non-SC/ST members towards Dalits. Fifth, thekind of impact the limited Dalit elites created in theminds of ordinary Dalits, resulted in more and moreDalits aspiring for such coveted positions withouttaking the support of reservation policy, andinspired them to fight for their rights and dignitywith high hope and confidence. Sixth, although theSCs/Dalits alone account for over 16 percent oftotal Indian population, they constitute too small anumber in each village. And yet, they tend tomuster enough courage to fight back theiroppressors or to take the support of police andjudiciary to punish them. This too causes much

anger and enmity among the caste Hindus. In thelight of these reasons, it is logical to conclude thatthe increase in the number of crimes against theDalits reflects nothing but the caste Hindus’intolerance towards Dalits’ assertion for their duerights and dignity as citizens of India. Indeed, suchan assertion is to be taken positively as it leads tothe realization of the ideals of Indian Constitution:liberty, equality and fraternity. “No crime” does notalways mean “no crime”. The state with “no crime”or “less crime” against Dalits may also mean thatthe Dalits in such states do not dare to fight back orconfront those violating their rights and dignity. Inmost of the states, particularly in villages, the Dalitsare left with no option but to accept meekly theirpilloried and inhuman condition. They do so,fearing dire consequences from the caste Hindus.When the Dalits do not revolt, the scope for crimesagainst Dalits becomes very limited. This in factreflects that the Dalits in such states have lostconfidence over the state. They no more think thatthe state would come to their support wheneverthey would assert their rights as citizens of India.Therefore the increasing crimes against Dalitsreflect nothing but the Dalits’ confidence and faithover the state power and the state’s commitment toprotect their rights and dignity.

(b) State action against those violating Dalit rights:Under Article 17 of the Indian Constitution,untouchability is abolished and its practice in anyform is an offense punishable under law. To realizethe spirit behind this and a few other provisions ofthe Constitution, a special law known as “TheProtection of civil rights act, 1955” (PCR Act) wasintroduced. Realizing that the PCR Act was usefulonly to address the untouchability issue and it hadno provision to punish those committing atrocitiesagainst the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribesanother law, a more powerful law, known as “thescheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes(Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989” came intooperation. A special national and state levelcommission also became a reality to monitor theworking of these special laws. In view of the fact


24

that these laws have been in operation since longand yet the number of crimes against Dalitscontinue, one tends to ask as to “whether or not thestate performs its lawful duty in punishing thoseviolating the rights of Dalits” under these speciallaws. After all, the victims of caste discriminationand violence would be sure that the state wouldcome to their rescue and ensure them justice, onlywhen the state has shown evidences of punishingthose violated their rights. Although the increase inthe number of crimes against Dalits in UP is usuallyattributed to what may be called “failure of thestate”, the real reasons seem to be different. The“failure of state” here means that the stategovernment could not make its police perform itslawful duty and the judiciary deliver justice withoutfear of any kind its and judiciary create anatmosphere in the state in which the police and thejudiciary could perform their lawful duty andprotect the rights and dignity of Dalits earnestlywithout fear and prejudice of any kind. This is, inany case, not to ignore the caste prejudice that thepolice and the judiciary is infected with(Ambedkar, 1989: 268-69; Ramaiah, 2007).However, this is also not to ignore the power andwill of the state to make the police perform theirlawful duty and to enable the judiciary to ensurejustice to the Dalit victims. The performance of UPstate in ensuring justice to the victims of castediscrimination and violence could be measured interms of:

1) the percentage of cases for which the state/UTscould not complete the due trial, in other words, thepercentage of pending cases;

2) the importance the state/UT gives in achievinghigher conviction rate in special cases (casesregistered under the PCR and POA Acts) ascompared to the IPC cases which could bemeasured in terms of:

1. the number of states/UTs with the conviction ratein IPC and special cases higher than that of thenational average;

2. trend in the conviction rate of IPC cases andspecial cases;

3. States with high conviction rate in IPC cases, butnot so in special cases;

4. the States/UTs with high conviction rate inspecial cases, but not so in IPC cases;

5. states with low conviction rate both in IPC cases,as well as in special cases, and 6. states with highconviction rate both in IPC cases and special cases.

1) State-wise Pending IPC and Special cases: It is amatter of serious concern that on an average over80 percent of the charge-sheeted cases both in thecase of IPC cases and special cases is pending trialin different courts throughout India during2001–2009 period. In 2001 there was no glaringdifference between the percentage of pending IPCcases (82.3%) and special cases (82.6%) and thedifference is only 0.3 percent. However, in thesubsequent period, a marginal increase in thepending IPC cases (83.3 in 2005 and 85.6 in 2009)and a marginal decrease in the case of special cases(80.2 in 2005 and 80.4 in 2009) is seen. Such anencouragingly declining trend in the case of specialcases is seen even at state level. For example, thenumber of states/UTs with declining trend in thepercentage of pending IPC cases were only 4, butthe states/UTs with such trend in the case of specialcases were as many as 14. However, some statesseemed to have shown a very callous attitudetowards the disposal of special cases. For instance,Arunachal Pradesh which could dispose as many as633 IPC cases in 2001 and 569 in 2009, did notdispose even one out of just the 2 special cases ithad in 2001; the two cases remained pending evenin 2009. Tamil Nadu, which could disposed asmany as 112171 IPC cases in 2001 and 109547 in2009, disposed only 1317 special cases in 2001 and817 in 2009. West Bengal is no different. Itdisposed as many as 20373 IPC cases in 2001 and23758 in 2009, but only 2 out merely 6 and 2 out of26 special cases it had for the respective periods.Delhi disposed as many as 32422 IPC cases in 2001and 20353 in 2009, but merely 10 and 3 special


25

cases for the same period. Same is the case withPuducherry: 2964 IPC cases in 2001 and 2368 in2009, but merely 11 special cases in 2001 and 13 in2009. Chandigarh responded the same way with itsdisposed IPC cases being 1405 and 1420, and itsdisposed special cases being 0 for both 2001 and

2009 period. However, the increase in pendingcases among special cases in states like Rajasthan(the increase from 77.1% in 2001 to 85.1% in2009), Puducherry (from 65.7% in 2001 to 75.5%in 2009) and West Bengal (from 90% in 2001 to92.3% in 2009) is a matter of serious concern.

