Lenin Kumar, editor of a progressive peoples’ magazine in Oriya, Nisan, was arrested and sent to jail on charges of writing provocative literature. The fact is that his magazine took a stance against the anti-Christian pogrom in Kandhamal district after the killing of Laxmananda Saraswati. His arrest was an attempt by the government of Orissa to silence the voices of the oppressed, and could be seen as corroborating the ongoing McCarthyization process in India. After much struggle, Lenin is free on bail now.
Satyabrata: You have been convicted for possessing inflammatory materials. What, according to you, is being regarded as inflammatory in your booklet, Dharma Namare Kandhamalare Raktanadi (Kandhamal’s River of Blood in the Name of Religion) and why?
Lenin Kumar: Is it inflammatory, to identify the communal and brahminist forces and their agenda? The riot affected people in the relief camps have already pointed at the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal men as responsible for violence in the name of religion. In the book, Dharma Namare Kandhamalare Raktanadi they are unmasked. But, they are in power in the state. So using the police they wanted to silence the voice, which is ‘inflammatory’ to them. It is ridiculous to say that the book disturbed communal harmony because it exposed them who really disturbed it.
Satyabrata: Why is Nisan being targeted? What is your expectation from other progressive people, intellectuals on this assault on Nisan?
Lenin Kumar: Nisan stands for janabadi (democratic) literature. Its basic trend is against Brahminism and imperialism. Unlike mainstream journalism, we have focussed on the ongoing peoples’ movements (including the Maoist among others) and their roots in genuine popular desire for liberation from brahminical and imperialist domination. The magazine is not yet banned. There is no question of bowing in front of the anti-people forces. When they sent me to jail, people protested throughout the state – writers came on the streets in a manner quite unimaginable in a region like Orissa. I think this is due to our commitment. All these developments inspire us. So there is no question of leaving the battlefield. And how can one repress an ideology?
Satyabrata: What reaction do you expect from other newspapers and journalists?
Lenin Kumar: Unfortunately in Orissa, most newspapers are in the hands of the ruling classes. They are simply bourgeois party leaflets. It is very difficult for a genuine reporter to take his position. Some reporters blindly act like representatives of the state. In my case, I have seen my name as ‘Mao writer”. What does it mean, till date I do not understand. Professionally they are expected to be above the outlook of the ruling classes, which are openly becoming the agents of international capital. Otherwise, there will be no space for democracy.
Satyabrata: You were arrested because of touching the Kandhamal issue. What is your personal view regarding the recent incidents in Kandhamal?
Lenin Kumar: Anti-dalit, anti-minority agenda is in the air. The Sangh Parivar is openly challenging the democratic values. The state is keeping silence. The Maoists in Kandhamal have showed us that the communal forces are building their second laboratory in the region after Gujarat’s. They have opposed these forces in their own way. We should not forget that Laxmananda Saraswati in Kandhamal was not a saint or a representative of the Hindu religion, but a leader of VHP. And frankly, I have no respect to their riot-politics.
Satyabrata: What is your message for fellow journalists, writers, intellectuals and progressive people?
Lenin Kumar: For getting the bail, I heartily thank the writers, journalists, intellectuals who stood for freedom of expression and protested my arrest. I thank my wife Rumita for her camaraderie in this process. If a person like me coming from a middle class family living in the state capital can be targeted, one can only imagine the extent of state terrorism and violation of human rights in the remote villages of Orissa, which hardly get noticed. We must stand united against any undemocratic, exploitative, anti-people actions.
Like Mumbai, also in Maharashtra, Malegaon was the site to bomb blasts on September 5, 2008 – less than three months prior to Mumbai blasts. Three bomb attacks killed more than 31 people – mostly Muslims – while they were returning from offering Friday prayers at a mosque.
Immediately thereafter, the “India” woke up to terror alerts. Politicians and administration were quick to point out the role of Muslim terrorists. The usual hounding of suspects continued, and all the “illegal” Muslim student outfits were harassed. Police arrested Muslim youths under suspicion. Until, one after the other evidences led to a radically different conclusion: That, it is not the Muslim people of India, but Hindu terrorists who were behind the Malegaon blasts.
