The Alien World

Brief History

I have given sequence of events which were source of present day Naxalite movement.

• First communist party (CPI) was formed in 1924 by M N Roy in wake of Russian revolution.
• First sign of armed struggle by communist in Telengana(district of hyderabad) region in 1946.
• Followed by reorganization within ranks of communists and introspection.
• CPI split-ed and CPI (M) was formed in 1964, which was to follow chinese model of revolution.
• During same period peasants forcefully occupied lands in an anti-landlord movement on 1967 in small town of Naxalbari in West Bengal at Indo-Nepal border. The word Naxalism has been driven from word Naxalbari.
• From the shadows of two big parties, who had gone soft over period of time, emerged All India Communist Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) in 1968.
• Another party on principles of Lenin and Marx was formed by Charu Mazumdar in 1969
• Yet another party by name of MCC was formed under Asit Sen.
• Agrarian struggle in Srikakulam(Andhra Pradesh)
• Struggle started on 1959
• Meager wage of less than half a rupee and only 59 kg of grain a year.
• Land once mortgaged was not returned.
• Not allowed to use traditional method of farming.

Naxalite affected areas

• Bihar
• Jharkhand
• Madhya Pradesh
• Orissa
• Chhattisgarh
• Andhra Pradesh
• Maharashtra
• Karnataka
• Tamil Nadu
• West Bengal
• Uttar Pradesh
• Uttarakhand

Brief history above tells us that it is basically an agrarian movement started by peasants against the atrocities committed by landlords or so called high caste people against low caste people. Later all aggrieved people formed some kind of organisation under leadership of some leader, so that they can fight for injustice caused to them. So question is “what’s wrong in fighting for their basic rights”. Naturally answer would be “yes they should fight, but within constitutional means not by violence”.  Well we will come back to same question little later.

Who is responsible?    

Most people reply, would be, “its inapt handling by government”. Well, it is right to some extent. We must not forget that in democracy, government is ‘by the people’, so government reflects ‘we the people’. Therefore, we too are responsible for naxalism. I will put in better words, “ its, we the people, who have started the problem of naxalism and when it went out of control we want government to solve it, without realizing that such a problem should not have arisen at first place.”

Situations

Let us consider following hypothetical situations:-

• Mr, P  owns a flat/house legally. He goes for vacation abroad for a month. When he returns back he is shocked to see his flat being occupied by some big shot politician’s son. You being good citizen you fight a case in court but you lose.
• Mr, Q gets phone call that his son has been kidnapped. He again, good citizen reports to police, to his utter dismay, police recommends him to pay ransom and show their inability to handle the situation, so Mr X has to fend for himself.
• Mr. R and his daughter were traveling in train. Few goons too boarded the train and molested his daughter in front of her father. Police again shows inability to handle the situation.
• Mr. S, seeing atrocities on rise files a PIL in Supreme Court to bring strong laws against rich and powerful and for safety of general public. Supreme directs government to take action. 10 years have passed but still legislation for having strong law is awaited.

Seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, Mr P, Q and R under leadership of Mr S forms the organization against a government where they kept, VIOLENCE, as one of the means to achieve their aim. Four situations cited above shows failure of judiciary, executives and legislators, these are three pillars on which edifice of democracy rests. Or in other words system of democracy or government has failed, so if it has failed why not change the system. So these fours gentleman started campaign to change the system with option of VIOLENCE.

Now, let’s go back to Naxalism. Land grab policy by land lord (equivalent to house grab of Mr P), failure of security, self respect and human dignity (equivalent to situation of Mr Q and R) and failure of constitutional means of waging war (equivalent to hypothetical situations mentioned above) has led to what Naxalism is today. Now back to previous question in paragraph 3 above. Now why not VIOLENCE be means to achieve aims, after all Chinese leader Mao Zedong had led Chinese revolution on Principle ‘power flow from barrel of gun’ and he was successful and in present day world US and China are only super power in the world.  So is the case with Moaist of Nepal. Therefore  naxalite,  too follow principle and theory of Mao Zedong, hence Naxalite are also known as ‘Left Wing Extremist’  with insignia as sickle and hammer on red background.