To be concluded in the next issue......

26


Dear friends,

Here are 8 more books of M.N. Roy on the following RH Web portal now for you to download andread directly on your Computers:

(www.theradicalhumanist.com)

They are:

'Revolution and Counter-Revolution in China',

'Science and Philosophy',

'Memoirs',

'India's Message: Fragments of a Prisoner's Diary',

'Materialism', '

'M.N. Roy: Philosopher Revolutionary',

'Reason, Romanticism and Revolution' Volume I & II

You may also download the following earlier uploaded books of Roy from this website:

'New Orientation',

'New Humanism',

The Russian Revolution and the Tragedy of Communism',

'Politics, Power & Parties'

'Men I Met'

'Historical Role of Islam' and

'From the Communist Manifesto to Radical Humanism'.

You will be able to read the entire collection of Roy's books on the RH Portal soon.

It is gradually being uploaded there.

Happy reading of the above mentioned books till then!!!

[Mr. Rakesh Manchanda is an Activist,

Independent Journalist, Capacity Builder and

Business Consultantant both in Africa and India.

He may be contacted at B-5, Gharonda

Apartments, Shrestha Vihar, Delhi-92. Phone:

011-22145369, [email protected]]

Profit for me and debt-slaverywith abuse for all:

Debt-Slavery lessons from Greece

“Give me a firm place to stand and I shallmove the world.”- This Archimedes’s

philosophy with “lever concept” application inmodern industry helped civilizations to multiplyand produce wealth faster. Shame! A nation whogifted lever principle and a world class shippingindustry to the planet is today deliberately pushedin debt slavery. Greece production is competitivebut EU market now with rest of the world is notfirm. Greece in ancient times had been a magnet ofwealth, lender of money, jobs, new skills andnation of learning and sharing. Magnus - ashepherd in whose name we see the inventioncalled Magnet is a famous Greek folk tale of humangrowth. Today, Greece is losing its independentMagnetic Powers and culture just because its

modern rulers took a decision to accept a monstercalled loan without the approval of its people.Decisions were taken without bothering to see ifpurchasing, saving, spending power of the majorityand pay-back support of the market was sufficientto clear the debt in future or not.

We all grew up hearing the heroic stories of Greece.Trojan Horse in ‘Helen of Troy’ story unfolds thealert Greek fighters and war negotiators.Superiority of Alexander Army with horses scoredover the Indian king’s army with slow elephants.After World War-I, the Horse Battalion in militarylost its relevance and export sale to modern tanks.Export list of modern Greece like fruits, vegetables,olive oil and so on is going down along with itsshipping industry. Competition, recession and lesssaleability are basic reasons. At times, good qualityindigenous products fail due to inferior marketbrand. Consumers in Greece as in any market buybranded products from Germany, France, UK orUSA. Free Market showcased as a ‘God’ has noPatriotic mechanism to support a weak brandhaving good quality. Extra income of the peoplewent straight to consumer goods that wereimported from abroad leaving goods made inGreece unsold. Why should EU protect Greeceimports at the cost of losing business? To applyprotection Greece has to come out of the EU whichpowerful countries enjoying easy profit in Greecemarket do not want.

Problem increases when shrinking money in thesqueezed pockets which was kept fixed is unable tomatch the price rise. Tourism, Greece’s largestmoney magnet industry is in red. America, thebiggest visitor country opting annual holidays toGreece is no more favourable perhaps because ofrecession and its own debt pain. It is estimated thatafter the bailout dust settles and sacrifices of fewprivate lenders are included the alarming Greecedebt cycle shall fall down to 120% of GDP. Achance of Greece recovery on its own is impossiblebecause its debt slavery is profitable for 1%.

27


Rakesh Manchanda

Greek people in majority are against forcedsacrifices like severe cuts in social sector spendingcombined with increasing working hours,increasing VAT, increasing retirement age, fourtimes lower wages, five times less pensions.Increasing unemployment and falling consumptionis another challenge. Work format from top tobottom is designed to have no link withproductivity. More than one million people wereseen agitating on roads of Athens in recentmonths. The motive of Government appears not tosave Greek economy and living standards ofmillions but to protect the nexus of handful croniesengaged in protecting the interests of lenders. Inresponse to people’s pressure Greece was forced toexpel 43 lawmakers, reducing their majority in the300-seat parliament from 236 to 193.Not a single,guilty in Greece, till today, is prosecuted in highvalue corruption. Selective media points outhow Germany forced Greece to buy expensiveGerman submarines, which it doesn’t need, at aprice twice as high as Turkey had to pay for them;or France, which forced Greece to buy wildlyexpensive fighter planes in return for its ‘aid’.

In the modern world ‘loan’ does not rescue ‘theneedy’ but helps to make few handful cronies richerand powerful. The trick in modern debt cycle startswhen the money flow is controlled by theCorporate-bankers-government rulingnexus. Governments, as usual, fail to consult themajority people before fixing loans and laws. In2004 Greece was given a rosy picture which wasthe venue for successful Olympics. All credit goesto the clever borrower-lender divide; the proudnation in 2004 with 98% literacy rate was forced topretend that clearing debt was nobody’sresponsibility while hosting Olympics iseveryone’s duty. How Siemens, a German basedMNC bribed its way to win monopoly position inOlympics emerged later.