Malegaon blasts have opened up a whole Pandora’s Box. Not so much of a shock considering that the Hindu fundamentalists who are still holding seats in Indian Parliament today were the despicable figures behind the biggest communal clash and tragedy to hit India when they demolished Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. That was the darkest day in India’s contemporary history. Those that led the procession of mayhem and sinister murder trails went on to get elected to the highest offices of Indian democracy soon thereafter. Such coveted politicians included chargesheeted riot leader like LK Advani – that shameful face of Hindu fanaticism masquerading as a meticulously passionate orator of Hindi-Hindu aspirations.
Hindu terrorism is also not a shock for millions of Indians who did witness the biggest tragedy to reshape Bombay due to the reactionary terror attacks orchestrated by a Hindu Chauvinist Bal Thackeray and his gang of Hindu fundamentalists calling themselves Shiv Sena. Following Ayodhya terrorism against Muslims’s sacred place, instead of bringing calm and publicly apologizing on behalf of the Hindu civilization, misguided Hindu supremacists like Advani and Thackeray conducted nationwide victory marches to incite hatred against the minorities in India. As a result, Mumbai, the commercial capital under the mercy of Thackeray, was converted overnight into a terrorized center of Hindu-Muslim riots. While in power, all that Thackeray did was continue his mode of operation- hate-speech against the Muslim minority. Currently his political cronies have taken up staunch regionalism in Maharashtra to threaten the lives of “outsiders”, whereas the terrorist outfit representing the Hindu interests have been bombing all over Maharashtra, recruiting a few Muslim youths for training, and then shifting blames of terror attacks either on Pakistan or on Indian Muslims.
Hindu terrorism is also not a shock for millions of Indians who have been silent sufferers to a merciless manner in which Gujarat – the birthplace of the Mahatma – had been converted into the rowdiest of states in India under the disgusting leadership of a racist politician Narendra Modi – also part and parcel of the revived Hindu fanaticism. Gujarat’s famous Godhra incident, which was used as a tool to ravage the Islamic business sector in the state ended up taking lives of more than 2000 people, more than 80% of which were Muslims. Under the rule of the Hindu right wing political party, the infamous, yet legal, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), unprecedented violence was let loose on the streets to pointedly murder innocent Muslim citizens. Not surprisingly by the culturally same Hindu fanatics who pride themselves for having assassinated Mahatma Gandhi sixty years ago. Unheard of atrocities against Muslim women were committed by the Hindu “Sainiks” and “Saints” and terrorists that have no parallel in world history.
Thus, Hindu terrorism is not a matter of shock to the huge majority of Indians- majority of whom are deeply innocent Hindus themselves.
Dark Ages of Hindu Revivalism: Secular India to Communal India
Indian history has never been devoid of Muslim roots. Predominantly, Indian land was ruled by Moghuls. Most of the glorified historical personalities of India- from secular emperors to magical musicians, from wise philosophers to lyrical poets have been Muslims. Muslims also have been a successful business class, self-sustained and despite prejudices, well organized. Whenever foreign colonial powers assaulted Indian nationalism, Muslims joined the struggles for freedom alongside the Hindus. They were so united in spirit with Hindus that it took the meanest and most corrupt methods of the British colonialists to separate the two religions from living in harmony.
As a result of British interventions and formation of pseudo-Hindu outfits such as Hindu Mahasabha (which opposed Gandhi’s call for unity), and submission to ruling class blackmails by Muslim League, Pakistan was created upon the blood of millions.
Pakistan’s life was made even more difficult to manage thanks to the illogical and criminal manner in which the British divided the map geographically. East Pakistan (on the east of India) naturally enough remained the point of contention since Pakistan (on the West of India) could neither rule over it to its abilities nor could remain a distinctive nation in the subcontinent without it. Added to the miseries were the decisions of a Hindu supremacist Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to blackmail all Princely States of India to join the British-freed India. This was a cause of misery because in the predominantly Hindu North-Indian democratic setup in Delhi, the representation of predominantly Muslim princely state rulers was almost impossible. Therefore, India, after her independence from British rule, emerged a fractured country of inconsistent neighborhood (which finally got “resolved” with the creation of Bangladesh) and internal religious divides (now officially revived through impositions on Hyderabad and Kashmir – one Hindu state with a Muslim King, and the other a Muslim state with a Hindu King.)