Do I support Naxalism 

No, I don’t support Naxalism but I know the problem. Nor I am in favor of changing the democratic system of government after all it has proved its worth since time immemorial. We must understand that Naxalite are the people who have been alienated from mainstream. Solution lies in rectifying the wrong which has been done to them (almost like returning house of Mr P or giving justice to Mr Q and R), ensuring safety and human dignity of all(Human Right Commission I hope you are listening).

What  ‘we the people’ should do

I am very happy that ‘we the people’ fighting for Ruchika to get her justice in ‘molestation case by DGP Rathore’ (equivalent to atrocities committed by landlord or upper caste). Problem is, are we fighting for hundred of Ruchika who have been molested, raped and killed by DGP Rathore equivalents. No, we are not fighting for hundred of Ruchika residing in Naxal areas, so if we don’t fight then Naxalite will fight for them. And they are fighting with VIOLENT means (may be they are cornered with no escape route).Well I know we can’t go out of our ways and fight for justice, otherwise org will suffer for which you work, but at least we can do following, and act as retardant, so that Naxal like problem don’t arise and even if it arises, it does not proliferates.

• Be human and respect humans and not religion, color, caste he or she belongs to.
• Be careful when you choose words when communicating with colleagues, stranger, friends, it should not show your biased nature. For e.g avoid using “you chinki”, “tum log to aise hi hote ho”, “aukaat men reh”,  “which religion/region/caste you belong to”, “whats your sur name”.
• Be analytical if human commits mistake and take required step with humane touch. Don’t be emotional (it can be anger, love, frustration, irritation, disgust, depression) as it may lead to inequality and biased solution to the problem.
• Don’t criticize someone’s custom, tradition, food and traditional attire rather respect it and show willingness to know more.
• Maintain human dignity.
• Remember no work is small or big. They may be tough or easy. Sorry, do not try to equate BIG with TOUGH and SMALL with EASY. It is almost like; LENGTH can never be equivalent to MASS.
• Remember, what you think is your RIGHT as human in order live on earth, same RIGHT holds good for every living human.
• Last BE GOOD.

I have tried to explain Naxlism in simple way, without going into theory of Marxism,
Leninism or Maoism; I have also not touched upon strategy: military, political or social to solve the problem, let government do it. I have written it for common men and women like you and me.

Location: Dzongri Base Camp to Dzongri Peak
Distance: 2 Kms
Height: 4200 mts
Date: 6-Oct-09

Dzongri peak gives the best view of Mount Kanchenjunga, but to see it we had to reach there before sunrise.  After previous day’s high altitude sickness, I woke up fresh in the morning. Anything after midnight is morning, though it was still dark outside. At 4 AM in the morning, all I could hear was the occasional sound of yaks & horses and the stream flowing next to our tent.

We (Vishal & me) started moving uphill. On our way we found Maurice & Kim (trekkers from Singapore). It took us more than an hour to reach on the top. By the time we reached, dawn was just breaking. There was thick blanket of fog, which we expected to shed soon.

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We waited patiently for sun to come out. As the time passed we realized that the fog was there to stay and all our hopes of seeing the mighty Kanchenjunga may not be fulfilled. At around 7 am fog slowly started to move away and we could see Mt Black Kabaru. On its left was Mt. Pandim, and on its right was only the faint trace of Mt. Kanchenjunga.

After waiting there for another hour, we realized that we may have to finally return back without seeing Kanchenjunga so we started back for our base camp. We spent some time there on the locals, who stay there for only two months during the trekking season.

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We started back from Dzongri to Tshokha at around 11 am. I realized that climbing up was tiring but going down was painful. This realization is going to last for another 2 days… and probably for rest of the life.

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Maurice & Kim stayed back that day as they had to go to Goechala which was further up at a height of 5000 mtrs. Later they sent pictures of Mt. Kanchenjunga from Singapore.

Life has become so much uncertain that one never knows what may happen. The brutal act of killing civilians has been never seen before. At the time of national crisis when whole India was praying for the safety of the hostages and glued to TV, there were few  trying to increase the TRP of their channel or put their face on TV.