When Euro in 2002 was accepted as a collectivefamily currency, Greece was already suffering withdebt which was far less. Thanks to the recessionnow the loan driven myths are getting shattered.

Family of 17 nations has now emerged clearlydivided on the weak fundamentals. No one in EUfamily in the past bothered to anticipate the futureof Greece on the basis of competiveness, lessproductivity, senseless high rise in salaries, andmore spending & less income as the easy reasons ofa spoil sport. Euro currency with unequalfundamentals was given the ‘magic’ key to fetchhappiness for all. Many today point out that ifGreece’s condition is pushed further back whythere was a need for this single key and onecurrency experiment? In a capitalist system the

dirty picture of debt survives on city-slum and

town-village divide. It is normal and natural thatcountries like Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece andSpain are called PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland(included after 2008) Greece and Spain) or abusedas a bottomless pit .Weak economies ‘get used’ byother growing countries with strong fundamentals.Match-fixers and Greece fence-sitters continue tohide their loot and divert attention by callingmajority as lazy-bums. Governance today is drivenby a hidden message: Profit for me anddebt-slavery with abuse for all.

Majority in Greece, today demand that the debtmyth should be waved off and Greece should havea separate currency and self control on its market.Loan wave-off is not a new phenomenon ashappened in Ecuador or as forced by America inIraq invasion after the killing of Saddam Husain.

Greece today needs to come out of this slavery andthe ugly shadow of ‘Debtocracy’. Only a holisticinitiative of increasing living standards of majoritycan help repair the lost pride of Greece.

“There has to be clear strategy on loans”- is thealarm Greek-crisis gives to the entire world. In

India, where people need a school they are given a

hospital. When farmers need cold storage facility

they get lots of fertiliser. When irrigation is a

problem the GM research gets funds to convert

agriculture slowly to pharmaceutical-culture. All

this gets approved at the top supported by loans.

Loan is waved off most of the time in a project if a

28


crony corporate fails. If the loan is big than the

accountability is slowly relabelled as a sovereign

loan and the entire nation is held guilty of no

recovery. In India, the loan slavery has been the

cause of millions of suicides.

Unequal earnings sow the seed of a loan. Loan inthe past had never been an unending abuse.Acceptance of people and the knowledge as to

where to use the funds and calculation on fast returnis a must.

Ancient war trainers like Alexander helped theirrestless horses to remain calm and not to fear theirown shadow during crisis and war. Debt and the‘shadow’ of fear should be kept separate. For a safeparticipatory nation there should not be any debt atall. If the national debt is there it should not cross asafe normal limit. Loan utility should be as perpeople’s need.

29


BOOKS BY M.N. ROY PUBLISHED by RENAISSANCE PUBLISHERS, INDIAN

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IRI/IRHA Members’ Section:

[Mr. Kiran Nanavati, a veteran Radical

Humanist delivered this lecture at Indian

Renaissance Institute’s All India Study Camp,

held in Murshidabad, West Bengal.]

We need to make our society ajust and equitable one

Friends,

It is heartening to see the young faces in majorityhere and I desire to address them.

Till the time of independence we were very vocaland used to verbalize opinions on rights and wrongsof the government. This nature of participating inthe processes our nation followed stopped suddenlyin post-independence era. We started acceptingwhatever government offered or did not offer.

Over a period of time the psyche of social fabric haschanged too. We observe that poor has beenmarginalized and have been becoming more andmore invisible from our society. In earlier days,poor people used to be part of our daily life. It usedto be natural that the haves will feel responsible forhave-nots. Social customs were imbibed to involvepoor around your house, office and other activityplaces and extend a helping hand to them. Suchcustoms have been diminishing and on the otherhand sad to note that religious rituals havecontinued and becoming more pompous.

Political arena has not missed to en-cash poverty byfloating slogans ranging from garibi hatao

(eradicate poverty) of Congress to India shining byBharatiya Janta Party. Humans have varieties inabilities and that will form a relatively stronger andrelatively weaker human, may it be by physical orpsychological strength or intelligence. This willform a hierarchy in economic as well as intellectstatus. It remains at the will of the people at higherstrata to share what they have with others. I wouldcertainly not like to see any nation, region or

section of people having not enough food to lasteven a day. We need not muse over seeing days thatwill have nobody as poor. Even if there are sectionsunder poverty, they should always have ample foodin house for entire family.

To understand the need of a poor in our society, it isrequired to experience what they are going through.We look at their condition from our point of viewthat might be very different from their perspectiveof actual needs. In winter, we may think they willneed warm clothes and they certainly will, butclothing may not come as top priority when they donot have enough to feed themselves leading tomalnutrition and health hazards. There are peopleliving in posh bungalows, in apartments, in chawls,near railway tracks, in tarpaulin huts on footpath,under the sky on pavements, platforms etc. Lives ofeach of these are different and have varied outlooktowards society. This it is important for us to realizethe unmet needs of poor from their ownperspective.

The prevailing development have been harping onbeautification of cities whereas poor peopledwelling in and around this ‘beauty’ are beingpushed away; all these under the garb of“development”. This is proof enough for society’slack of concern about lifting poor out of misery,and they do not want to even see them around theirday to day life. Making them invisible contendsthem with “if you don’t see, it doesn’t exist”.

We cannot change things overnight. There is nomagic wand that government can have or societycan wave. Important thing is to take them all intoour social fold and make them part of our life.