Taking advantage of the problems Nehru faced in his initial years as the first Prime Minister, the ugly head of Hindu fanaticism started to show up. Not only were they banned from participation in mainstream politics by a secular Constitution of the land, they were forbidden from expressing themselves. Despite the fact that Nehru himself was a Kashimiri Brahmin, he was unwilling to cooperate in escalating the communal tensions in India, following Gandhian footsteps. This period of Golden Age of Independent India came to an abrupt end when the country started noticing that many of the Hindu fanatics had hidden their identities and joined the mainstream Congress with an aim to take over the power later. Vajpayee who became the right-wing leader of Indian democracy later on, used to claim himself as a Nehruvian socialist to climb the ladder of power, only to later condemn Nehru after his death. George Fernandes who later became the most tainted Defense Minister of India for his deals with Western militarists used to deceive people in his early years as projecting himself to be a socialist. Indeed, many congress leaders of Nehru’s period claimed Socialism as their paths only to gain entry into mainstream politics of India – and to later disband every principle of socialism in favor of domestic capitalism.
Nehru’s Congress as the dominant political party cannot be absolved of the crime of overlooking the nature of its disciples in favor of their sycophancy. As a result of its professed but unintelligent silence over growth of communal politics in India – where its official policy was to advance the cause of Muslims and minorities even as several of disguised communal politicians were busy thwarting possibilities of harmonious living- India evolved into a vulnerable land soon to be ruled over by the very same Hindu fundamentalists that Gandhi and Nehru, Subhas Bose and Bhagat Singh, together opposed tooth and nail throughout their illustrious lives.
Hindi-Hindu India overshadowed and almost choked to death all the rich historical heritage brought to Indian culture through Islamic traditions. Urdu was relegated to nowhere, Hindustani was not recognized as a language, affirmative actions for Muslims continued to perish under caste politics within Hindu religious majority. Casteism and untouchability continued to exist despite constitutional dictums. Both Dalits and Muslims emerged as outcasts and myth of Hindu cultural purity continued to prosper.
Nehru’s Congress which prided itself for receiving aid from Soviet Union, while at the same time forming Non-Aligned Movement and taking respectable roles in the United Nations to promote peace was gradually reduced to a capitalistic economy headed by a finance minister called Manmohan Singh, who today has become the Prime Minister for his able diplomacy at praising the British Raj (his enslaved speech at Oxford University heralded Queen’s English as the biggest development for India), and unconditional surrender to NATO interests on every conceivable grounds – military to economic.
In such overtly distressing times, it is only natural that the likes of Hindu supremacists who were vehemently opposed by the founding leaders of India’s freedom movement, are back to power. They rule the roads of Maharashtra and Gujarat – two most economically successful states in India. The Hindu supremacists are funded by their bosses – the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) – an outright communal racist organization based in the United States. Indeed, most universities in the US allow VHP-funded student outfits to recruit local students for to promote anti-Islam causes in the name of cultural diversity. And back home, the same organizations routinely attack any Islamic institutions or student unions. As long as it is Banares Hindu University – a completely unnecessary university to be founded on religious grounds considering that Hindus anyway comprise the majority and community-based institutes are required to be formed to protect minority cultures – there is never a talk on terrorism emanating from them. Even as it has been proved countless times that Hindu student organizations such as Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) are violent in nature, and misconstrue history to depict Vivekananda, Bhagat Singh and Subhas Bose radically differently in the minds of the impressionable youths, they go scot free and celebrate their existence and growth. At the same time, Muslim Madrassas are constantly under police investigations. Faculty members of Aligarh Muslim Universities are routinely harassed. Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) has been legally banned by the Indian government.
Usual Suspects: Muslim Youths
Indian official authorities continuously arrest numerous Muslim people, doctors, professors and students on alleged grounds of terrorism, whereas the proven terrorists of Hindu based organizations continue to contest elections, win seats and influence courts. In the most recent Malegaon serial bomb blasts, the first arrests were that of SIMI activists. Noor-ul-Hooda was arrested by the police along with two other “suspects”: Shabbir Batterywala and Raees Ahmed.
Such arrests based solely on suspicion are no exceptions. Even without undertaking any investigations of merit, such Muslim youths are subjected to arrests on a routine basis. In Malegaon, this was massive, because the suspicion was on accusation of murder of 31 people and injury of over 300.
The Times of India in their initial report reported: “The involvement of both Shabbir and Hooda in the Malegaon blasts came to light during their interrogations after their arrest in a bomb hoax case. The intention of conspirators of Malegaon blasts was to create communal tensions in the textile town which has a history of riots and the bomb hoax exercise undertaken by Shabbir and Hooda as the blasts failed to disturb the peace in the town, the DGP said.”
