Editor: Rekha Saraswat

Vol. 77 No 11

FEBRUARY 2014

Rs. 20/month

THE RADICAL HUMANIST (Since April 1949) Formerly : Independent India (April 1937- March 1949) Founder Editor: M.N. Roy

527 Historical Role of Islam: The Mission of Islam —M.N. Roy Dreams of Lowest of the Lowly Subaltern!

—K.S. Chalam Birth Pangs of Swaraj —Uday Dandavate Indian Political Scene —Kuldip Nayar Whither Radical Democratic State: Resurrecting M.N. Roy —Ajit Bhattacharya Imperial Influence on Economics: The Marshallian Demand Curve — Dipavali Sen From Folklore to Mainstream: Detha’s Journey —Ashok K. Choudhury New Humanism in India —Tony Henderson Contemporary relevance Roy's 'New Humanism’ (Editorial Comment) —Rekha Saraswat

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

FEBRUARY 2014 This Month's Contributors

REKHA S. Editor (page 2)

M.N. ROY, Founder Editor (page 6)

UDAY DANDAVATE (Page 10)

KULDIP NAYAR

K.S. CHALAM

(Page 13)

(Page 8)

DIPAWALI SEN

NAMITA S. KALLA

(Page 17)

(Page 21)

TONY HENDERSON (Page 31)

SOMAYYA RAVELA (Page 36)

ASHOK K CHOUDHURY (Page 23)

SUMANLATA SHARMA

(Page 27)

T. P. RAO

G.VENKATASWAMY

(Page 36)

(Page 36)

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The Radical Humanist

www.theradicalhumanist.com

Vol. 77 Number 11 February 2014

Contents

Monthly journal of the

1. From the Editor’s Desk: Contemporary relevance Roy's 'New Humanism’ —Rekha Saraswat 2 From the Writings of M.N. Roy: Historical Role of Islam: The Mission of Islam 6 2. Guests’ Section:

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 S. Contributory Editors: Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. R.M. Pal, Professor Rama Kundu Publisher and 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 E-mail articles at: rheditor@gmail.com Send Subscription / Donation Cheques in favour of The Radical Humanist to: Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber Number 111 (Near Post Office), Supreme Court of India, New Delhi, 110001, India n.vyas@snr.net.in 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 S. 1

Dreams of Lowest of the Lowly Subaltern!

—K.S. Chalam 8 Birth Pangs of Swaraj —Uday Dandavate 10 3. Current Affairs’ Section: Indian Political Scene —Kuldip Nayar

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4. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section: Whither Radical Democratic State: Debating Within; Resurrecting M.N. Roy —Ajit Bhattacharya 15 Imperial Influence on Economics: The Marshallian Demand Curve — Dipavali Sen 17 D.R Mehta:The Man Behind Jaipur Foot —Namita S Kalla 21 5. Professors' & Students' Section: From Folklore to Mainstream: Detha’s Journey —Ashok K. Choudhury Women Empowerment in India —Suman Lata Sharma 6. Book Review Section: New Humanism in India —Tony Henderson 7. Humanist News: a) Remembering M.N. Roy: A Report from Hyderabad

23 27

31

36

A Report from Guntur 37 b) Press Conference on Human Rights Day at Ahmadabad on Scrutiny of EVMs 38

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own mind and logic before agreeing to its basic concepts and then tried to put it to practice to test and prove its functionality.

He did the same with all sincerity to fulfil his vision of getting rid of the British yoke on Jatindranath Mukherjee’s nationalist-revolutionary line of thought and action in 1915-16 and stopped not only when the mission could not progress due to lack of support from without (from the Germans and the Japanese) but when he began to realize that independence of a nation from foreign bondage was not a necessary and natural corollary of the freedom of its citizens from servitude and exploitation.

He then tried all the practical methods of Marxism through the international communist organisations that were setup in his presence in Europe under the general supervision of Lenin and extended to Asia and India with his own specific propositions. He continued to work upon them from 1917 till 1930 with all earnestness till his disenchantment with the undue repression of the vast majority of the downtrodden and deprived people (caused by the practical application of the technique of dictatorship of the proletariat) for whose betterment he had joined forces with the Marxists, in the first place.

He came to India in December 1930 (where he was imprisoned for six years in 1931 for “conspiring to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty in India.”) still believing in the socialist objective of Marxism even after his disillusionment with the modes of obtaining it applied by the descendants and successors of Marx and Lenin in the name of Communism. And as it culminated and deteriorated further in the form of a dictatorial regime of one man Stalin, Roy began to further question the basic tenets of Communism, which undermined the very concept of individual freedom of thought and action vis-à-vis the collective entity of a state or nation.

He became equally apprehensive about the success of representative form of parliamentary democracy

From the Editor’s Desk:

Contemporary relevance M.N. Roy's 'New Humanism’ (after sixty years of his death on 25th January 1954) —Rekha Saraswat perceptive person, sensitive to his Asurroundings, when begins to express his disquiet with the inequities around him either becomes a poet, an artist, an author or a philosopher and leaves his deliberations for posterity to assess and acclaim or disgrace.

A philosopher is always the product of his circumstances; his past and his present and M.N. Roy was no exception to it.

We all know his long journey of pursuit for freedom first for his nation and finally for each individual human being.

His various transformations from a nationalist revolutionary to a radical humanist with long intervals in the international communist movement and a small stint inside the Indian national congress, every time had an honesty of curiosity and a sincerity of faith in his endeavours to bring relief and betterment to the existing predicaments of the ailing humanity around him.

Coming from a Brahmin family of hereditary priests in West Bengal (being born on 21st March 1887) Roy underwent a complete metamorphosis in his personality by developing into a rationalist humanist during the final years of his life.

The continuity in the momentum of his thought process, from one conviction to the next, could be possible only because Roy was never in servitude to any person or idea, and, therefore, never surrendered his own independent thinking and analysis of either of them. Whenever he was introduced to any preset notion of amending the prevalent norms of society and state he applied his 2

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in which political parties and their leaders at the apex played a decisive role in getting candidates selected and elected from the constituencies to form governments in the Centre and states. He saw the practical outcome of the unfair use of populist methods by established political parties and prominent leaders during his own and his Radical Democratic Party’s unsuccessful attempts in contesting elections and dissolved the RDP. Many scholars accuse him for advocating a party-less form of democracy because of his own failure as a leader of his party in helping it win elections during the process of Indian independence. The blame may be lessened and our criticism mellowed out if we remember that he was witness to the sincere dreams and truthful efforts of Lenin and other leaders in trying to ameliorate the pitiable state of affairs of the working class and how miserably they failed to do so through the Communist Party and its followers.

He was again seeing history being repeated before his own eyes in the heightened expectations and blind faith of the common men in leaders of Indian political parties who were expected to improve their pathetic living conditions and bring betterment to their lives, as if with a magic wand, without themselves knowing how to go about it.

The innocent people had no clues that they were being exploited first in the name of religion and communalism and later in the name of caste and region and these sectarian sympathies and partisan emotions were being used simply as tactics for seeking their votes to win elections and attain political power, creating huge hiatuses between people’s expectations from an independent state and the political leaders’ ambitions for governance, in the process. (Partition of the country later on and its criminal repercussions were a natural outcome of this egotistic craving for power of the few at the top.)

And when he and his party men tried to reach out to the masses to counsel them against this impending injustice their views were not accepted by the latter

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and his whole group failed to identify with the masses’ psychology and were alienated from the ensuing historical process of change in the country.

He realised that it was too early for the Indian common men to understand the meaning and value of participatory democracy because they were seeped in the feudal tradition of monarchic hierarchy as well as in the customs of patriarchal society. They were also psychologically accustomed (and considered it their destiny) to being born in higher or lower classes because of their belief in the theory of past life’s karmas.

Even Roy’s persona, while enigmatic to some, was unapproachable, awesome and alien to most in his native land. He had gone far beyond the cultural and intellectual horizons of the traditional Indian thought process. His writings also, were beyond comprehension for all those who read them with a traditional bias.

The basic purpose of any philosophy or ideology is to find solutions to the contemporary social, political, economic and cultural problems of the society. Roy canvassed for a scientific, democratic egalitarian and above all rationally humanist solution for them. But for the few educated, emancipated minds the country was not open to a cosmopolitan approach towards life. Technology and its dramatic innovations were yet to influence the lives of Indian people.

One wonders, had scientific advancements reduced the distances and narrowed the differences between nations of the world in the forties like they have done today would Roy have succeeded in making his points clear to the Indian masses in a better way through means of modern social media? The answer is definitely ‘yes’.

One can provide evidence that Roy was a philosopher with contemporary relevance by citing the following two examples, one from the past and the other from the present.

It was in June 1974, (twenty years after Roy’s death on 25th January 1954) when his idea of forming People’s Committees at the grass-root level, giving

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them power to legislate, opine and vote on issues of personal and national importance as well as to recall the erring members of legislatures, thus, rendering political parties useless (all described, in detail, in his Draft Constitution of Free India) was picked up by Jai Prakash Narayan in his concept of Total Revolution and this time the youth rose to the occasion. It was that new generation of Indians which had not been directly reared in the pathos of foreign or inland monarchic slavery. It was that new age group which had gathered self-confidence by learning to exert its political rights in an independent sovereign state and had also begun to compare its own conditions with the political developments in other parts of this world. Rapid growth and advancement in the communication technology also helped them do so. Naturally, when Roy talked of this kind of confidence in the minds of people two decades earlier, people failed to recognize his reason. He was much ahead of his times and because he refused to compromise with the scientifically irrational or ethically unsound tenets of practical politics being practiced then he paid a heavy cost of being neglected by both the political leaders and the common masses. He failed to gain either’s attention to become a populist leader of the masses. And honestly therefore, Indian history had to pay a heavy cost for this disregard of his farsightedness.

Taking the second example from the present, after sixty years of Roy’s absence from the scene, a new movement and party AAP has once again, taken refuge in the goodwill and consensus of mohalla samitees, a term again being equated with Roy’s concept of People’s Committees.

There are some, from the Radical Humanist group, who are desperate, once again, as they were during JP’s movement to claim appreciation and advantage from this new development of the so-called masses’ party, AAP. But, I beg to differ with them. J.P.’s clarion call for a ‘total revolution’ and AAP’s ‘mohalla samittees’ consensus’ both are missing the major basic tenet

of Roy’s radical humanist party-less democracy: the ‘inculcation of values of renaissance and reformation in the citizens’ minds’. What to talk of the common man these values were missing even in most of the leaders of J.P.’s movement. And see to what level they have brought the Indian political scene!

I wrote in my editorial of the January 2014 issue of The Radical Humanist and I repeat it here that the ‘educators are still not properly educated’. Those who are approaching the people in the mohallas are still not clear about the humanist concepts of politics and philosophy. They have, so far, not suggested ways out of sectarian, caste and class based regional and religious politics. They themselves do not seem to have, hitherto, risen above these divisions. They are yet not rational in their approach. But the irony is that they are expecting the voter in the mohallas to maintain a scientific attitude and an enlightened awareness and suggest ways of his amelioration himself. The situation is very grim. It is just like asking a child to take charge of a speeding train in his own hands.

Chaos and anarchy will definitely let loose because the traditional feudal government bosses are impatiently waiting for this turn of events to disprove the concept of participatory democracy in India challenging the ability and maturity of the voters to do so.

Roy’s expectations of ushering in a scientific renaissance and rational reasoning in the minds of people, as a prerequisite of true democracy of and by the ethically emancipated people, is still nowhere to be seen.