We have made progress. We see a visible progressin education, health etc; schools have reached toremote areas; we have been able to reach out tomany for giving good health services. There aresuch bright spots that we can look back and feelhappy about. We just need to take thosedevelopments a little further to make our society ajust and equitable one.

30


Teacher’s & Research Scholar’s Section:

Kartar Singh Duggal

Grand Auteur of PunjabiLiterature

(1917-2012)

Continued from the previous issue..........

His next novel Nahun te Mas (Nails andFlesh, 1950), later merged into Ab Na

Bason Eh Gaon (No More will Live in thisVillage), depicting the plight of the refugees fromWest Pakistan is a story of Muslim-Sikh familyamity set in the strife-torn period of the Partition ofthe country on eve of Independence. It starts withthe struggle for freedom and ends with theannouncement of general election by Indira Gandhiafter the Emergency. Since then he penned severaltrilogies: Haal Muridaan Da (Plight of theDisciples), Ma Pio Jaye (Born to the same Parents),and Jal Ki Pyas Na Jaye. The first part of the trilogytitled Haal Muridaan Da, being autobiographicalin essence, depicts the boyhood, youth and years ofmaturity of a sensitive soul. In the first part, sex isdominant followed by love in the second part, andin the third it depicts the conflict between man andwife, as they unwittingly become the playthings inthe hands of political forces. It relates to conditionsin a typical Punjab village after World War 1 withthe British Rule tightening its grip but at the same

time inspiring the nationalist forces to give adetermined fight for freedom. Haal… ends with theBritish relenting but deciding to divide the countrywith the creation of Pakistan. The Hindu-Muslimwho lived amicably all these years is estranged.Neighbours and friends, who would sacrifice theirlives for each other, are torn apart. Maa Pio Jaye,

the second trilogy, written in an epic scale, portraysthe terrible days of Partition when thousands offamilies fled Pakistan. The novel attempts toagglomerate the flux of time by visualizing thecourse of events, not from one angle but frommultiple angles. It tells the story of refugees andtheir rehabilitation, culminating in the liberation ofBangladesh when a life is given to the two-nationtheory of the advocates of Pakistan. It is, in fact, asaga of political upheaval on the Indiansub-continent that brought in its wake many clashesof loyalties: individual, social, and otherwise.Duggal painted numerous canvases and placedthem in close juxtapositions as to present anintegral design. The construction of the Maa… hasbeen musicales. He showed several people fallingin love, or dying, or praying in dissimilar ways. Thethird trilogy, Jal Ki Pyas Na Jaye, attempts atdepicting a new India, with waves of foreigninfluence coming in. It portrays the nation of thepresent, in the throes of development, and alsobuffeted by the winds of change, blowing in fromthe outside. Jal… also depicts the story ofEmergency and how the people voted IndiraGandhi out of power as a punishment and then,having been disillusioned with the alternative,voted her back to power in a sweep as it were. Thelocale is Delhi, and the central character is MiraBehl, a modern woman whose sources of pain aredifferent but as much intense.

The yeomen service in portraying the Sikh point ofview are his pre-90s trilogy: Nanak Naam Chardi

Kala (Blessed are those who Remember God,1989), Tere Bhane (As willed by you), and Sarad

Punian Di Raat (The Night of the Full Moon,1970), proposes to tell the story of the Sikhs’ insearch of their identity from time of Guru Nanak to

31


Ashok K.Chaudhury

the present day. Nanak Naam Chardi Kala conveysthe period up to the 4th Sikh Guru, Guru Ram Das.Tere Bhane carries the story up to Guru TeghBahadur. And the third volume Sarad Punian Di

Raat is devoted to Guru Govind Singh. Sarad… isthe story of a mother who spells disaster for herdaughter on account of her own wrong doings.Duggal explained how a woman spends a night offull moon in the arms of her lover, but in themorning her young daughter becomes victim offlaunts of the folk around, since theytook thedaughter for the mother. In a moment of utterdespair, the young girl commits suicide. TheBiblical adage- ‘the sins of the father are visitedupon the children’- constitutes the main theme ofSarad…His other notable novels are Man Pardesi

(Alienated Heart, 1981), the story of agony of theMuslims in India, divided after the Partition andbecause of which even their loyalties are suspect;Phulan Da Saath (Company of Flowers, 1986), atender love story of the Khalistan movement in thePunjab. However, his Dil Darya is the story of hischildhood in which, as a sensitive child andadolescent, he exposed to the passion of men andyoung women. As a fiction writer, his aim is toportray the pleasure and pains of life and tointerweave the story in such a way so as to present atrue picture of the individual and the society. Inpost-Bhai Vir Singh generation, Duggal usheredmodernity which epochs a crusade against the oldexhausted feudal values and the orthodox moralityfor which sex was a taboo. Jasbir Singh Ahluwaliasays, “The spatio-temporal particularity ofcharacters and events constitutes the essence of thenovel form. Short story in a sense is an expressionof atomistic experience happening in atomistictime. Because it is the experience in a flash ofmoment, so it has all the spontaneity looked up inthat moment when it appropriates to itself thetotality of time. Spontaneity and intensity- these arethe qualities of Duggal’s artistic experiences whichhave ensured him top position that he enjoystoday”.