I m not trying to be generic but many of the media people and locals were insensitive to the whole situation in Mumbai.

Yesterday night, while many of the journalists were reporting on the camera about the operation at Taj hotel, many people standing behind them were smiling and waving at the camera… I just can’t stop wondering how someone can be so insensitive to the whole situation. On another channel CNN a foreign journalist was reporting from the Taj area, and people standing behind were more interested in her than in anything else. How can someone be so stupid to be on an international channel and behave so stupidly?

The news media only worry about their TRP ratings and how to make things sensationalized. It was pretty evident the way they were approaching the released hostages asking them stupid questions, when none of them were interested in answering them. It has also come to light that ATS chief Hemant Karkare died while trying to protect one journalist who was not moving from the scene.

I have been a strong advocate of following traffic rules. Indians have the best of brains in the world and I recently got a mail which tried to prove so by giving the statistics of number of Indian doctors in US, number of scientist of Indian Origin, or number of people who get H1B visa from India. And I don’t deny the fact that we Indians are sharp and are good learners.

That was the rosy side, but let’s faces this – other side of the story is not as beautiful. Rather I will say that it is too ugly to be shown to anyone. And we all should be ashamed of that.

Now, since I have given some vent to my anger and frustration, let’s talk about the actual subject. Over the last couple of months I have been observing a sharp increase in the traffic situation in Hyderabad. The city is close on its heels to becoming another disaster like Bangalore – Bad to worst roads and never improving traffic sense of hyderabadi drivers. The result is long traffic jams, rise in number of impatient people and above all loss of money.

Below are some key observations:
-    2 months back it took me 20-25 minutes to drive from my home to office, around 14 kms.
o    Today, the time has increased to 45 minutes
o    Even if I start as early as 8:30 AM, it takes 30 minutes
-    2 months back my car gave an average of 17 kmpl
o    Today it gives around 12 kmpl

Based on this if I calculate the loss of time than that comes to 40 to 60 minutes a day, which amount to roughly 20 hours a month.

Let’s see about the fuel – I am spending roughly around .5 liters extra everyday, which results in consuming an extra 10 liters a month. This doesn’t end here. Consuming more fuel also means that our contribution to global warming has also increased. This is the story of just me, imagine now for all the vehicles on the road.

So who is the culprit right now? Bad city planning, bad roads and worst drivers. Combine all three and you will find our new Hyderabad. All drains have been closed in the name of road expansion. Uneven roads with no proper slopes and water exits lead to water clogging. Potholes at some places are 1ft deep. After every rain, you may find a new pothole on the road.

And what are out local civic bodies doing? I guess enjoying mansoon and having samosa, mirchi bhaaji & tea.

According to one story, the world has roughly only enough fossil fuel to sustain for next 40 years. That study was done 5 years back. So what are we doing now? We are increasing the rate of consumption, why wait for another 40 years, lets finish it fast is the new mantra!!! Imagine a world without OIL in your lifetime. Life will be so calm, no traffic, no pollution. Back to stone age!

Friends …. it is high time that we should start participating in building our country. The very first step to it is selecting the right candidates for the parliament. After watching the ‘no confidence’ motion on TV last month, I cursed all politicians but when I gave a thought I felt myself equally responsible for the situation. For many of us, election day is a national holiday. A large percentage of us are not even registered as Voters. On any election day we plan to take a vacation, go out and relax. We have to change this attitude and have to understand our responsibilities as a citizen. Also, at the same time these politicians should not take us for granted, there politic majorly rely only on religion, regional and caste.

The more we actively participate in the electoral system, the more we will rise above all these issues.  Every state has it’s office of ‘The Chief Electoral Officer’, also for each state there is separate website from where you can get more detailed information and forms to get your voter i-card. If you google “The Chief Electoral Officer of <state name>” you will find that states website. Below is the list of forms that you need to fill in order to get your name registered in voter’s list and for voter’s i-card.

The above forms are links to Electoral Office of AP, but the forms are same across India, so you can download from anywhere.

Also read: Parliament or Fish Market