Some may say that Roy would have made improvements and alterations in his own line of thought and action had he been present today because he did not categorically suggest solutions to the problems of corruption in politics and administration. Anyone who would have gone through his vast writings on the ill-effects of communism, parliamentary democracy and the menace of political parties would not blame him for

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omitting the hazards of corruption in power politics. He wrote ruthlessly and extensively since the beginning of Indian independence struggle on these issues, even at the time when India was basking in the glory of following a Westminster model of representative democracy. He had, in all his manuscripts, published or still waiting in the national archives in New Delhi to be published (the most famous of them – ‘Philosophical Consequences of Modern Science’) claimed that political morality is the only solution for the modern human crisis. One may read with benefit M.N. Roy’s books like New Humanism – A Manifesto, Beyond Communism, Politics Power and Parties, New Orientation, Materialism, From Savagery to Revolution, Revolution & Counter revolution in China, Reason, Romanticism and Revolution, Scientific Politics, Science and Superstition, Men I met, his Memoirs and The Historical Role of Islam.

We live in an age where production is sumptuous but distribution is still partial; where science has conquered irrationality but religion is still propagating myths and superstitions and where technology has brought humanity closer but nationalism is still instigating wars and terrorism.

Philosophers and thinkers have contributed to the

refinement of human knowledge; science and technology have given facilities of comfort and ease to human existence but frauds and deceptions have always tried to spoil true human progress in all areas of the world’s living humanity. Roy’s principle of ethical-politics and rational-social morality seems to be the only solution for the salvation of contemporary human strife.

The above write-up has been translated in Telugu

by Sri Jawaharlal Jasthi (Veteran Rationaslist & Radical Humanist from Hyderabad) for the Telugu Daily Andhra Jyoti on the occasion of the 60th Death Anniversary of Roy on 25th January 2014 at: http://amzjyothyach.pressmart.com/PUBLICATIO NS/AJ/AJYOTHY/2014/01/25/ArticleHtmls/250120 14006011.shtml?Mode=1 It is on Lohia Today Website at: http://www.lohiatoday.com/CurrentAffairs/A_PHI LOSOPHER.pdf And it is published in an abridged formin Hans India at: http://epaper.thehansindia.com/PUBLICATIONS/T HEHANSINDIA/THI/2014/01/25/ArticleHtmls/Rele vance-of-MN-Roy-25012014007027.shtml?Mode=1

It is being reproduced here as an editorial for the readers of RH, all of whom may not necessarily be Radical Humanists.

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Yet, the martial victories of the followers of the Arabian Prophet were the prelude to a more magnificent and lasting performance in the social and cultural fields. They only created the conditions for political unity which opened up an era of economic prosperity and spiritual progress.

The stupendous ruins of the Roman and the Persian Empires had to be cleared away so that a new social order could rise with new ideas and new ideals. The dark superstition of the Magian mysticism and the corrupt atmosphere of the Greek Church vitiated the spiritual life of the subjects of the decrepit Persian and Byzantine Empires rendering all moral and intellectual progress impossible. The severe monotheism of Mohammad wielded the formidable scimitar of the Saracen not only to destroy the profane idolatry of the Arabian tribes; it also proved to be the invincible instrument of history for freeing a considerable section of mankind from the evil spirit of Zoroaster as well as from degenerate Christianity given to the superstition of miracle-mongering, to the deadly disease of monasticism and to the idolatrous worship of Saints. The amazing achievements of Saracen arms only prove that they were wielded in the service of history – for the progress of humanity.

The rich spiritual legacy of the glorious civilisation of ancient Greece was almost buried under the dreary ruins of the Roman Empire, and lost in the darkness of Christian superstition. The grand mission of rescuing the invaluable patrimony, which eventually enabled the people of Europe to emerge from the depressing gloom of the holy middle-ages and build the marvellous monument of modern civilisation, belonged to the Saracen arms, and to the socio-political structure erected on the basis of Islamic Monotheism. The sword of Islam, wielded ostensibly in the service of God, actually contributed to the victory of a new social force- the blossoming of a new intellectual life- which eventually dug the grave of all religions and faiths.

Islam rose rather as a political movement than a religion in the strictest sense of the word. In the

From The Writings of M.N. Roy:

BOOK: Historical Role of Islam Chapter Two:The Mission of Islam Contd. from the last issue....... ulgar interpreters of the Islamic history lay stress upon its military achievements either to praise or to deprecate its far reaching revolutionary significance. If the undoubtedly brilliant military conquests of the Saracens were the only measure of the historical role of Islam, then it would not be a unique historical phenomenon. The depredations of the barbarians of Tartary and Scythia (Goths, Huns, Vandals, Avars, Mongols etc.) approximated, if not equalled or excelled, their military accomplishments. But there is a vast difference between the tidal waves that occasionally rolled over West, South and East, from the borderland of Europe and Asia, and the Arabic eruption of religious frenzy. Like tidal waves the former rolled on in their cataclysmic greatness, only to subside, sooner or later, having distributed death and destruction far and wide. The latter, on the contrary, was an abiding historical phenomenon, which ushered in a brilliant chapter of the cultural annals of mankind. Destruction was only a subsidiary part of its mission. It pulled down the played-out old, to construct a necessary new. It demolished the holy edifices of the Caesars and the Chosroes, only to rescue from their impending ruin the accumulated treasures of human knowledge, to preserve and multiply them for the benefit of posterity.

The prodigious feats of the Saracen horsemen are not the only distinctive feature of Islam. They simply captivate our attention which must marvel at them, and impel us to search out and admire the causes of such a tremendously dynamic historical phenomenon. The miraculous performance of the ‘Army of God’ usually dazzled the vision and the more magnificent achievements of the Islamic revolution are seldom known to the average student of history, even if he be a follower of Mohammad.

V

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initial stages of its history, it was essentially a call for the unity of the nomadic tribes inhabiting the Arabian Desert. Upon its speedy realization, the politico-religious Unitarian doctrine became the flag under which the Asiatic and the African provinces of the Roman Empire survived the dissolution of the antique social order. The previous revolt had miscarried itself. Christianity had lost its original revolutionary fervour becoming, on the one hand, the ideology of social dissolution (Monasticism), and a prop for the decaying Empire, on the other.

— Contd.

[Publisher’s Note: This book, first published in 1939, was written when Roy was in jail in the early thirties under a sentence of twelve years rigorous imprisonment, later reduced to six, for ‘conspiring

to deprive’ the king-Emperor of his sovereignty in India. Looking back at events in the intervening period, one might wish that this book had been read more widely in the decade before the Indian sub-continent became independent and at the same time partitioned into two States. A better knowledge and more objective understanding of the history of Islam on the part of Muslim as well as non-Muslim India might have prevented much of the later tragic developments and human suffering.

But it is never too late for knowledge and understanding to undo the harm that the lack of them has done. Hence, this small book on the historical role of Islam, in East and West, may itself have a historical role to play, apart from its intrinsic value as a scholarly treatise, beautifully written, on a fascinating chapter of human history.]

An Appeal to the Readers Indian Renaissance Institute has been receiving regular requests from readers, research scholars, Rationalists and Radical Humanists for complete sets of books written by M.N. Roy. It was not possible to fulfil their demands as most of Roy's writings are out of print. IRI has now decided to publish them but will need financial assistance from friends and well-wishers as the expenses will be enormous running into lakhs. IRI being a non-profit organization will not be able to meet the entire expenses on its own. Initially, following 15 books have been ordered for print: New Humanism; Beyond Communism; Politics, Power and Parties; Historical Role of Islam; India’s Message; Men I Met; New Orientation; Materialism; Science & Philosophy; Revolution and Counter-revolution in China; India in Transition; Reason, Romanticism and Revolution; Russian Revolution; Selected Works-Four Volumes; Memoirs (Covers period1915-1923).

Cheques /bank drafts may be sent in the name of ‘Indian Renaissance Institute’ at (address): Shri B.D. Sharma, Advocate, Chamber No.111 (Old), Supreme Court, New Delhi-110001 Online donations may be sent to: ‘Indian Renaissance Institute’ Account No: 02070100005296; FISC Code: UCBA0000207 UCO Bank, Supreme Court Branch, New Delhi (India) We make an earnest appeal to you to please donate liberally for the cause of the spirit of renaissance and scientific thinking being promoted in the writings of M.N. Roy. Thanking you B.D. Sharma N.D. Pancholi, Narottam Vyas President (IRI) Secretary (IRI) Treasurer (IRI) A note of Appreciation and Thanks: We have received the following a donation from our veteran Radical Humanist: Mr. Somayya Ravela - Rs. 10,000/—Rekha Saraswat

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resultant gloomy silence all over. The death of malnourished babies and the orphans in different parts of the country was never a public issue. Then, who are the lowest of the lowly in this great Karmabhumi of 125 million people. Everyone is sacred, but there are few who are profane and despicable, may be due to their past karma. What we the mortal humans can do except dreaming and praying for their sins in temples, churches etc.

Therefore, agendas of the political parties have no place for them except for those who can contribute or reciprocate. The term poor are moved out and Aam Admi is taken its place. Now CM Kejriwal has clarified that Aam Admi need not necessarily be a poor man as there are many good people among the rich corporate. It is now simple to locate the lowly as those who are beggars, wretched of the earth, the asocial people as in Europe, ex-criminals, ex-untouchables, tramps, traipses, vagabonds and several other names given in the English dictionary. Interestingly, India is not short of such categories, we have structurally and philosophically developed sorts that have been surviving here for ages without much modification.

The history of man is full of stories of rebellious movements against injustice and tyranny starting from Spartacus down to French, Russian revolutions and many anonymous engagements in different parts of the world. Yet, most of the movements and struggles are carried in the name of the lowest of the lowly in every generation with the subaltern remaining as a residue. This number has remained substantial in India due to our social norms and religious/spiritual practices. Therefore, we have a scheduled caste community today in Bihar surviving only by eating dead or hunting rats called as Musahar. Bhangi or their equivalent names in different parts of the country are the people who eke out their living by carrying the night soil on their heads not only in the remote rural areas but in urban regions and in the so called secular sectors like the Railways. They are not few and to the amazement of our executive, they are in millions as per the Safai Karmachari Andolan.

Guests' Section:

Dreams of Lowest of the Lowly Subaltern!

—K.S. Chalam is an age of dreams. Everyone starting This from the former President of India down to the current Presidents of various business groups prod the young Indians to dream. The activists in Delhi are dreaming to put an AAP man in the PM chair and different social groups particularly in Andhra Pradesh are dreaming to capture political power. Perhaps the hallucinations of intelligent people with media (print and Electronic) support of late are becoming dream projects for many. Yet, none of them has given sufficient and reasonable indications as to how to realize the dreams in the absence of resources and opportunities. Prof K. Ramakrishan Rao of Andhra University was the first in the country to establish a dream lab in the Psychology Department to study telepathy and dreaming. Now dream labs are a big business venture both in USA and India.

The young and opulent sections narrate stories how they realized their dreams while the devious experts colour them. We have hundreds of books in the market explaining the rags to riches stories of some individuals without telling us the frauds and tricks that they employed. This seems to be a tactic to put on the back burner the traditional methods of perspective planning to achieve set goals of an economy or society followed in all civilized nations at one time. The present fad for dreams looks like a process of change from scientific planning to vision documents and presently landing in a dream circle. However, it is not in any way close to what Martin Luther King Jr. spoke 50 years ago in 1963 against “the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination” (I have a dream).