Besides novels and short stories, Duggal was an

established playwright. Widely known as a Radioand TV playwright, he wrote 7 full-length playsand more than 50 one-act plays. He indulged in oldexperiments in technique. His plays are close to hisstories, both in theme and style, and are examplesof contemporary problems. His full-length playsare: Puranian Botlan (Old Bottles, 1954), Mitha

Pani (Sweet Water), Kohkan (Breaker of theMountain, 1958), Shaur Te Sangeet (Noise andMusic), Budham Saranam Gachhami (I came toBudhha’s Protection, 1957), Ik Akh Ik Nazar (OneEye Remains Unprejudiced, 1980), Mian Meer,

etc. Among these, two plays stand apart anddeserve special attention: Mitha Pani and Kohkan.Mitha Pani tells of the fate of an Indian peasantfamily that has left the part of Punjab given over toPakistan and have come to settle in India. Theyabandoned all their property and land to start lifeanew on a plot that used to belong to a Moslempeasant who in his turn had abandoned hisaccustomed place and moved to Pakistan. The heroJwala Singh and his wife Jwali cannot dismiss thememories of their deserted home, and of thesweetness of the water in their old well. But theirson Baldev disapproved of this new soil, which isgood too, all it needs is water! UnexpectedlySakina, the daughter of the former landlord appearswho has strayed from the family and is now forcedinto hiding since she is a Moslem. As she begs forshelter Jwala and his wife decided to accept Sakinaas their daughter, who later falls in love withBaldev. In Punjabi Literature (1968), I.Serebryakov writes, “Duggal depicts life in aPunjabi village with amazing realism. Theemotional tension, the psychological subtlety ofeach image, the poignancy of the issue touchedupon, renders the play outstanding in Punjabidrama. The language is excellent, succulent andvivid, close to daily speech…”

In Kohkan the influence of tradition is even morestrongly felt. The time of action is the present, theplace- a farm on the eastern fringe of the Punjab, 70km west of Delhi. His one-act collections for Radiobroadcast are: Dia Bujh Gya (The Lamp is Blown

32


Out), Ik Cipher Cipher (1x0=0, 1943), Oh Gae

Sajan Oh Gae (They Goes My Love), Tin Natak (3Plays), Saat Natak (7 Plays, 1955), Naun Natak (9Plays). However, his best play Dia Bujh Gya set inthe village of Kashmir, in which a mother, in orderto save the valley from invaders, kills thetreacherous son. Its poetic language fills the playwith vigour. The play has been translated in bookform in Urdu, Hindi and English and staged invarious languages in the country. Dia… won himthe ‘Ghalib Award’ for Urdu drama in 1976.Duggal’s work of dramatic genre shows the abilityon the author’s part to respond to the most vitalproblems of the peasant, and a capacity for broadgeneralization. However, he played a historic rolein the developing years of Indian broadcasting. Heonce told, “Most important, my contribution to theIndian broadcasting was my emphasis on the soundaspect as the vehicle of the dramatic in scriptswritten for Radio. I wrote model plays in which theplot hinged around sound as a factor. I developedmonologue as a genre for Radio…” He also showedhis creative talent in producing his outstandingautobiography. Though Punjabi literature hasproduced some remarkable autobiographies likeMeri Jiwan Katha by Gur Baksh Singh, Aap Beeti

by M S Randhawa, Rasidi Ticket by Amrita Pritam,Nange Pairan Da Safar by Daleep Kaur Tiwana,Duggal’s Kis Peh Khohlan Ganthri (Whom Shall ITell my Tale, 1985), a voluminous work of 618pages, is, probably, the lengthiest work in thisgenre in Punjabi, which was initially serialized inthree important dailies of Punjab simultaneously ona weekly basis for about three years in the originalPunjabi and its translation in Hindi and Urdu. Butin Meri Sahitik Jewani (My Literary Career),commissioned by the Punjab University, Duggalnarrates his travel as a writer. For SahityaAkademi’s Histories of Indian Literature series,Duggal, along with Sant Singh Sekhon, a grand oldman of Punjabi letters, wrote A History of Punjabi

Literature (1992), the first authoritative chronicleof its kind. The volume is also a recapitulated andaccurate profile of the ethos of Punjab along with

major themes of its writers from the earliest to thepresent day with a rare sense of involvement andcommitment. He translated, for wider readership,his own stories into Hindi, Urdu and English, andthus, has a tremendous reach as a major voice inIndian literature. He rendered a fine translation ofthe holy Guru Granth Sahib in English in tune withthe spirit of the scripture. His works also have beenwidely translated.

His contribution to the world of letters has won himseveral awards and honours: ‘Man of Letters’(1962) by the Government of Punjab, and by theDelhi Administration in 1976; ‘Ghalib Award’ forUrdu Drama (1976); ‘Soviet Land Nehru Award’(1981), in recognition to his services to worldpeace, humanism through creative writing;‘Fellowship’ by Punjabi Sahitya Academy (1983);‘Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad Award’ (1985), forNovels; ‘Bhai Mohan Singh Award’, for hisAutobiography; ‘Padma Bhushan’ (1988) byGovernment of India, for totality of his contributionto Indian literature; ‘Parman Patra’ (1993) by ChiefMinister of Punjab; D.Litt. (Honoris Causa) by thePunjabi University in 1994; ‘Sarva SresthaSahitkar Award’ (1994) by Punjab Academy. InAugust 1997 he was nominated to Rajya Sabha, theUpper House of Parliament. Duggal was selectedfor Nishan-I-Khalsa (Order of the Khalsa) on theoccasion of the Tri-centenary of the Birth of Khalsain 1999. On the occasion of World PunjabiConference in 2001, Duggal was conferred ‘WarisAward’ for his contribution to Punjabi writing. TheGovernor of Punjab decorated him with ‘PunjabRatan’ in 2001. In 2004 he was elected aspermanent President, Punjabi Sahit Sabha. Widelytraveled, Duggal attended several internationalconferences and seminars, representing India andleading Indian delegations. He was associated withmany literary and social welfare organizations:Punjab Sahitya Akademi, Hindi Samiti(Government of India), Zakir Hussain EducationalFoundation, Indian Institute of Social andEconomic Growth, Afro-Asian WritersAssociation. Besides, he was the Founder-Member

33


of RRRLF, Institute of Social and EconomicChange, and Zakir Hussain EducationalFoundation. Throughout his life he worked toencourage and promote literature and arts. He wassa grand presence in Punjabi literature and enrichedit through his versatile creativity and considerableoutput. In conversation with this writer, Duggalrevealed that he was switched over to poetry, thegenre with which he had started his literary journey

in early 1930s, and was busy in finalizing hisunfinished works, as well, revising his pre-‘90strilogy. But his death left behind an indelible markin Punjab and Punjabi literature.