So Who Were Behind Malegaon?
After the initial arrests of Shabbir and Hooda, public demand increased to arrest everyone concerned. The investigation was thus under public demand, transferred to the most efficient branch to deal with issues of terrorism: the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and its superhero cop Hemant Karkare.
Karkare and his team thoroughly investigated the Malegaon blasts and reached entirely different conclusions. For the firs time, the official agencies had to admit their errors in arresting Muslim youths whereas the real culprits were the Hindu terrorists.
Among the eight arrested following due investigations the Hindu terrorists had high profile candidates: Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur of the right wing political coalition, Indian army official Ramesh Upadhyay, Hindu fundamentalist youth organization Abhinav Bharat’s leader Sameer Kulkarni, and Army official Lt Col Prasad S Purohit.
No amount of rhetoric could save the right wing political party this time, because not only it was found upon investigation that the Hindu terrorist leaders representing the BJP’s interests were involved in masterminding the blasts, but even the Indian defense forces officials were. The Hindu “Holy Cow” and the India’s “Holy Cow” were both the actual culprits.
In the past, when Shabbir and Hooda were arrested on suspicion, media reports were agog with conclusions that the previous bomb blasts in India had a very similar strategy. Hence, the conclusions of the media were that, all those blasts perhaps were also caused by Muslim outfits. Hence investigations were on into all the previous blasts. And soon, one after another, the truths started emerging when the cases were “reopened”.
Also came under investigations of ATS were the closed cases of yesteryears: Parbhani blasts of November 21, 2003, Jalna blasts of August 27, 2004, Jama Masjid blast in Delhi on April 14, 2006, Mecca Masjid blast, May 18, 2007, Ajmer blasts, October 11, 2007, Modasa blast, September 29, 2008.
In all of the above terror attacks, the Muslim youths were held under suspicion without investigations. But when the cases were reopened, ATS unearthed evidences which startled the very foundation of Hindu supremacism in India.
Upon due investigations, it was indeed found out by the Indian authorities that the series of blasts have been planned since 2001 by the same group of people- Hindu terrorists. A Hindu supremacist Rakesh Dhawade had transported 54 people, trained them in a camp in Sinhagad in Pune for three years, starting 2001. Using his access to power structure in India, Dhawade continued to remain free despite all evidences against him. Finally, after more than four years of Jalna blast, and after seven years of his discovered training camps, he was chargesheeted in early November 2008. On Novemeber 11, 2008, as a bigger blow on Hindu terrorism, another accused Maruti Wagh was arrested by Jalna police. In the entire Marathwada region, terrorists involved in the several bomb attacks in Parbhani, Purna, Jalna, Nanded and Malegaon were found to be the same –the highly protected Hindu terrorists.
Likwise, in Nanded blasts, new truths had emerged. On April 6, 2006 when a terror attack woke India up in Nanded, it was not as much highlighted in the local media, and received zero coverage on international media. It was so because the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) in its investigation found that behind the bomb blast, there was no role of any Muslim agency. Indeed, it was a hardcore Hindu fundamentalist group that carried out the terror attack. During investigation it was also found out that the Hindu terrorist group was planning to orchestrate such terror attacks in Aurangabad. One Hindu terrorist Rahul Pande was arrested in regards to Nanded bomb blast. Two of his accomplices Naresh Rajkondwar and Himanshu Panse who prepared the bomb died on the spot. Three more Hindu terrorists Yogesh Deshpande, Maruti Wagh and Gururaj Tupttewar were seriously injured.
In related investigations, Hindu supremacist Manoharrao Pande, one of the accused, said that they were trained in handling explosive devices and one trainer Himanshu Pande, died while assembling the explosives. Pande had also implemented the terror attacks in the Marathwada region, including in Jalna, Purnea and Parbhani.
Rationale Behind Mumbai Blasts: Who Benefits?
November 11, 2008 – the day of victory of Anti-Terrorism Squad against Hindu Terrorism- happened two weeks before the latest Mumbai Bomb Blasts.