This brings us to the circumstances under which the most desolate babies of Muslim refugees in Muzaffarnagar camps are dead (40) and the

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Strangely, we have untouchables among the Brahmins who do the menial jobs and pretakarmas of the upper castes and are not equal to that of the priests of temples (rich) dreaming to enter mainstream. Thus, it is difficult to identify the lowest subaltern. The Planning Commission and our colleagues in the profession are busy in churning out the number of poor to be limited to 30 per cent of the total population (to satisfy MDGs).

But, one committed civil servant (retired) placed the number around 50 per cent for the Ministry of Rural Development. Then who are they and where do we locate them? It is reported that 80 to 85 per cent of Adivasis in Jharkhand, Odissa, Chattisgarh and parts of Andhra Pradesh (isolated) live below the poverty line. Majority of them eat tamarind and mango seeds, tubers etc during summer or drought spells and have developed indigenous methods of animal instinct to survive. The experts sitting in Columbia and Delhi have decided that the body mass index has undergone a change and therefore Indians do not need the minimum of 2100 and 2400 calories of food per day in urban and rural areas respectively. They have elegantly demonstrated in their international publications that liberalization has reduced poverty in India and there is no place for the lowly. Perhaps this has impelled some of our civil society activists to concentrate on corruption (not private frauds under liberalization) that is inhibiting public provisioning. Some left and radical groups(parties) have been addressing the oppressed class for the last several decades and seemed to have failed to locate them yet, while the AAP smiled at AamAdmi.AAP have a national

agenda now and the left and socialist outfits will be soon made redundant to lick their wounds of rhetoric.

Women and the differentially able particularly from the socially disadvantaged groups are subjected to double marginalisation. The nation has suddenly woken up to discover that US has outraged the modesty of Dalit Devayani but, the civil society never troubled to look at 33655 crimes against dalits and 244270 women victims in 2012 (CRB). Several traditional occupations of the ostracized groups like fisher folk, weavers and even professional dancers are appropriated by others making original artisans jobless, dribbling in silence. The number of roof less victims succumbing to cold waves has made the apex court to pass an order for night shelters. There is suffering and anguish no doubt, among the middle classes and even the rich in getting safe drinking water, sufficient parks, sparkled roads, enough flights to roam about, sufficient Demat securities etc. But, the misery and desolation of the indigent paupers are so grave that the compassionate should appeal to the political class to pay some attention to the woes of the lowly who are everywhere, from remote jungles to urban slums, city pavements etc.

In the absence of feign service or even crocodile tears before elections, the lowest of the lowly who constitute 50 per cent of the official poor( 30 crores) have no alternative except dreaming for a future deliverance. Is there anyone to heed or at least glimpse at them in the melee of triumph of common man?

M.N. Roy remembered on Lok Sabha T.V. in 'A Page on History' Lok Sabha TV, in its weekly show titled "A Page on History" showed a discussion on M.N.Roy at 8 PM on Monday, 3rd. Feb. 2014, anchored by Mr. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.

The show was also shown at 4 AM and 11 AM on Tuesday, 4th February and on Friday 7th February in the morning.

Participants included Prof. Subrata Mukherjee, Prof. Rakesh Batabyal (JNU) and Sri. N.D. Pancholi.

It brought out some of the important aspects of M.N. Roy's contribution to the communist and then humanist movements.

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Birth Pangs of Swaraj —Uday Dandavate Kejriwal’s disruptive approach to Arwind reimagining India’s democracy has generated a major controversy in India. The extent of this controversy can be gauged by a sense of alarm expressed by President Pranab Mukherjee’s in his republic day address where he warned, “Populist anarchy cannot be a substitute for governance”.

The term ‘anarchy’ refers to a society without a publicly enforced government. Used in this sense, anarchy may or may not be intended to imply political disorder or lawlessness within a society.

Many anarchists have challenged attitudes similar to the one expressed in President Mukherjee’s address that anarchy is synonymous with ‘civil war’.

What has escaped media attention is that there are forms of anarchy that attempt to avoid the use of coercion, violence, force and authority, while still producing a productive and desirable society.

Gandhi’s concept of Swaraj is essentially an example of anarchy without coercion, violence, force and authority.

Swaraj warrants a stateless society; according to Gandhi, the overall impact of the state on the people is harmful. He called the state a “soulless machine” which, ultimately, does the greatest harm to mankind. The raison d’etre of the state is that it is an instrument of serving the people. But Gandhi feared that in the name of molding the state into a suitable instrument of serving people, the state would abrogate the rights of the citizens and arrogate to itself the role of grand protector and demand abject acquiescence from them. This would create a paradoxical situation where the citizens would be alienated from the state and at the same time enslaved to it which according to Gandhi was demoralizing and dangerous.

The politician-police-criminal nexus Arwind Kejriwal was protesting against is in fact the anti-people 10

manifestation of the state Gandhi had in mind. It is not surprising therefore that while mainstream media and some civil liberties and women’s rights groups have focused on Somnath Bharati’s behavior in allegedly leading a mob for a raid on alleged peddlers of drugs and sex trade racket in the Khirki area of Delhi, the local residents are coming out in support of Somnath Bharati’s actions and AAP’s exposing the nexus between the Delhi police and the criminals.

I want to further add that the claims of African women have not been verified yet. The videos from the media and those released by the AAP do not support the claims of the women that Bharati led a mob or an assault on them. The matter must be investigated through independent and impartial judicial inquiry. Most local citizens attribute police’s refusal to follow Somnath Bharati’s orders to connivance between the police and local drug and sex trade. If, through proper inquiry Somnath Bharati or other people are proved guilty, they should face the legal consequences. Regardless of the outcome of the inquiry moral leadership and disciplined management of crowds is needed in grass roots activism.

In March 1918, Gandhiji led a Satyagraha for peasants of Kheda. While in April, he appealed for a nationwide hartal protecting the enactment of the barbarous Rowlatt Act. However violence broke out and for the first time Gandhiji had to suspend the Satyagraha calling it a Himalayan miscalculation. In 1920, Gandhiji was elected the president of the All India Home Rule League. He urged a resolution for Satyagraha campaign of non co-operation. Gandhiji decided upon an experiment of mass civil disobedience at Bardoli in 1922. He had to suspend the campaign owing to the outbreak of violence at Chauri Chaura. Gandhiji realized that a peaceful agitation could only be led by trained Satyagrahis. As the Aam Aadmi party pursues its mission towards replacing the current corrupt system of governance with a participatory model, it needs to engage resources in training its cadres and leaders in the morality, legality and

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discipline of bringing about change. I would consider Somnath Bharati case an aberration in a movement that is genuinely reflecting the frustrations and aspirations of millions of suffering Indians who see in the current political establishment an exploitative machine and an era of slavery that needs to be disbanded and replaced with a more participatory form of governance.

In his thesis “Hind Swaraj” Gandhi has clarified, “In South Africa. I came in contact with every known Indian anarchist in London. Their bravery impressed me, but I feel that their zeal was misguided. I felt that violence was no remedy for India’s ills and that her civilization required the use of a different and higher weapon for self-protection”.

Gandhi was a mass leader, a visionary, and had the capacity to invent symbols that would capture mass imagination and inspire people with a vision of a non-violent revolution. He inspired popular imagination by organizing Salt Satyagraha, inventing Charkha, propagating use of Khadi. He introduced into the popular vernacular concepts such as Satyagraha, Harijan and of course- Swaraj.

Even his recommendation to make Mohamed Ali Jinnah the first prime minister of undivided India was a symbolic masterstroke that did not go well with the congress leadership.

The core of Gandhi’s vision resonated with the concept of anarchy. Being an expert in semantics, he was able to lend a positive affordance to the idea of anarchy by calling it Swaraj. Driving an entire nation towards an anarchist utopia required the moral stature, mass reverence, organizational discipline and conceptual palatability. Gandhi’s genius in crafting narratives could alone make anarchy palatable to the nation’s imagination.

The concept of Swaraj is also echoed in the idea of convivial society envisioned by another anarchist, Ivan Illich. In his book Tools for Conviviality (1973) Ivan Illich envisioned a modern society of responsibly limited tools. Illich believed that, “Scientific discoveries can be used in at least two

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opposite ways. The first leads to specialization of functions, institutionalization of values and concentration of power and turns people into accessories of bureaucracies or machines. The second enlarges the range of each person’s competence, control and initiative, limited only by other individuals’ claims to an equal range of power and freedom”. Illich believes that in a convivial society, “People will rediscover the value of joyful sobriety and liberating austerity only if they relearn to depend on each other rather than on energy slaves.”

German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s description of four types of governance explains anarchy in relation to other forms of government. 1. Law and freedom without force (anarchy), 2. Law and force without freedom (despotism), 3. Force without freedom and law (barbarism), and 4. Force with freedom and law (republic). AAP’s vision of Swaraj, contrary to the media projection DOES NOT subscribe to either despotism or barbarism. It aims at replacing the republic of India with Swaraj, where self-rule could be established without requiring the force of the government.

The recent agitation in Delhi has brought to the surface establishment’s panic reaction to the idea of Swaraj because it threatens control being currently welded by established political class and challenges their established methods of winning elections and governance. First of all, compared to many other street agitations, the agitation in Delhi was of a much smaller scale and a lot less threatening to the government. It is not unusual for political parties to engage in mass agitations to turn public opinion against the government of the time.

To proclaim that the decision with regard to bringing police under the command of Delhi government should have been discussed and resolved within the chambers of Delhi assembly or in consultation with the central government, and that the AAP was wrong in resorting to agitations is hypocritical of the Congress and the BJP. Agitations are necessary for forcing governments

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to open their eyes to pressing issues faced by people.

Jayprakash Narayan gave a call for Total Revolution in response to Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s totalitarian and corrupt rule. Sensing her predisposition to assume absolute power he even went to the extent of appealing to the armed forces to disregard her orders if she ordered them to resort to violence against the opposition. At the time, the congress government accused JP of treason.

However, within a few weeks of this accusation, Mrs. Gandhi proved JP right by imposing a state of emergency and pushing India into a period of autocracy.

After the Janata Party Government assumed power, Sanjay Gandhi initiated back door manipulations to bring about a split in the Janata Party. At the same time, he resorted to street agitations to revitalize a demoralized congress party.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Ram Janmabhoomi movement, especially the march to Ayodhya which led to demolishing of the Babri Masjid, is another example of a party resorting to the streets, and engaging in a criminal act (unlike the demonstration by Kejriwal in Delhi) to capture power. While the AAP has the ultimate goal of transcending the vote bank politics with participatory democracy where every individuals regardless of his/her religion, caste, creed, color or gender had equal opportunity to participate in governance, both the BJP and the Congress party have gone to the extent of presiding over genocide (in 1984 and 2002) of minorities in order to consolidate power. In my view AAP’s approach to Swaraj shows greater promise, over the discredited political class against which the youth have risen in response to the call for change first by Anna Hazare and then by the AAP. Some people suggest that

Arwind Kejriwal is taking India back. That he is bringing back socialist ideologies at a time when India has already embraced Liberalization and Globalization under successive UPA and NDA governments. The truth is- the suffering masses in India, even those from urban India, are flocking to AAP because they find India’s democracy being subverted to the interests of commercial enterprise in the era of liberalization and local capacities being undermined. Corruption has continued to grow while the new symbols of prosperity- Malls and Global Brands- induce people to follow their greed.