— Concluded

Dr. Ashok K. Choudhury, a postdoctoral

scholar & lit critic, is with Sahitya Akademi,

New Delhi.

34


Declaration of ownership and other particulars regarding The Radical Humanist

Place of Publication: New Delhi

Periodicity of the Publication: Monthly

Printer’s Name: N.D. Pancholi

Citizenship: Indian

Address: S-1 Plot 617 Shalimar Garden Extension I,

Sahibabad, Ghaziabad-201005.

Publisher’s Name: N.D. Pancholi

Citizenship: Indian

Address: S-1 Plot 617 Shalimar Garden Extension I,

Sahibabad, Ghaziabad-201005

Editor’s Name: Rekha Saraswat

(Controls the selection of the

matter published in the journal (as per the

Press and Registration of Books Act, 1857)

Citizenship: Indian

Address: C-8-Defence Colony

Meerut 250001, U.P.

Name and Address of the Individual who owns Indian Renaissance Institute

the journal and partners and share holders of more A-12-Neeti Bagh

than one percent of the capital: New Delhi, 110049

I, N.D. Pancholi, hereby, declare that the particulars given above are true to the best of my knowledge

and belief.

Dated: 1st April, 2012 N.D. Pancholi

Publisher

Book Review Section

[Ms. Dipavali Sen has been a student of Delhi

School of Economics and Gokhale Institute of

Politics and Economics (Pune). She has taught at

Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, and

various colleges of Delhi University. She is, at

present, teaching at Sri Guru Gobind Singh

College of Commerce, Delhi University. She is a

prolific writer and has written creative pieces and

articles for children as well as adults, both in

English and Bengali. [email protected]]

Foot Prints on the Sands ofTime

[BOOK: Towards Twenty First Century

Renaissance, edited by Ramesh V. Korde,published by Sudesh Korde and printed atIMAGE, Ahmedabad, 2011, Hardbound, pp 329,price: voluntary contributions]

This book preserves footprints on thesands of time, footprints that lead

towards a twenty-first-century renaissance.

The dedication itself deserves mention. The book isdedicated to friends – Dashrathlal Thakkar, D.M.Trivedi, H.B. Shah, D.P. Desai and MuljibhaiSharma — all united by a common bond ofconviction, Radical Humanism.

The Introduction by Jayanti Patel says that thiscompilation by Ramesh Korde fulfills the need for

easily accessible basic literature defining thephilosophical and scientific foundations of RadicalHumanism as well as the renaissance movement( pIII).She calls it “a manual of humanism” (p VIII).

The compilation is of twenty-four essays, gleanedfrom The Radical Humanist and other sources,twelve of them being by M.N. Roy. The remainingfifty per cent is constituted by Albert Einstein,Bertrand Russell, Ellen Roy, Paul Kurtz, EricFromm, Julian Huxley, Edward Banes, SibnarayanRay, Lakshman Shastri Joshi, and V.M. Tarkunde.

As Jayanti Patel has mentioned, Ramesh Korde, theEditor, has been with the Humanist movement inGujarat since the 1940s.

This book is indeed the product of his profoundfamiliarity with the basics of Humanism. He hasused it to select relevant articles from varioussources, with an orientation towards the possibilityof a 21st century Renaissance.

The collection begins with Sibnarayan Ray’sarticle ‘The Need for a Global Culture and aUniversalist Approach’. “…no approach to thespecific problems of India or for that matter, of theproblems of other countries can hope to be fruitfulin our time without a Universalist Weltanschauungand global culture” (p 1) … Ray’s voice had rungout in 1998.

In the second article ‘Our Responsibility toHumanity as a Whole’, Paul Kurtz has discussednew technological realities and global ethics. Hestrongly feels that ethical principles should figurehigh on the agenda of the world humanistmovement.” We need to convince our fellowhuman beings about the imperative that we worktogether in creating a new global consensus inwhich preserving humanity as a whole is oursupreme obligation. What nobler mission for us toembark upon as we enter the twenty-firstcentury.”(p 23)

This is followed by five fundamental treatises byM.N. Roy in 1940-52: ‘Science, Philosophy andPolitics’, ‘origin of Life’, ‘Biology and

35


Dipavali Sen

Materialism’, ‘The Rhythm of Cosmos’ and‘Materialism in Indian Philosophy’.

In continuity with the fifth of these, the article thatfollows is ‘Rise and Development of IndianPhilosophy’ by Lakshman Shastri JoshiTarkateertha. It ends by saying that Hinduphilosophy contains much material on ethics, logic,psychology and epistemology, but it must not betaken as a matter of faith or mysticism, and used inan anti-intellectual, revivalist spirit (p 146).