Just when the world opinion was about to be reshaped following the ugly face of Hindu terrorism being officially exposed, the foreign nationals – the supposedly Muslim-fearing American and British citizens – were attacked in Mumbai. Just when the Hindu “Saints” were going to be declared terrorists, some Muslim youths were once again arrested in the center of commercial capital as accused of the blasts. Just when proper and due investigations were about to begin, lawyers were threatened by right wing political parties from representing the accused. Just when the Anti-Terrorism Squad captured the accused for investigations to find out the masterminds (going by the past blasts, who were going to be the Hindu supremacists), ATS chief and nation’s most beloved police officer Karkare was mysteriously killed.
The fact that Karkare had received death threats from BJP activists, the Hindu terrorist groups and his wife could be interrogated for further information about the letters, Karkare was converted into a national hero and declared to be dead while fighting Islamic terrorism!
India, a country of independent spirited people who took on the mightiest of empires through actions and thoughts of the wise and the nonviolent, has been forced to be converted into a country of hero-worshipping uncritical enslaved people that refuse to believe that the problems are indeed from within.
Karkare has been converted into a national hero and is being heralded as the bravest police officer. Yet ironically, his principles of life that defied conventional thinking while he unearthed the most shameful chapter of Hindu nationalism, have been already forgotten. Domestic media – both vernacular and English language have adopted a tone that’s most submissive, prejudiced and rhetorical. Indian parliament has always been the mainstay of chosen criminals from across the country since last few decades. Now it has evolved as the chamber of discussion among most of them demanding across parties, to control the country through new draconic laws.
Indian Hindu terrorism has once again been shoved into obscurity by once again successfully shifting blame on Pakistan. Instead of working closely together with Pakistani officials to eradicate roots of terrors – which are implanted by the politicians in both countries than invented by the misguided people – India has chosen to allow Israeli and American interests to prevail upon the land in a quest to convert Gandhi’s Free India into a Militarist Enslaved Agent of Global Imperialism.
The Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Group reacting sharply to the ongoing communal vitiation of the political environment by the Bharatiya Janata Party issued an open letter to the Chief Election Commissioner of India, Mr. N. Gopalaswami. The indiscriminate manner in which the Bharatiya Janata Party and its parent organizations had been targeting the minority communities in the country in Kandhamal, Dhule, Udulgudi creates an alarming situation that challenges the very moral fabric of a secular, democratic nation. Not only the credentials of a central university like Jamia Millia Islamia is being regularly brought into question, a sense of insecurity, fear and anxiety is created in the adjoining area of Batla House, Jamia Nagar, Abul Fazal Enclave, etc. where primarily the Muslim population resides. The hate campaign of the BJP has to be stopped at all cost and before the guilt of those who have been killed in the encounter, one of whom was a minor and the five who have been accused of being involved in seditious activities against the State is proved before a court of law, they cannot be referred to as terrorists
Subject: Demand to Restrain Bharatiya Janata Party targeting the Muslim community in Jamia and Batla House area in their election campaign.
Dear Sir,
Following the incident of encounter at L-18 in the Batla House area on September 19, 2008 where a MA Previous year student of Jamia Millia Islamia and a 17-year old boy were killed by the Special Cell on the ground of their involvement with the bomb blasts in Delhi and other cities of the country, Bharatiya Janata Party had been actively engaged in a virulent hate campaign fomenting communal sentiments in the country to garner votes in their favour. Two of the five young men who are in police custody for their alleged involvement in seditious activities are students of Jamia Millia Islamia, while the other three were young men seeking out a career in the city. The recent findings of the CBI regarding the activities of the Delhi Police Special Cell has cast a serious aspersion over the credibility of their findings and since the issue of Batla House ‘encounter’ is yet to be produced before the court of law, one cannot pronounce them as guilty. Thus, the constant reference by the BJP to the deceased (one of whom was a minor) and the five arrested as terrorists is not only malicious and politically motivated but also legally invalid.
We urge your office to immediately intervene in the matter and take necessary action against a political party like the Bharatiya Janata Party who have been campaigning for the forth-coming elections in a language that is contrary to the secular, democratic spirit of the Indian Constitution.
The letter was signed by several members of the teaching fraternity.
On August 24, two policemen came and informed a Christian dominated hamlet (comprising of around 50 families out of which 32 were Christians) that 6 ‘Hindus’ along with ‘Swami’ Lakshmananda Saraswati had been killed. They asked the villagers not to go to the church. The majority of the villagers are cattle-bearers with little land. They decided to obey the order/advice but asked the police for protection which was denied on the grounds that there were not adequate forces for that.