The youth is behind the AAP because they have a different worldview. They are not indoctrinated by old ideologies. They care less about vote bank politics. They have access to the Internet and have got accustomed to the Open Source model of contributing their own ideas for a larger good.

Crowd sourcing has become a reliable method of finding patterns in people’s needs and aspirations, more reliable than any expert opinion. In this background the youth are less loyal to centralized control and delivery mechanism and more tuned into the fuzzy space of collaboration and co-creation. Eric Schmidt, Founder of Google describes this phenomenon as “The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had”.

Anarchy works. It will challenge and disrupt the power centers but will unleash a new area of “Convivial Society” of Ivan Illich’s imagination and turn India into a Swaraj of Gandhi’s dreams.

The real opportunity for the AAP is to put in place an HR mechanism that can help guide the participants of this revolution with a moral, disciplined and inspiring framework.

M.N. Roy was remembered by Hans India, Hyderabad on 26th January 2014 on the occasion of his 60th Death Anniversary.The following URL covers the news: on page 2: http://epaper.thehansindia.com/PUBLICATIONS/THEHANSINDIA/THI/2014/01/26/ArticleHtmls/M-NRoy-remembered-26012014002002.shtml?Mode=1

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Current Affairs Section:

Indian Political Scene — Kuldip Nayar Political scene, even though Indian fractured and patchy, is acquiring a shape of sorts. The emergence of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), founded by NGOs, sneeringly called the johlawalas, has changed the scene. It has provided the much-needed alternative to the Congress and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) which are the same wine in two different old bottles.

Regional parties, which have a sway in the states, look like the biggest losers. Their appeal in the name of language, area or religion has lessened in effect. The success of the AAP in the Delhi assembly elections has hit the polarization the most that the party has transcended caste, creed and such other considerations.

When both Congress and the BJP admit that they have to learn from the way the AAP has come up, they should transform themselves. Yet they remain the citadels of status quo. Whether the AAP has the Marxists and Naxalites within its ranks does not matter as long as they are in tune with the people’s aspirations. Ultimately, the test is how soon the AAP eliminates poverty which encompasses half of India’s population even after 67 years of independence.

One thing sure is that the Left has been trampled upon mercilessly. It is a loss, no doubt. But the communists and the nascent Socialist Party have to blame themselves because they are no more tethered to the grassroots. Espousing the cause of progress and egalitarianism cannot be confined to slogans or rhetoric. The AAP has come out with an agenda and time frame for uplifting the lower half.

When the communists could not improve the quality of life in West Bengal in their 35-year-old rule, they have proved that the Marxism of their type is only a veneer of progress. Scratch their skin, 13

they are found part of the establishment. What they could not do—arouse the poor to have their say—for decades, the AAP promised to do in about 12 months.

The two main parties, Congress and BJP, are like mahants in temples. They have learnt nothing, forgotten nothing. Instead of correcting their policies, they consider the AAP an aberration or a bubble which will burst by the time the Lok Sabha elections are held this April.

They are mistaken because the party has caught the imagination of the people and it has spread like a wild fire. Lakhs of people who have joined the AAP show that.

The manner in which the wave of Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, has waned indicates that he does not command the crowd he once did although media continues to play him up.

That is the reason why the RSS is frantically telling the BJP to stop the AAP, not the Congress, which has been its opponent for years. The attack by the leaders on every step the AAP takes in governing Delhi confirms the perception that the Congress has slipped to the third position.

The Congress has reportedly come to the conclusion that it should unofficially support the AAP to stall Modi. It also means that the Congress has realized that it cannot come back to power. In fact, it may try to marshal the different parties in the states along with its own strength in support of AAP to form the government at the centre.

The Congress will leave no stone unturned to keep Modi out of power. The most disturbing aspect of political scene is the corruption. Both the Congress and the BJP, the latter especially, have no hesitation in getting the support of tainted leaders.

The Congress refuses to take action against Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbadhra Singh who allegedly favoured a company in which his relations have a large number of shares. Modi, otherwise talking about cleanliness in public life, retains in his cabinet a minister who has been convicted by the court. Both Bihar’s Lalu Yadav

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and Rashid Masood of the Congress ceased to be members of parliament as soon as they were convicted.

Why the BJP is shielding the convicted members in Modi’s government in Gujarat? Another disturbing feature visible is the personality cult. The democratic polity is sought to be changed to the presidential form.

Modi is to blame the most because he has raised the slogan of a strong man and a strong government. A ruler, who presided over the massacre of his own citizens some 12 years ago, can be dangerous to the dissent that the constitution guarantees.

It is not surprising, however shocking it is, that the police refused to register a First Information Report (FIR) against Modi at Ahmedabad. The snooping scandal which implicates Modi in having a girl under surveillance raises many questions. An FIR is in order to determine the truth. A centre-appointed commission may be able to dig it out. But the state machinery is not willing to cooperate, as is obvious from the attitude of the local police.

The Congress should have seen through Modi’s game to convert the 2014 elections into a clash of

personalities, not of issues. But the party is guilty of projecting Rahul Gandhi as if the contest is between the two. Rahul Gandhi is too often speaking on important policy matters and having the government’s decision reversed. One example is that of the ordinance to save politicians from the Supreme Court judgment that a legislator would cease to be member once he is convicted.

Yet another issue is that of the housing scandal in Maharashtra. Rahul Gandhi has partly retrieved the Adarsh Housing report which was rejected by the Congress-led government in the state. Still the politicians have gone scot-free. Only bureaucrats will have to bear the brunt.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal should realize that the AAP government is not coterminous with him. Strange, he retains 16 departments. The Janata Party in the wake of a movement by Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan did not last. But it saw to it that there would be no emergency. Democracy was deeply entrenched. If the AAP could clean the system and makes sure that it stays that way, this will be a great contribution even if the AAP does not last.

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IRHA / IRI Members' Section:

Whither Radical Democratic State: Debating Within —Ajit Bhattacharya I enaissance and People’s Committees, the two main pillars of a Radical Democratic State should be discussed in the context of our role during the last 70 years of their formulation.

First I would like to tell why I was attracted to the thoughts of M.N. Roy. In the undergraduate course the author of Political Science concluded that Roy’s ideas may not be accepted before two hundred years. Such a futuristic evaluation attracted me to the fold of the Calcutta group of Radical Humanists. Fifty years have passed since then but to my utter surprise, I found that most of the professed Radical Humanists, except late Justice V.M. Tarkunde, succumbed to that prophesy.

M.N. Roy was deserted by his first camp followers if not during his last days but certainly after his death. Though in no way comparable to Roy, the bright young scholars who gathered around Roy in the Indian Renaissance Institute, Dehradun, could have turned it into a University of excellence.

Instead, they dispersed in search of ready careers.

They returned one by one, mostly after retirement.

By then they lost their prime youth and their past glory. They were men of half love, half conviction and half understanding. (“adhokhani bhalobasa, adhobiswase, adhoparichoy”— Rabindranath Tagor.)

Renaissance: M.N. Roy planned a new Renaissance. But neither European nor Indian Renaissance was planned. It occurred as a cascading effect. Thus migration of Greek scholars and texts especially to Florence and other Italian cities following the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1452 started the new European Renaissance. Actually Florence with its political structure, its dominant family, the

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Medici’s patronage made possible the rise of the polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo who inspired the term “Renaissance Man”.

Political and State and individual patronage led inventive men to make new tools like compass and metallic printing press enabled rapid spread of education and knowledge triggering what is called Renaissance. Likewise in the early 19th century European Missionaries under William Carry started metallic printing press at Serampur near Calcutta. Indian polymaths, Raja Rammohan Roy and Pandit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar utilized the printing press and ushered in the Bengal Renaissance. But owing to half-hearted patronage by the State spread of education was slow and so was the new awaking. My point is that without political backup full flowering Renaissance cannot take place. We can have it done in two ways. One, by direct participation in politics and power game, the other, by playing Upogupta. Tarkunde tried the second. With Jayprakash Narayan he was able to oust the Chandasokas for the time being but alas| there were no devanam Priya Priyadarshi Asokas.

So he failed.

People’s Committees: We have never tried the guide lines of people’s committees ourselves. Have we cared to give pyramidal structures to our own units? Have we ever run the preliminaries? Are we chosen by the lowest ranks? Are we not, in appearance at least serving group interest?

Roy’s idea of ‘organized democracy’ defeats its own goal - freedom of the ‘atomized individual’.

What does ‘Collective efforts of spiritually free men’ signify? No collective can think as M.N. Roy knew better. ‘Collective efforts’, ‘pyramidal structure’, ‘People’s Committees’ and planning are of Leninist origin. The Soviets ruthlessly crushed the Russian people for 70 years. I do not mean that Roy’s underlying ideas were wrong. But they are mostly futuristic.

It is no use condemning Indian electoral game from outside the ring. It is not always good to be wiser than the participating millions of voters.

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II

Resurrecting M.N. Roy though, M. N. Roy’s thoughts Byhaveproxyat last started to be experimented with. The approach and practice of the Aam Aadmi Party are not strictly speaking Royists, but are eloquent enough to refer to M.N. Roy. Local preliminaries to select M. L. candidates for election to the Delhi Assembly, mini referendum for entering in the Government, the vigorous anticorruption drive are in the footsteps of Roy, though not prominent. Now the other power mongers are forced to follow. Rahul Gandhi has already declared that only locally accept persons with clean images will be allowed contest in the coming Lock Sabha election.

But why had we to wait till this 60th year of his death? Firstly our begging was not in good taste.

Roy completed the formulation of the 22-Thesis in1946. His younger comrades delayed the announcement for two reasons. One was to put some words of their own in the original draft. The second was to coincide with the centenary of the declaration of the Communist Manifesto in 1948.

Also the attempted naming of the Scientific Humanism as Humanist Manifesto was not proper.

Though Roy was in no way less qualified than any other great thinker, this type of re-making and mimicry do not go well with the people.

The initial euphoria started to die down with the gradual desertions of the early admirers. The simultaneous dissolution of the Radical Democratic Party and the Indian Federation of Labour only compounded the confusion of the ordinary followers numbering over half a million.

Roy wanted to wait for at least another year so that a gradual winding up may be under taken. But the decision was taken at leadership level. A call for grass root democracy through peoples’ committees was thus ignored by the people themselves. The absurdity still lingers on.

Frontal attacks on religious prejudices are certainly

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long overdue. But that should not be based on half truth and popular misconceptions. The Vrigu story is an example where Roy repeated the popular misreading. The story does not belong to the Ajibakas or to the Charbakas. It belongs to the Puranas which do not place man above God. Tirupati literatures tell the whole story. Roy’s writings, specially his Materialism contain a few such half truths which unnecessarily hurt common people. His mantle bearers could not always keep their tempers and required sense of humility which also drove away many prominent and common Royists.

Roy’s outrage against both the Quit India Movement and the Azad Hind Fauj under Subhas Chandra Bose were mainly subjective. He had no knowledge of classified information. So he failed to give due respect to both Mahatma Gandhi and Netaj. Indian Communists later corrected their positions. But we, the Radical Humanists, are in our self righteous mode, enabling others to highjack M. N. Roy’s ideas without any acknowledgement.

Traces of Marxian hang over are present in Roy’s thoughts which are not necessarily wrong. But where Roy differs from Marx is formulation of moral man. It is evidently clear that corruption cannot be effectively wiped out until man becomes moral.