Then there comes a set of five articles (spanning1948 and 1955) by M.N. Roy: ‘Human Nature’,‘Indian Renaissance Movement’, ‘IndianRenaissance’, ‘Renaissance Movement’,‘Renaissance and Radicalism’ and ‘Ethics andPolitics’. They are timeless words of wisdom,relevant more than fifty years later.” We must drawinspiration from the past”, wrote M.N. Roy, “buttraditional ideas must be subjected to criticism andtheir positive essence brought up to the standards ofmodern knowledge. Old values must be revaluated.That is Renaissance.” (p203).

As if in continuation to this, Sibnarayan Ray wrotehis article ‘A New Renaissance’ in 1998. “As wenear the end of the century our civilization seems tobe racing almost inexorably towards a globalcatastrophe” (p 214).This “calls pressingly for apositive response from men and women ofconscience and understanding. That response, if ittakes place on a noticeable scale, will constitute anew renaissance. It will require a global perspectiveand involve a restructuring of society and a radicalreorientation of contemporary political economics;most important of all it demands a creativereformulation of the priorities of civilized living.’(p237)

The next (and the last by M.N. Roy here) article,‘New Humanism’ defines the scope of this `socialphilosophy’. In the past too, Humanism hasproclaimed the sovereignty of man. But man wasthus an entity not scientifically explained, and somen had resorted to mysticism and religion toexplain his essence. Modern science has dispelled

all mystery about the essence of man and explainedhim as a product of evolution. New Humanism alsoproclaims the sovereignty of man but it does so, onthe authority of modern science. It maintains that arational and moral society is possible because man,by nature, is rational and can be moral on his own(pp 250-1). It advocates a reconstruction of theworld as a commonwealth and fraternity offreemen, by the cooperative endeavour ofspiritually emancipated moral men (pp 252-3).

Ellen Roy in 1948 had spoken in the same vein inthe piece here excerpted as ‘Man’s Place inNature’. “Man is the archetype of society, thecontent which shapes its form in society” (p 254).

At the M.N. Roy Commemorative InternationalSeminar, December 1987, Bombay, V.M.Tarkunde and elucidated the basic principles ofHuman Radicalism. It forms the next piece,‘Radical Humanism: An Outline’.

Radical Humanism is both a personal and a socialphilosophy, drawing its social character from itspersonal one. V. M. Tarkunde has analysed fivecharacteristics or features.

A cultural revolution is a precondition of socialrevolution.

The State should function through OrganizedDemocracy, i.e., decentralized local committees.

Politics should not be on Party lines. Spirituallyfree individuals should practice politics for thepower of people rather than power for themselves.

Instead of revolution coming from above in theform of a party coming to power, it should comefrom below.

The economy should be run on a co-operativesystem instead of either capitalism or Stateownership of the means of production.

After valuable discussions under each of theseheads, Tarkunde draws attention to the fact that aHumanist revolution will necessarily be a longdrawn effort spread over several generations andrequiring a large number of Radical Humanistcolleagues (p 286).

36


A most pertinent observation:

The next piece is by Albert Einstein, and entitled‘The Law of Science and the Laws of Ethics’.Scientific as well as ethical principles are rooted inhuman genius, mental and moral. (p288).

Two pieces by Bertrand Russell follow: ‘The Faithof a Rationalist’ and ‘The Values of HumanIndividuality’. Russell announces that if humansociety is not to stagnate, it must containindividuals who think and act independently andsufficient tolerance for such individuals to exist inan effective way (p 298).

Edward Banes in ‘Nationalism and Humanism’discusses how in the post Second-World-Warscenario, art and literature should be used to guardthe inviolability of human rights. (p 307)

Eric Fromm in ‘May Man Prevail’ urges “all menof good will or, rather, all men who love life” to“form a united front for survival, for thecontinuation of life and civilization” (p 320).

The last piece is by Julian Huxley and argues forman to fulfill his “destiny” as “the agent of theevolutionary process” by developing his“individual human personality” (p 328).

Of the inestimable value of the articles the covers ofthis book, nothing need be said. The sequence ofarrangement too is logical. The editor has notclubbed all articles by M.N. Roy together, butarranged the articles in some logical sequence. Thatis why articles 8 and 15 (by Lakshman Shastri Joshiand Sibnarayan Ray) have been placed in betweenarticles of M.N. Roy.

Brief sketches of the lives of the authors wouldhowever have been useful for the new generation ofreaders. Short paragraphs could have done, or atleast the salient dates in some chronological order.Of course, in the Introduction, Jayanti Patel did paya tribute to M.N. Roy. But more information couldhave been provided, for Roy as well as others.

A Subject and/or Name Index would also have beenuseful.

Typographical and even grammatical errors couldeasily have been corrected.

But the ideal that this book has is too great to bediminished in any way by such mundaneshortcomings. It does help to keep the footprints ofRadical Humanists from getting washed away, andtake its readers towards a Renaissance.

37


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Humanist News Section:

I

Commemoration of 125th Birth Anniversary of

Radical Humanist - M.N. Roy by Periyar

Movement:

The Rationalists’ Forum, Tamil Nadu, India,organized for a function to commemorate the 125thBirthday of the renowned Radical Humanist - M.N.Roy and to celebrate Dravidian MovementCentenary Thoughts on 21st March 2012 at PeriyarThidal, Chennai, India. Dr. K. Veeramani,President, Dravidar Kazhagam, unveiled theportrait of M.N. Roy and addressed elaboratelyabout M.N. Roy and his association with Periyar,reminiscing the sequence of related events inDravidian Movement, focusing the support throughthe views of M.N. Roy for the cause of theMovement.

Dr. K. Veeramani, President, Dravidar

Kazhagam unveils the portrait of M.N. Roy.