In the evening, about 50 men, with fire torches in their hands came to the village shouting Hindu communal slogans, like ‘Hindu-Hindu-Bhai-Bhai’ (All Hindus are brothers), etc. They stopped in the midst of the village and shouted. There was a dilemma – “should we burn the houses of the Christians first or their church?” To put it more accurately, “should we destroy them or their symbol first?” They decided to destroy the symbol first; the church was to be destroyed.
That symbol played the function of the authority, this they probably understood. On hearing that the church was to be burnt and then their houses would be the target, the villagers panicked. They went to the Hindu houses of their village and asked for help. They wanted their Hindu brethren to take care of their costly possessions, which they handed them over. They ran and hid themselves behind the bushes. The Hindu stalwarts then came to the village and lit the houses aflame. The Christians were silent spectators.
There was a family of four brothers. One of them was a paralytic who couldn’t be rescued from his house. He was shouting at the Hindu fundamentalists desperately, “Throw me out of this place and do whatever you like.” They drenched him in petrol and… One of his brothers watched this from behind the bushes, shocked!
With the houses burning, enough light emanated. The villagers from behind the bushes could see the faces of over 50 ‘Hindus’. They recognized some of them. They were from a nearby village, the place where the slain Swami practiced his “philanthropy” and “education”, which his followers were demonstrating that day.
With the light also came the fear of being noticed by the killer mob. Fear forced them to leave the bushes and go to the nearby jungles. They did so. The mother of the four brothers, aged about 70, couldn’t run. She was kept behind a tree seated and was asked not to move. The rest of the villagers ran into the village. Their struggle continued. The Hindu fundamentalists had got some clue about them and entered the forest to chase them. The villagers couldn’t go to the nearby ‘main-road’, nor could they stay in the jungle. They decided to go to Bhubaneswar, Orissa’s capital. They succeeded in doing so after about a journey of 300km. They reached Bhubaneswar on the 28th evening and took shelter in the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) from the 29th morning.
I went to interact with them a day later. They refused to tell me anything. Then I noticed a priest who had come from Andhra Pradesh. I went and sat beside him to know what had happened. One of the brothers was speaking to the priest. The priest asked, “Why didn’t you confront these people. You were 32 families, which means you were at least 60 men.” The brother replied, “Most men have migrated. Majority among our families present in the village were women and children”. Another man then came and sat beside me. He introduced himself as an army man guarding the Indian borders, and was one of the four brothers, too. He came directly to YMCA when he got the news.
***
“What do you want now?
“This Government has failed us.”
“Which Government? The Central or State Government?”
“The State Government.”
“But the Central Government also knows what is happening and we have also approached it.”
“Then we want a President Rule.”
“That is in the hands of the Central Government.”
“Then it is war between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and we want ‘our people’ to be ‘on our side’.”
“What do you mean by ‘our people’?”
He took a glance at me and answered, “The Christians”.
Now, I could make out why they were not revealing anything to me. Probably, they wanted to know who I was – was I from among ‘them’ or was I from among ‘us’. The Father was of course one of ‘us’.
There were several such villages that have had such bitter experiences.
The author is a second year bachelor student in an engineering college in Bhubaneshwar.
A stalwart of Hindu religious revivalism Laxmanananda Saraswati has been shot dead while resting in a female child asylum at Tumudibandha of Kandhamal district along with five others at about 8.30 in the evening of August 23.
RSS alleges that Christian religious fanatics have killed Laxmananand who was very active in foiling their attempts to Christianize the tribals and hence was in their hit list.
Orissa has experienced a lot of communal conflict due to religious revivalism. Laxmanananda was a known agent provocateur whom the Law and order authorities a few months ago had prohibited to enter into Phulbani in order to contain communal carnages.
Plutocracy, ushered into India by Manmohan Singh infested Congress and pampered by profiteers’ political organ BJP, is eager to keep the jungle-dweller tribes subdued forever as it is only they, who can valiantly resist the spread of industry and trade that needs to grab their land and to destroy their environment to proceed and profit.
Therefore plutocracy is apprehensive of a tribal uprising, specifically as, abandoned by mainstream politicians and exploited by local bureaucrats and middlemen and contractors and moneylenders and traders, they have got a strong ally in the left-wing ultras that the exploiters and their pet media go on projecting as Naxals or Maoists. The left-wing ultras have given the tribes their voice to raise demands for their economic rights and as evidenced in spread of Naxal influence from district to district, the poor peoples’ voice of demand for their economic right is stronger day by day. This is fidgeting the scoundrels that are exploiting the peoples.