Roy’s another contribution to political thoughts is his theory of empowering the ‘atomized individual’ through the pyramidal structure of people’s committees. It may be a Utopia. But participatory democracy may be approximated through smaller administrative State units. Thus, as reportedly suggested by late Rajiv Gandhi, the Districts or smaller units may be turned into Sates.

A group of such units may be federated into a Province under a joint Governor. Such Provinces would form a great Confederation of India. But we must not forget that a State is by nature coercive.

We have to tame it through democratic means.

—Ajit Bhattacharya

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Imperial Influence on Economics: The Marshallian Demand Curve — Dipavali Sen Marshallian Demand Curve remains, Theto date, the best-known concept in all Economics. It is to be found basically in Book III of Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics, titled “ON WANTS AND THEIR SATISFACTION”.

But does it owe some of its fame to the influence of the British Empire? Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) graduated in 1865 from Cambridge University, with high honours in Mathematics, and soon after became a lecturer at Cambridge in Mathematics.

But gradually his interests turned toward Political Economy. For a long time, he wrote but did not publish. Instead he showed his notes and manuscripts to his students at Oxford and Cambridge and took note of the critical comments they made. That is how in the 1870s and 1880s, the Principles of Economics evolved and was published in 1890. Subsequent volumes, Industry and Trade and Money, Credit and Commerce, were published in 1919 and 1923. Some letters and articles, edited by A.C. Pigou, were published in 1925 with a biographical outline by J.M. Keynes.

Marshall used verbal, diagrammatic as well as mathematical methods in his presentation. Stating that a “man” has “Desire” or “Want”, Marshall used the term Utility of a “thing” as “correlative to that Desire or Want” and stated what he termed “the law of satiable wants or of diminishing utility: “The total utility of a thing to anyone (that is, the total pleasure or other benefit it yields him) increases with every increase in his stock of it, but not as fast as his stock increases. If his stock of it increases at a uniform rate the benefit derived from it increases at a diminishing rate. In other words, the additional benefit which a person derives from a given increase of his stock of a thing diminishes with every increase in the stock that he already has.

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“That part of the thing which he is only just induced to purchase may be called his marginal purchase, because he is on the margin of doubt whether it is worth his while to incur the outlay required to obtain it. And the utility of his marginal purchase may be called the marginal utility of the thing to him. And thus the law just given may be worded: The marginal utility of a thing to anyone diminishes with every increase in the amount of it he already has.” (p 79) Marshall does not explain this but simply calls it a “familiar and fundamental tendency of human nature.” He expresses it in calculus terms in the Mathematical Appendix.

Marshall then says the law (of DMU, not Demand) has an “implicit condition”, namely, that “the character or tastes” of the man concerned does not undergo any “alteration. Now Marshall proceeds to “translate this law of diminishing utility into terms of price” (p 79), using tea as an example. The argument is as follows: Suppose p is 2 (s. per pound). He will buy another unit of x (tea) if and only if that has the MU of 2 (s per pound). But when he has bought that additional or marginal unit of x (tea), the MU of x (tea) will come down (by DMU).

MU of x will no longer be 2 (s per pound) but less (say, 1.5 or 12 pence). Now he will buy another unit only if p is also less and, in fact, exactly equal to the new, lower MU, (viz., 1.5 or 12 pence). That is, as the quantity (stock) of x (tea) rises, the price of x (tea) will fall. This is the famous negative or inverse relationship between quantity and price – as Marshall argued it out from the “law” of DMU. Marshall now turns to the concept of marginal utility of money. He had talked of “translating” utility into price. The means of this translation, i.e., the factor by which price (2 s a pound) is converted into utility terms is the marginal utility of a shilling to him, i.e., the “purchasing power” of a shilling to him. (This is the interpretation of the “lambda” or Lagrangean if we do the utility maximization exercise.) Marshall says that “at one and the same time, a person’s material resources being unchanged”, this is a “a fixed quantity” or a constant. This constancy of MUm enabled

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Marshall to go on to the next proposition: If there is another commodity, not just x (tea), then “the prices he is just willing to pay for two commodities are to one another in the same ratio as the utility of those two commodities.” This is what he says also in the Note II of his Appendix. This, of course, means that Marshall’s perception of commodities was that their utilities were independent of one another, such that the utility function was additive.

In other words, the cross partial derivatives were zero. (The naivete of this idea has been much discussed.) Now Marshall introduced the concept of a demand schedule and in a footnote (rather than in the body of the text), Marshall now showed how the demand schedule can be “translated” into a demand curve, individual demand curve as well as the market demand curve (the sum-total of individual demands) He said: “There is then one general law of demand: - The greater the amount to be sold, the smaller must be the price at which it is offered in order that it may find purchasers; or, in other words, the amount demanded increases with a fall in price, and diminishes with a rise in price.”

Then came the diagrammatic presentation, followed by the mathematical, which is the simplest of Utility maximization exercises, viz. max utility function U subject to a budget constraint px = m where the Lagrangean turns out to be the marginal utility of money. Alfred Marshall has been subjected to criticism on two broad counts The first revolves round the cardinality of utility which forms the basis of his demand curve and is a relatively well-known or obvious criticism. Marshall is faulted for assuming utility to be cardinally measurable which is clearly not realistic. It is this issue of measurability of utility that has led to further developments in the area, by Slutsky (1915), Hicks (1946) and who have built up the Ordinal Utility Theory, and Indifference Curve Analysis, and by Samuelson who (and Hicks) built up the even more radical Revealed Preference Analysis (1948). The second criticism is of his originality, and this is less obvious. Was the Marshallian demand curve 18

all-Marshallian? (a) Marshall is accredited with having the idea of demand and supply being the two determinants of price. But T.M. Humphrey(1992) has pointed out the very phrase “supply and demand” as determinants of price was used first by Sir James Steuart in 1767, and later by Adam Smith (11776119307: 56) in his Wealth of Nations and David Ricardo ([1817-Z 1 ] 1951) in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Ch.30.) (b) The diagram (as distinct from the idea)of supply curve and demand curve intersecting and determining price is also associated usually with Alfred Marshall. As Marshall had compared them to the twin blades of a pair of scissors, it is called “the Marshallian cross”. Humphrey says that long before Marshall, in 1838, Antoine-Augustin Cournot had originated it, and Karl Rau (184l), Jules Dupuit (1844), Hans von Mangoldt (1863), and Fleeming Jenkin (1870) had thoroughly developed it years before Marshall presented it in his Pure Theory of Domestic Values (1879) and later in his Principles of Economics (1890). (c)The idea of (Cardinal) Utility was not Marshall’s own. It was an idea traceable to Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). What is more, Marshall was not the first or only one to extend Bentham’s ideas.

F.Y. Edgeworth had done it in Mathematical Psychics: An Essay on the Application of Mathematics to the Moral Sciences and Metretike, or the Method of Measuring Probability and Utility (published in 1881 and 1887, respectively. i.e., before Marshall’s publication of the Principles in 1890).

Even the idea of DIMINISHING utility was not a novel idea of Marshall’s. As pointed out in Gilbert, Geis (p 162), and Bentham had it and used it to advocate public policies favoring more equitable distribution of wealth. As for the concept “marginal utility”, Marshall himself says in his footnote (p 79) that it was first used by the Austrian Wieser (as Grenz-nutz), and adopted by Wicksteed. Jevons too had taken it from Wieser and called it Final

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Utility or Final Degree of Utility. Gossen, Cournot and Dupuit had also adopted the concept. In his preface to the first edition, Marshall freely admitted being “guided” by Cournot’s thoughts. Marshall also said that he was “borrowing” the “terms” of the “Law of diminishing utility” from the Ricardian “law of diminishing returns from land.” (Ft. Note 1, p 79) (d) T.M. Humphrey (1992) has traced much of Marshall’s concept of Price Elasticity and analysis of Tax Incidence to thinkers who came before him, such as Cournot, Dupuit and Jenkins. (e) Marshall is also accredited with the introduction of the idea of Consumer’s Surplus. But Yew-Kwang Ng has pointed out that the concept had been originally formulated in 1850 by the French engineer J. Dupuit and that Marshall did not fully acknowledge Dupuit’s priority! Thus the Marshallian Demand curve is not all Marshall’s. It subsumes the works of several others. In 1954, Joseph Schumpeter wrote complaining of economists’ “uncritical habit of attributing to Marshall what should in the ‘objective’ sense, be attributed to others (even the Marshallian curve!)”

Schumpeter thought Marshall’s work is misperceived as the origin of the Demand curve analysis whereas it should be seen as the culmination. As pointed out by Philip Mirowski, Schumpeter called the period after 1885 ‘The Marshallian Age’ but said that: “...abroad, Marshall’s work never succeeded as had A. Smith’s….the economists of all countries who were open to economic theory at all had by 1890 evolved or accepted systems that, however inferior in technique, were substantially like Marshall’s in fundamental ideas.”(Schumpeter, 1954, pp 833-34, in Mirowski, p 62) But then why it is that Marshall’s is the name that is most directly associated with the Demand curve?

Why is it that it is not Cournot’s or anyone else’s demand curve but the Marshallian Demand curve?

As J. M. Keynes had said, Marshall’s predecessors (like Cournot) had simply had ‘bright ideas’;

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Marshall went beyond that (1925:1956:24).

Marshall wrote in a careful style that made good sense even to those who were not trained in the subject of economics. As pointed out earlier, even diagrams he used sparingly, and his examples were all drawn from everyday life. But the more important factor seems to me to be his background and his times.

(1) Cournot and Dupuit had been French, Wieser and Gossen German. The fact that Marshall was an Englishman and wrote in English was another important factor in his favour. Even his examples were typically English. (Tea, coffee, gas and electric lighting, beef and mutton, wallpaper, leather shoes, portmanteau bags).

(2) Marshall was a professor at Cambridge and elsewhere, for long years. He discussed his theories with his students (one of whom even became his wife and assisted him in his writing). Batch after batch learnt their economics from him and went out to take up teaching positions elsewhere. At one stage, all the important chairs in Economics in England were filled by Marshall’s students –Marshallians, that is. Dupuit who had been an engineer and Jevons, who had died early, had no such disseminators of their ideas. “Unlike Jevons, Marshall founded his own school, the so-called British or Cambridge school, with student prodigies such as A.C. Pigou and John Maynard Keynes.” (Skousen, p 201) As Austin Robinson says, in the early 1920s, the teaching of honours-level undergraduate economics in Cambridge was done either by professors like Pigou and Keynes who had been students of Marshall or by Hubert Henderson, Frederick Lavington, Gerald Shove, and Barbara Wootton who were students of Pigou whose creed was that ‘it is all in Marshall’(pp 1-2). Robinson termed Pigou’s legacy the “Marshallian orthodoxy” (pp 2-3). Thus Marshall belonged to a certain age and time and that had been an important factor helping his ideas to spread. In addition to acknowledging his predecessors in footnotes, Marshall had himself linked himself to what then were the new times and

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the new issues. In “Preface to the First Edition”, he wrote: “The present treatise is an attempt to present a modern version of old doctrines with the aid of the new work, and with reference to the new problems of our own age.” According to Austin Robinson, Marshallian thoughts had dominated Cambridge basically in the 1920s, and with the arrival of original thinkers like Pierro Sraffa, lost their grip. Cambridge itself became less important as a school of thought. Times changed and the small family firm no longer remained the dominant form of organization in the British economic system. Marshallian economics had been modeled on that and it now became out-of-date (Ibid, pp 4-5). Slutsky’s paper had been published as early as 1915, when the First World War was just a year old.