Prof. A. Karunanandam and V. Kumaresan of

The Rationalists’ Forum are present

“The inherent thirst of humanism in M.N. Roy isunequivocal. He toured different parts of the globe,dwelled in various countries associating withCommunist Party in its international arena. He wasin close association with Lenin and rendered hisservice in Eastern Oriental University in SovietRussia, as its Vice-Chancellor. He was unable tocompromise with the strategic approach adopted bythe leaders of Communist Movement and

disassociated from it. After coming back to India,he joined Indian National Congress, felt disgustedabout its approach and at last came out from itsfold. He formed his own political organization viz.Radical Democratic Party. Ultimately heconcentrated on the propaganda of RadicalHumanism by forming Renaissance Movement.During 1940s, he came in contact with Periyar E.V.Ramasamy and was impressed about the cause ofDravidian Movement and the nature of strategicapproach to achieve it. He was amazed looking atthe stature of public life of Periyar. When headdressed in Chennai in 1941, under thePresidentship of Periyar, he emphatically pointedout that nationalism in South India will bemeaningless without the participation ofnon-Brahmin population. Justice Party commencedthe movement of non-Brahmins organizationally in1916 which ruled the then Madras Presidency ofBritish India. In late 1930s, the leadership of JusticeParty was vested in Periyar. The joint endeavoursattempted by Periyar and M.N. Roy were not paiddue coverage in print press media which wasdominated by Brahminical hegemony. Theinitiatives and efforts made by both the leaderswere victimized by the ‘conspiracy of silence’ aninstrument of oppressors as per the sayings of Dr.B.R. Ambedkar. Until M.N. Roy remained inCongress, the original Brahminical party, he waspopularized in press media. Later, his contributionswere masked. All such historical and ideologicaljourney of M.N. Roy with Periyar must beunearthed and be made known to the currentcontemporaries and the posterity. The mission ofPeriyar and M.N. Roy on humanism was alike.

The ideological advocacy of M.N. Roy wasidentical with the core philosophy of DravidianMovement. Because of that identicalconvergence, the stalwart of social justice ofDravidian Movement, Muthiah Mudaliar(instrumental force through his role as Minister inthe cabinet of Madras Presidency in 1930s to bringcommunal G.O. which facilitated employment ofnon-Brahmins in government jobs) became

38


functionary at a later time in National DemocraticParty founded by M.N. Roy.

Dr. K.Veeramani speaking

The core life style of leaders like Periyar, M.N. Roydid not signify by their mere leading in public life.The major element of ideological advocacydominated rather than their identity with theorganizations, they had associated then and there.Periyar expressly ventilated thus:

“Never I served as a party man, though my life

stood for principles and ideology.”

To conclude, we have to affirm to ourselves tobring back afresh the ideological propaganda ofM.N. Roy and the cause for which he lived. Thefinal phase of his life reflected uncompromisingadamancy in advocacy of Radical Humanism. Thecommemoration of 125th Birth Anniversary ofM.N. Roy is not ceremonial. It is recommencingthe journey in the ideological path, treaded by M.N.Roy. Let us salute the great humanist stalwart M.N.Roy!”

Prof. A. Karunanandan, Secretary of DravidianHistorical Research Centre, addressed uncoveringthe contributions of M.N. Roy to CommunistMovement and the disparities in the prevalence ofsocial environments in Europe and India for thespread of communism.

“In European and other countries, the role ofreligion became dismal and its significance in the

society was made exclusive, personal and distanced

Prof. A. Karunanandan speaking

from the political and economic map. Thecontradictory social position between capitalistemployer and employee was crystal clear inrevolutionized industrial environment. But, inIndia, religious influence prevailed everywhere.Industrial revolution had not taken place. Theleaders who took up the cause of labour werereligious minded. The contradiction between thecapital and labour was converted as conciliationand adjustment more in favour of the capitalists.The Congress Party in British India fabricatedphilosophy of communism. The Communistleaders in British India and later in independentIndia strategized their movement by imitating thestyle of Russia. M.N. Roy was intellectualideologue as well as activist in the philosophy ofcommunism. He experienced enormously with thefunctional approach of Russian Communist Partyinternationally and its supportive perception aboutthe Indian Congress leaders who were againstBritish Imperialism. M.N. Roy also subjectivelyexperienced with the functional style of CongressParty. Both the international and indigenouspolitical experiences enabled M.N. Roy to exposethe faulty approach in the name of facilitatingsocialism- a pre phase to reach communism. Thebasic commitment to humanism made M.N. Roy toget released from the folds of disguised progressive


39

forces and it resulted in his culmination as a RadicalHumanist. This was the final message of M.N. Royto the mankind.”

A Section of the Audience

V. Kumaresan, General Secretary of TheRationalists’ Forum welcomed the gathering with abrief note that anti-Brahminical approach ofPeriyar Movement is founded on humanistapproach and not with any deliberate hatred. R.

Tamil Selvan and Dravida Puratchi, functionariesof the Forum discharged their roles of introductionand proposal of vote of thanks respectively.Versatile audience comprising of humanists,educationists, scholars, political functionaries,cadres of Periyar Movement assembled and wereattentive to the proceedings of the meeting.

Greeting Messages were received for thecommemoration of 125th Birth Anniversary ofM.N. Roy from the humanist fraternity. They wereDr. Lakshman Tamil of Periyar International,Texas, USA, Dr.G. Vijayam of Atheist CentreVijayawada, Prof. Narendra Nayak of FederationIndian Rationalist Associations (FIRA), SwamiManavatavadi from Kurukshetra, Haryana, R.G.Rao alias Somu of Goa Science Forum and Prof.Malathi of University of Delhi. The greetingmessages were read at the function.

—News sent by V. Kumaresan,General Secretary,

The Rationalists’ ForumTamil Nadu, India

e mail: [email protected]


40

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