As this new phase of peoples uprising is getting more defined, the precipitators of plutocracy are using a two-pronged strategy. One, they are using state exchequer to instigate armed forces to annihilate the left-wing ultras in blatant contravention of the civil laws in force and two, they are encouraging religious revivalists to confuse peoples into the fold of fate so that plutocracy gets a good shock-absorber to surge ahead. This is why in Orissa’s tribal areas where left-wing ultras are active, religious revivalists are seen aggressively active.
When the armed forces engaged against left-wing ultras are not ready to block the poor peoples’ demand for economic rights, the religious revivalists are intrinsic to plutocracy and are active supporters of plutocratic power play as plutocracy for survival fully depends on existence of God or Gods that the religious revivalists create, propagate and protect.
So religious revivalism is a political game aimed at putting exploiters in power. No game is a game if rivals are not there. Naturally therefore, there is bitter rivalry between the Christian and Hindu fanatics in Kandhamal and similar other places. Hindu religious chauvinists are marked for their support to Indian capitalists when Christian religious fanatics are active collaborators of foreign capitalist interest in India. There rivalry is not religious but in the guise of religion it in reality is a politico-economic rivalry that in other words may be said as national versus international rivalry in serving the system of exploitation. No wonder, it is bitter.
This bitter rivalry has led to death of Laxmanananda. If anybody is to take note of this, it is the religious revivalist of all hue, primarily.
They should note that if their foul play against poor people in the name of religion does not stop, time will come, no God would come to their rescue as Laxmananand’s God has notably failed to save him. As dinosaurs supposedly killed each other and got extinct, the religious revivalists would kill each other as bloody stooges of politico-economic rivals both in the national and international arenas.
Orissa’s Tumuribandha may just be the beginning.
2. LAXMANANANDA’S POSTHUMOUS MISUSE BY ADVANI AND CNN-IBN
BJP leader L.K.Advani and media organization CNN-IBN have preferred Hindu sectarian leader Laxmanananda’s posthumous misuse against Leftist ultras through premature assertions that Naxals have killed him, when, his own organization Viswa Hindu Parisad that is supposed to know where the shoe really pinched has declared that it is the Christian fanatics who are the real killers.
Both the assertions are premature and irresponsible specifically as the matter is under active investigation by rightful authorities.
We have earlier discussed that religious revivalism that has ruined the peace and tranquility of tribal belt is meant to counter Naxal influence by pushing peoples into the labyrinth of fate so that they can tolerate economic exploitation by accepting their wretchedness as the result of sins they might have committed in previous birth. So religious revivalism, conversions and counter-conversions and acrimonious sectarian quarrels practiced by both the Hindu and Christian chauvinists are not meant for making peoples religious but are promoted by Indian capitalism and American imperialism to stop evolution of exploited peoples’ conscious rising for their economic rights by blocking the spread of Naxal influence. In other words, rival religion practitioners are not their enemy; the real enemy is the Naxal organization. Therefore, Advani was quite eager to attribute Laxmanananda’s annihilation to the Naxals only.
Naxals are known as politically aggressive advocates of wretchedly poor and blatantly exploited peoples’ economic rights. Therefore to oppose them is a clear act of exploitive political activism. Advani is an exploitive political activist. When peoples of Orissa had raised the first ever Indian mass movement against deliberate price rise by profiteers and hoarders and blackmarketeers in the early eighties, Advani had instigated marwadis to observe Diwali as ‘Black Diwali” in protest against the Orissan movement. So there is nothing unusual in his attempts to make propaganda that Naxals have killed Laxmanananda. And he has not done any wrong by that, because that is the right way in pursuit of his political creed and nothing other than that is expected of him. In doing this he has just extended the mission of Laxmanananda in a political way that he is supposed to do as a right wing politician.
Conduct of this organization in cash for confidence vote matter exposed recently is yet alive in mass memory. Therefore it attracts suspicion in matter of its motive in trading this most premature but prejudiced propaganda that Naxals have killed Laxmanananda, the master craftsman of counter-conversions so dear to Hindu ultras.
Advani and this media organization look like close collaborators in frustrating the peoples who love democracy, peace and tranquility and want inequality to honorably end.
Subhash Chandra Pattanayak is a senior Oriya journalist and litterateur