Hicks came out with War. Samuelson’s contribution came in 1948. In 1950, Frisch commented that Marshall’s work was not free of ‘shortcomings” (Frisch, 1950, p 495). In 1954 Schumpeter wrote of Marshall most critically (Schumpeter, 1954, pp 833-834). By the mid-fifties of the 19th century, Alfred Marshall’s standing was waning like that of the country to which he belonged, 1890 - 1900, going up to 1930s, were years the British Empire was in its full form.

Industrial Capitalism, characterized by market and money, had become mature. Not only Pax Britannica but the British system of education was spreading across the colonies. Such were Marshall’s times and Marshall’s fame may be due substantially to this factor. This is reinforced by the fact that critical attitudes and alternative theories came up only after the heyday of the British economy was past and the British Empire had started on its decline.

However Marshall never quite went out of either journals or textbooks. Despite the crumbling of the British Empire, the Marshallian Demand Curve stands firm in the Economics of former colonies such as India.

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References: Alchian, Armen. A,” The Meaning of Utility Measurement”, The American Economic Review, March-April 1950 Gilbert, Geis in Encyclopedia of Social Measurement, Vol.I, 2005), p 160, 162 Henderson and Quandt, Micro-economic Theory Humphrey, T.M., “Marshallian Cross Diagram and Their Uses before Alfred Marshall: The Origins of Supply and Demand Geometry”, Economic Review, March /April 1992.

Keynes, J. M., Memorials of Alfred Marshall, Ed. A.C. Pigou, London:Macmillan, 1925 (CHECK) Markowitz, H.M., JPE, 1952.

Marshall, Alfred, Principles of Economics, 1st edn.

1890, 8th edn, 1962, ELBS& Macmillan & Co Ltd, London.

Marshall. Alfred, “The Present Position of Economics”, 1885; reprinted in Memorials of Alfred Marshall, Ed. A.C. Pigou, London:Macmillan, 1925, pp 152-74.

Mirowski, Philip, “Smooth operator: how Marshall’s demand and supply curves made neoclassicism safe for public consumption but unfit for science”, ALFRED MARSHALL IN RETROSPECT, ed. Rita McWilliams Tullberg, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, England Pfouts, R.M. ‘A critique of some recent contributions to the theory of consumer’s surplus’, Southern Economic Journal, 19:315-33.65, 1953, p 316) Robinson, Austin, “Prologue Cambridge economics in the post-Marshallian period”, ALFRED MARSHALL IN RETROSPECT, ed.

Rita McWilliams Tullberg, Edward Elgar publishing Limited, Gower house, croft Road, Aldershot, hants GU 11 3HR, England Skousen, Mark, The Making of Modern Economics, published by M.E. Sharpe, pp 204-205 Yew-Kwang Ng in Welfare Economics Towards a More Complete Analysis (Palgrave Macmillan 2004, pp 65-66)

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D.R Mehta: The Man Behind Jaipur Foot —Namita S Kalla of us on this planet sweat blood in Most order to follow an ambition that drives us towards success and self-satisfaction. But not many have the audacity to deal with delicate issues that are concerned with the poor and the downtrodden. It is true that only a few fortunate and valiant persons choose the path that is loaded with misery. Such people intrude into the miseries of the poor and work towards clearing their despair with their sincere efforts. Mr. Devendra Raj Mehta, a retired IAS officer is one such man, a man of essence.

Born in June 1937 at Jodhpur, Mr.Devendra completed his schooling from Sardar School Jodhpur and later finished his graduation in Arts.

He further studied law from the Rajasthan University, Jaipur and went on to join the Royal Institute of Public Administration, London and Alfred Sloan School of Management, Boston (USA). Calling himself a failed Lawyer he became an officer in the IAS in 1961 and took up diverse responsible positions at both the State and the Central government. He has served as the collector of Barmer, Sikar and Jaisalmer and has also been the Secretary of the State government with positions in industries and mines. He remained the Secretary to the state Chief Minister twice. During his tenure with the state government, Devendra was also appointed as the Anti body Commissioner of Rajasthan to implement the novel scheme of the upliftment of the deprived. He also served as the Relief Commissioner of Rajasthan.

His other accomplishments include working as the Joint Secretary, Controller of Capital Issues and Additional Secretary, Banking in the ministry of Finance, the Chief Controller of Imports and Exports in the capacity of the Director General of the Foreign Trade during the time when the fundamental changes were introduced in the Exim

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policy of the country under the first financial reforms exercise in the country. In1992, he was appointed the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. It was then that the banking reforms were introduced to ensure the financial consolidation of the Indian banks. Further, in 1995, he took the charge as the Chairman of the Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). It was during his term that a swing of reformative actions were introduced in the SEBI, which included important policy changes and about 40 regulations in order to make the Indian Capital Market superior in the world. In 1969, when Mr. Devendra was the collector of Jaiselmer and was returning from a draught relief distribution, he met with a serious accident that almost cost him his leg. As destiny had it Devendra’s leg wasn’t surgically removed but the pain and inconvenience that he felt during that period made him realize the plight of the amputees. He then made up his mind to set up an NGO that would provide artificial limbs/calipers to the physically challenged, especially those who are underprivileged. After countless efforts his vision materialised in 1975 with the name Bhagwan Mahaveer Vikland Sahayata Samiti, Jaipur. The then one room NGO has now matured into a large organization with 19 pan India centers for the handicapped around the world and the number of its beneficiaries has crossed beyond a million. It provides artificial limbs/calipers, other aids and devices like hand operated tri-cycles, wheelchairs, crutches etc. besides financial and other required support for self-employment.

The association of the organization with the maker of the famous Jaipur Foot proved so commendable that it improved the expediency and popularity of Jaipur Foot across the globe and this recognition led to a burst in fixing of the Jaipur Foot from a scanty 50 between the period of 1968 to 1975 to a monstrous 10,000 in next seven years and now, under the sponsorship of this organization around 20,000 odd limbs are fitted every year.

His altruistic work continues even today when he has reached the age of 73. Today, he is more like a

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kid who toils hard to keep his kite moving in the sky, irrespective of all the hurdles. It is his never say die attitude that enables him to meet around 100 patients every day. He patiently lends his ear to them and discusses their financial and social conditions and helps them in every way he can. It is his will to help others that keeps him moving ahead and moving strongly.

For the strength and concern that he offers to the poor he has been endorsed with an assortment of

awards and honors. A few of which include the celebrated Padma Bhushan award in the year 2008, the Satpal Mittal award, CNBC award for Social Enterprise, the Diwali Bahan award by Dalai Lama, the Indian for Collective Action award in San Francisco, the esteemed Tech Museum Innovation award at Silicon Valley (USA) in 2007 and etc.

[Ms. Namita S. Kalla is a feree-lance journalist from Jaipur, Rajasthan.]

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Professors' & Research Scholars' Section:

From Folklore, It’s Acceptance & Dignity, to Mainstream: Detha’s Journey —Ashok K. Choudhury WHILE discussing the contribution made by the folklorists in Rajasthani literature, a name that immediately comes to our mind is Vijayadan Detha, popularly known as “the Shakespeare of Rajasthan”, who infused his oratory with the modern literary technique and traditional story telling convention to create written version of stories heard from fellow villagers. Affectionately called “Bijji” by the writers and friends, his demise, at the age of 88, on 10th November 2013 was great setback to the Rajasthani folklore and its storytelling tradition, to weave an enchanting tapestry, colourful and compelling. He shifted the shape of the folktales of the colourful desert land dazzling with their wry wit, lyrical beauty and wisdom. Detha made their world come vibrantly alive, mixing irreverence for oppressive systems with a heartfelt compassion for the oppressed. In his own words: “the stories of the desert are like its sands, fine and transparent”. Describing his writings, Amitava Kumar, a writer-journalist very aptly, describes, “Any first-aid kit for those malnourished ones deprived of literature’s genuine gifts will always include the stories of Vijaydan Detha”.

Two years later he was nominated for Nobel Prize for Literature, though was not widely read in India.

One among the finalists, Detha, after the announcement of the Nobel on 6th October 2011, said, “I have won it the day my name was nominated. It’s satisfying that one who writes in a language that has no Constitutional recognition in his own country, is among the favourites for the Nobel Prize in Literature”. After Nobel 2011, he had appealed to the government and people of 23

Rajasthan to work together to give the true recognition to the Rajasthsani language. As an ambassador to avoid orthodox rituals, he had advised his family not to undertake rituals like ‘death feast’, and other things. Detha would be remembered for his simplicity, and for an enriching and entertaining reading experience. Chrisit A Merrill, an American translator, who works on Detha, in her introduction to Choubali and other stories, observes, “Detha’s writing involves conservation and creation, notation and invention”.

Folktales of Rajasthan have attracted many modern writers, including Detha and Govind Agarwal.

These writers have presented such tales, giving touches of their own diction, keeping in view brevity, effectiveness and aim, but generally maintaining the narration similar to the present folk style. Bijji systematically brought such tales in a number of his folk publications in colloquial languages,” says Hiralal Maheshwari, a noted Rajasthani and Hindi scholar. Detha devoted to rewriting folktales and collecting popular idioms and maxims. Based on the oral tradition of folktale telling, he created a rare and, perhaps, unparalleled epoch in the history of narrative art. In October 2004, during the Golden Jubilee Celebration of the Sahitya Akademi, Detha was conferred a Fellowship, the highest honour awarded by a ‘National Organization’, for his original and unmatched signature of Indian fiction, in many aspects. “The Akademi is honoured by conferring on him the award, the peerless Indian fiction writer in Rajasthani”, says Fellowship citation.

Bijji was the winner of Bihari Award, given by K.K. Birla Foundation since 1991 for outstanding work in Hindi literature by a Rajasthani writer, in 2002, for his collection of stories Sapnapriya, an evocative narration of life in rural Rajasthan, conferred on 13 November 2003. In 2005 Detha enjoyed more popular national celebrity with the release of ‘Paheli’, a blockbuster Bollywood film

by Amol Palekar, starring Shah Rukh Khan, adopted from his story ‘Duvidha’. Appreciated all over the world, the story, a human predicament, is

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so convincingly portrayed that we slow down our reading, wanting to savour the complexity of the situation. A pair of newlyweds is seen returning to the man’s village, and stop to rest beneath a tree, where a ghost resides. The ghost is impressed by the girl’s beauty that he falls in love. Strangely though, the husband, who should be experiencing something similar for his wife, is so caught up in the mercantile mindset of his bania community that he can think only of trade and profit. Shortly after, he sets out on a journey of five years because it is an auspicious time for business. It’s a story of those people who value time and human relationships over material values. The film was India’s entry in Oscar.

The same year, Katha, a Delhi based organization, devoted to enriching the pleasure of reading, awarded the ‘Katha Chudamani: A Lifetime Achievement Award’ for his generous vision and inimitable style, who makes a brilliant use of Rajasthan folklore to highlight contemporary issues. Detha is the first Rajasthani writer to receive the prestigious Academy Award in 1974 for Battan Ri Phulwari (Garden of Tales, Vol. 10, 1972), published by Rupayan Sansthan, Borunda. This award gave an impetus to the language as he got as the first Rajasthani writer, thereby he was recognized a national recognition. Written in fourteen volumes, legendary recreation of folktales, heard from professionals, and lay storytellers of his village that dealt with complex themes like communal violence and spouse abuse, retold by in his own diction with a Marxist touch.

The language of the author is dialectal and at times unintelligible to the average Rajasthani reader.

“Battan Ri Phulwari, the award winning book, is considered an outstanding contribution to Rajasthani literature for its deep study and delineation of folklore,” says the Akademi.

Containing twenty-one folktales covering 333 pages, the first ten tales of this book are concerned with the motif of snakes, which depicts various convictions of the local people. The other tales are related to various topics consisting of fairy tales, 24

didactic tales, and tales culminating in riddles, tales of ghosts, thieves and tales of peasant life. Bijji had described, the process of writing of these tales, “I never thought before writing, neither did I read later what I wrote. There was no need for any correction”. Bijji got wider acclaim with the translation of Battan Ri Phulwari, in most Indian languages: Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Bengali, Urdu.

Some of the tales from these volumes were translated by the author himself and published by Rupayan under the title Anokha Ped (A Singular Tree).

A selection of stories from the fourteen volumes translated by Kailash Kabeer in 1979 with Rajasthani-Hindi idioms, published by Rajkamal entitled Duvidha (The Dillema). Well responded to these stories, Deepak Kejriwal and Inder Puri adapted ‘Dohri Zindagi’ to the theatre. Ruth Vanita began translating more overtly women focused love stories into English to appear in Manushi, the premier feminist journal of India. Detha converted a folktale into modern fiction in Tido Rava (1965), which is printed in the pocket book size. The book, however, is inspired by malice, as stated by the author himself in the ‘preface’, and leaves a bad taste unworthy of litterateurs. Some other books have been published by the author, i.e., Istukhan, Minatha Jamaro, etc.

He used to publish his folktales in magazines like Prerana (1951-54), Vani (1960-70), and Lok Sanskriti (1970-75), and thereafter published in book form one after another, by Rupayan Sansthan, an institute that documents folklore, art, and music, of which Detha was the co-founder with Komal Kothari. Besides, he was an exceptionally good fiction writer, well versed in the art and craft of the technique, deserving wholehearted appreciation from critics of the genre. To his credit two novels and eight hundred short stories, all of which are translated into English and other languages.

‘Kalpana ka Ant’ (The End of Imagination), one of his masterpieces among short stories, inspired from the popular characters of Sharatchandra’s classic ‘Devdas’ and ‘Paro’, draws at something personal.

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The story draws a peek into something deeper about a writer known more for his fabulous retelling of folk tales, and also explores into the consciousness of a writer as an artist.

However, Bijji’s Choubali and other stories: Vol I & II, translated by Christi A Merrill and Kailash Kabeer, published by Katha in 2010 in collaboration with Fordham University Press, New York, as a part of the Katha Classic Library, brought Detha wide recognition, as well as fetched the A K Ramanujan the Book Prize for Translation (2012), the Excellent Award, the Best Book on Asian Socio-Economic Science and the Asian Publishing Award (2011). The stories in this collection are an enduring testament to the timeless magic of storytelling, in both entertaining and enriching. When asked about the translation of the volume, Detha told: “…language is made not by professor of linguistics, as the translator Merrill hold the post of Assistant Professorship of South Asian Literature and Postcolonial Theory at the University of Michigan, but by the illiterate rustic folk. I learnt the art of language from them. I’m still paying guru dakshina. Whether they accept or not is their wish”.

His stories and novels have been adapted into plays and movies, including Habib Tanvir’s ‘Charandas Chor’, which was later converted into a film by Shyam Benegal; Prakas Jha’s wonderful film ‘Pariniti’; and Mani Kaul’s ‘Duvidha’, retaining the same name of the story. The film was shot at his native place. His Alekhun Hitler, consisting of original stories, reveals his literary merit. However, his writing is seemingly effortless. But at the same time his stories abound with multi-layered meanings and significations. The stories never fail to astound the reader. Bijji also produced two volumes of children’s literature and edited a dictionary of proverbs in collaboration with Bhagiratha Kanodiya, which was published under the title Rajasthani Kahawata Kosh. He edited Samakaleen Bharatiya Sahitya, the Akademi’s bi-monthly Hindi magazine, as Guest Editor for volumes 45 & 46, and also the complete works of 25

Ganeshi Lal Vyas, published by the Akademi.

Besides, Detha edited eight volumes of Rajasthani Hindi Kahavat Kosh, This apart; he edited Prerana, Roopam, Vani and Loksanskriti, magazines in Hindi and Rajasthani. He also edited a book Roonkh in 1987.

He was equally a critic of repute. With his first book on criticism titled Bapu Ke Teen Hatyare, which is a critique of the work of, and, as the trio brought out books about Gandhi within two months of his death. In his book Detha remarked, “may have killed physically, but these three writers killed his soul”.

After writing 1300 poems and 300 short stories in 1950s, he was inspired by 19th century Russian literature. He loved his mother tongue even more.

His other favourite authors were Saratchandra Chatopadhyay, and Rabindranath Tagore. Though he was critical of Tagore in the beginning, after reading Stripatra Detha became lover of him. Bijji began his life as a writer with a poem when he was in class VI. The Principal of the school was impressed with his talent, which inspired him afterwards. His creativity exploded in the form of various pranks amongst his schoolfellows. While he was in college, Usha, his first poetry collection was published. The anthology, which has a memorable depiction of sunrise and sunset, was another form of a creative prank. Detha named the book after a classmate of his: Usha Pathak. Then his literary career began in Jwala, a weekly coming out from Jodhpur. In a longish stint he wrote three regular columns, under different pseudonyms.

Besides, he wrote in Aag, Angare, and Riyasati Weekly during 1949-52. 1959 was a turning point in his literary journey. He left Hindi and resolved to write in Rajasthani, his mother tongue, and never wrote in any other language other than Rajasthani.

Most his works are translated into Hindi by his poet-son Kailsah Kabeer.

The literary connoisseur was born on 1 September 1926 at Borunda of Jodhpur district in Rajasthan in a family of letters. His grandfather Jugtidan Detha

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was a famous poet in the Dingal poetic tradition in Rajashtani; father Sabaldan Detha, was also an accomplished poet. He moved to Jaitaran, 25 kilometers from his village, along with his elder brother Sumerdan who worked in the Civil Court, as he lost his father and two brothers at the age of four. Bijji studied there up to class IV. He did his school study at Bihar and Barmer, Durbar School, Jodhpur, as he had to move with his brother.

However, after matriculating from Lahore in 1944, he completed his graduation from Jaswant College, Jodhpur in 1949. By that time he had already established his name in poetry. He used to acknowledge the credit to his cousin brother Kuberdan Detha, in whose name he was writing the poems. Applause brought from those poems and made him to think to establish his own name in writing.

For his lifelong dedication in revitalizing Rajasthani and Hindi, besides the Bihari Puraskar and the Akademi Award and Fellowship, he was honoured with innumerable state and national awards, including: Rajasthan Shri (1977), Rajasthan Ra Ratan (1980), the Great Son of Rajasthan (1994), by All India Conference of Jain Sahitya Intellectuals, Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad Award (1992), Nahar Award (1994), Marudhara Puraskar (1995), Sahitya Chudamani Award (2006), Padma Shri (2007), Rao Siha Award (2011), by Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Rajasthan Ratna Award (2012 ), Deepchand Jain Sahitya Puraskar, Delhi. Doordarshan and Akashvani conferred on him with their Emeritus Fellowship.

This apart, Bharatiya Jnanpith has granted him a ‘Special Fellowship’ for fiction writing. To participate in inter-cultural programmes, Detha visited Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow, Leningrad, China, UK, USA, Holland, Germany, erstwhile USSR, etc.

A simple man, so distinctive in glittering Jaipuri outfits- a long white cotton kurta with pens in the breast pockets, a quilted vest on hand block printed fabric, white cotton dhoti down to his ankles, hand crafted leather shoes with a slight cull to the toes, and a monkey cap- seemed to be very ordinary. The ‘body’ of the legendry folklorist and a great writer is gone forever, but his ‘body of work’ will be remembered more fondly forever. In this year’s Jaipur Literary Festival, the panel of the session on Rajasthani literature first paid their tributes to Detha- like a waterfall from which the new generation draws its water of creativity. “His unfinished, half-drafted stories, books and even pens to be kept in a museum be made at his village”, where he confined himself throughout his life, relinquishing a number of offers and opportunities, this is what his last whishes, which is revealed by his educationist-son Mahendra Detha, if fulfilled will be a true tribute to Detha, who was celebrated for crisply written short stories, grapple with contemporary concerns, and age-old dilemmas.

[Dr. Ashok K Choudhury, a literary critic &

postdoctoral scholar, is with India’s National Academy of Letters.]

Dear Friends, Your article for the RH along with a passport size photograph and a small resume should be emailed or posted at: rheditor@gmail.com or C-8, Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P. A note whether it has also been published elsewhere or is being sent exclusively for the RH should be attached with it.

— Rekha S.

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Women Empowerment in India —Suman Lata Sharma Rights are the rights that all people Human have by virtue of being human beings.

Human Rights are derived from the inherent dignity of the human person and are defined internationally, nationally and locally by various law making bodies.

Definition- Human Rights is defined as the supreme, inherent, and inalienable rights to life, to dignity, and to self-development. It is concerned with issues in both areas of civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights founded on internationally accepted human rights obligations.

Rights: Moral power to hold (rights to life, nationality, own property, rest and leisure), to do (rights to marry, peaceful assembly, run for public office, education), to omit (freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile) or to exact something (equal protection of the law, equal access to public service, equal pay for equal work). Human Rights was coined by Eleanor Roosevelt to replace Rights of Man Nature: Human rights are more than legal concepts: they are the essence of man. They are what make man human. That is why they are called human rights; deny them and you deny man’s humanity (Jose Diokno) Characteristics of Human Rights: Universal; internationally guaranteed; legally protected; protects individuals and groups; cannot be taken away; equal and indivisible; obliges States and State actors.

Five categories of Human Rights: Civil – the right to be treated as an equal to anyone else in society. Political – the right to vote, to freedom of speech and to obtain information. Economic – the right to participate in an economy that benefits all; and to desirable work. Social – the right to education, health care, food, clothing, shelter and social security. Cultural – the right to freedom of

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religion, and to speak the language, and to practice the culture of one’s choice. Civil Rights: Life; Belief in own religion; Opinion; Free speech; Non-discrimination according to sex; Marry; Race; Cultural background. Political Rights: Vote in elections; Freedom to form or join political parties; Live in an independent country; Stand for public office; Freedom to disagree with views and policies of political leaders. Economic Rights: Jobs; Work without exploitation; Fair wages; Safe working conditions; Form trade unions; Have adequate food; Protection against labor malpractices. Social Rights: Housing; Education; Health services; Recreation facilities; Clean environment; Social security. Cultural Rights: Use own language; Develop cultural activities; Ancestral domains; Develop own kind of schooling.

Women are the wealth of India and they have contributed in almost every field and made country feel proud at every occasion. They are in front, leading the country, making mile stones and source of inspiration for many. However, another reality of Indian society is that there is systematic discrimination and neglect of women’s in India, which could be in terms of inadequate nutrition, denial or limited access to education, health and property rights, child labour and domestic violence etc. The fear of sexual violence has been a powerful factor in restricting women’s behavior and sense of freedom. The struggle against violence is actually the struggle against the unequal distribution of power both physical and economic between the sexes. Media is the mirror of society and media reports are reflection of happenings in the society.

Media has immense power to influence the masses and communication and IT revolution has further increased its importance. Unfortunately, nowadays media is wavering from its actual role and giving biased information which makes development of the society more difficult. Portraying women as equals in the society is a subject that has been given low priority by the Indian media. The Indian media needs to be sensitized to gender issues and now must focus on women issues in a decisive way as

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their role is detrimental for the women empowerment in India. In the light of these facts, the present paper focuses on women’s issues in contemporary Indian society and role of media in addressing the issues.

Introduction: In the 21 st century India is fast emerging as a global power but for half of its population, the women across the country, struggle to live life with dignity continues. Women are facing problems in every sphere of life whether employment, access to health care or property rights. The attention required is still not being paid to the issues that concern this section of population.

Women empowerment in India is still a distant dream. There still exists a wide gap between the goals enunciated in the constitution, legislation, policies, plans, programs and related mechanisms on the one hand and the situational reality of the status of women in India, on the other hand. India is fast developing but women’s in India continue to be discriminated.

Women Empowerment in India: According to Cambridge English Dictionary ‘empowerment’ means ‘to authorize’. In the context of the people, they have to be authorized to have control over their own lives. When applied in the context of development of the particular segment of population, the women have to be ‘empowered’ to have control over their own lives to better their socio- economic and political conditions. Thus, women empowerment can be interpreted as totality of empowerment including political, social, cultural, and other dimension of human life as also the physical, moral and intellectual Government Policy in India: The Government of India had ushered in the new millennium by declaring the year 2001 as ‘Women’s Empowerment Year’ to focus on a vision ‘where women are equal partners like men’. The objective of government policy in India has been to bring about development, advancement and empowerment of women in the country through active participation of all stakeholders. The

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government has attempted to create an environment through positive political, economic and social policies for complete development of women. Government policy has been to promote women’s participation in political, social and economic life of the nation and identical access to health care, quality education, career and vocational guidance, employment, equal remuneration, occupational health and safety, social security and public office etc. The objective has been also to strengthen legal system aimed at elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and changing the societal attitudes and community practices by active participation and involvement of both men and women.

Education: The Government policy has been to ensure equal access to education for women and girls. Special measures were taken by the government to eliminate discrimination, universalize education, eradicate illiteracy, create a gender-sensitive educational system, increase enrolment and retention rates of girls and improve the quality of education to facilitate life-long learning as well as development of occupational, vocational and technical skills of women in India.

Reducing the gender gap in secondary and higher education and gender sensitive curriculum is the focus area of government Health: Women must have access to comprehensive, affordable and quality health care.

A holistic approach to women’s health which includes both nutrition and health services with special attention to the needs of women and the girl at all stages of the life cycle is another priority of the government. The reduction of infant mortality and maternal mortality, which are sensitive indicators of human development, is a major concern.

Indian Government Special Initiative for Women: Special initiatives were taken by government of India for building confidence and self dependency across Indian women. Some of them include: (i) National Commission for Women

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was set-up as a statutory body in January 1992 with specific mandate to study and monitor all matters related to constitutional and legal safeguards provided for women, review the existing legislation to suggest amendments wherever necessary, etc. (ii) Reservation

for Women in Panchayats & Municipalities (Local Self Government): The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act was passed in 1992 to ensure one-third of the total seats for women in all elected offices in local bodies whether in rural areas or urban areas. (iii) The National Plan of Action for the Girl Child (1991-2000) to ensure survival, protection and development of the girl child with the ultimate objective of building up a better future for the girl child. (iv) National Policy for the Empowerment of Women (2001) t o bring advancement, development and empowerment of women in all spheres of life through creation of a more responsive judicial and legal system sensitive to women and mainstreaming a gender perspective in the development process. The strengthening and formation of relevant institutional mechanisms and implementation of international obligations/ commitments and co-operation at the international, regional and sub-regional level was another commitment. (v) The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005: It provides for more effective protection of the rights of women guaranteed under the constitution for those who are victims of violence of any kind occurring within the family and for matters connected herewith or incidental thereto. It provides for immediate and emergent relief to women in situations of violence of any kind in the home. (vi) Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) was created in January 2006 and is the nodal Ministry of the government of India for the advancement of women and children. (vii) Implemented ESCAP Project on Improvement of Statistics on Gender Issues during 1994-96 by organizing the first National Workshop on Improvement of Statistics on Gender Issues in 1994 followed by Second National Workshop in 1995, at New Delhi. These workshops laid the foundation of identifying

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various relevant issues including data requirement, data gaps in the field of gender statistics and indicators on gender issues. Started bringing out the regular Annual publication “Women and Men in India” since 1995. (viii) National Plan of Action (NPA) was prepared in 1998 for Improvement of Statistics on Gender to bridge the data gaps. In a meeting held at Rome in December 2007 in wake of Global Gender Forum, it was decided by IAEG that India would chair an Advisory Committee for capacity development in Gender Statistics.

Social and Cultural Issues: The socio-cultural attributes in society have left a deep mark on women empowerment in India. Parents depend on sons for support in old age and looked to them as potential builders of family prestige and prosperity whereas daughters are considered to destine for others. Women’s in India need and expect equal access to education, health, nutrition, employment and productive resources. In fact they are fighting for their rights to decide their own path for development.

Education: The female literacy rate in India is though gradually rising, it’s lower than the male.

According to the National Survey data (1997), only the states of Kerala and Mizoram have approached universal female literacy rates. The gender gap in education is far greater in northern states of India.

Although in states where enrollment rates for girls are higher, many girls drop out of school after a few years of education. Factors such as inhibition on education being imparted by male teachers to girls once they reach puberty, is responsible for drop out. Consequences are that early marriage and child birth pronounced in families of lower socio-economic status.

Health and Nutrition: The socio-cultural practice of women eating last in the family has eminent effect on her health especially if it is a household in low economic status. Most direct effects of poor health and nutrition among women in Indian society are high mortality rates among young children and women of child bearing age. A women

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health and nutrition status influence her newborn’s birth weight and chance of survival. Post neo-natal death is generally caused by infectious diseases.

The incidence and severity of most of this disease are affected by controllable factors such as immunization, health care and nutrition. Due to gender biased, these factors are not controlled equally for male and female children. Maternal mortality in India estimated at 437 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, result primarily from infection hemorrhage, obstructed labour, abortion and anemia.

Crime against Women: Crimes against women are of various natures. It include crimes involving sexual exploitation for economic gains like prostitution & trafficking, adultery, abduction, rape, wrongful confinement, and murder etc on the one hand and crimes related to women’s property like dishonest misappropriation, criminal breach of trust, domestic violence, dowry extortion and outraging the modesty of women etc on the other.

These crimes are not only injurious and immoral for the women but for the society as a whole.

Domestic Violence: In Indian society, it is widely accepted that within the family the man is the master and women is the inferior and subordinate partner and societal pressure force women to maintain this status quo. Wife beating is the most prevalent form of violence against women in the Indian society and it is viewed as a general problem of domestic discord. According to National Crime Report Bureau, 1.5 lakh crimes against women are registered annually out of which nearly 50,000 are related to domestic violence in their homes.

Female Infanticide: This is playing a significant role in lop sided sex ratio in India. Poor families in certain regions of the country sometimes resort to killing baby girls at birth, to avoid an unwanted burden on family resources. Sex selective abortion has also been common in the country. It’s dangerous to abort the foetus after 18 weeks of pregnancy and quiet harmful for mother too at such a late stage. Various techniques of sex determination and sex pre-selection have been 30

discovered during the last fifteen years, such as sonography, fetoscopy, needling, chorion biopsy and the most popular amniocentesis have increasingly become household names in India.

Amniocentesis technique is used in the small town and also in some cities of states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan etc.

Mumbai and Delhi are also the major center for sex determination and sex pre-selection tests.

Conclusion: Though the status of women in India, both historically and socially, has been one of the respect and reverence, but the hard truth is that even today, they are struggling for their own identity, shouting for diffusion of their voices and fighting for their own esteem. Every day, they cross among the fears and fraught for individuality. Despite the constitutional guarantee of equality of sexes, rampant discrimination and exploitation of women in India continues. The incidence of bride-burning, woman battering, molestation and ill-treatment of women are on increase. It is high time now that women should get a respectable and dignified position in the Indian society. Awareness in the women as well as society should be created and their equal rights should be effectively implemented. Crimes against women should be made punishable and a research should be done on every crime which comes to the light.

Bibliography: 1. Human Rights, Gender and the Environment – Manisha Priyam, Krishna 2. Woman & Human Rights (Modern Scenario) – P.B. Rathod 3. Human Rights Issues in India – K.P. Anuradha 4. Human Rights: Fifty years of India Independence – K.P. Saxena 5. Human Rights: The Global Perspective – M.H. Syed 6. Human Rights of Woman – Padma Iyer 7. Human Rights: A Source Book – Arjun Dev [Dr Suman Lata Sharma is Assistant Professor, Music Department, R.G. (P.G) College, Meerut]

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Book Review Section:

New Humanism in India —Tony Henderson

[Book: Humanism in India by Fernando A. Garcia, 3rd. Edition, Foundation for Humanization, Mumbai, Jan. 2014, pp.288, Rs. 250/-] ernando Garcia’s book Humanism in India informs the interested reader of the ways and means whereby India produced the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, a promoter of active non-violence and non-discrimination. The book also informs us about a host of other individuals with humanistic leanings, and introduces currents of thought and action and particular humanist moments of India’s history that helped change the course of it’s peoples life, their thinking and their cultural development.

To look into any issue a writer needs a good angle to allow the reader to maintain a solid reference despite mental excursions along a multiplicity of paths without losing the plot... and when it comes to the complexity of India this is essential. I found the graspable tag on how humanism was founded and developed in India the ideal means to the end of understanding how those diverse elements that resulted in cultural depositions and transgressions influenced the entirety of this great nation, though in some areas less than others, considering the cultural backwaters that exist in any region or country.

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It is early apparent that Mr Garcia has taken recourse in the tools supplied under the terms of the Four Universal Laws and the Method (for comprehension and action) of Silo, founder of Universal Humanism, as brought to public attention in the first pages of that 1972 book by the author of Siloism. The results show the merit of this classical Siloist approach. Understanding is continually augmented and by book and I for one felt I had grasped the Indian nettle without that familiar sting of impenetrability.

In practice, this possibility is offered by Garcia in his focusing on the differentiation, the complementation, and the synthesis of each and every budding factor of newness that arrived to the Indian sub-continent, whether from an individual, or from some epochal ramification.

The first fifty-five pages introduce and thereby define modern humanism, that is, one devoid of the old silliness and compensations that might have been necessary as instanced in a humanism that went against religious orthodoxies that were fraught with extremism and fundamentalism to bring us to the present where the principles are geared toward freedoms rather than condemnations, so needed today.

Not just tolerance but respect and appreciation of the other’s point of view is proposed. This takes in everything from legitimate independence and autonomy movements, the demonized Taliban, ostracized groups such as outcasts and gypsies, prostitutes and whatever other sector or strata of the human condition is being systematically opposed and violated, as per the adivasi or so-called ‘tribals’.

India as such is dealt with from the book’s Part Two, Converging Diversity, which title sums up today’s India when viewed in the best light.

Immediately the untruth that India’s greatness lies in the arrival of the Aryans from the north is dealt with, not so, the unsung mass which dwelt on the Indian continent absorbed and amalgamated those cultural inputs, over time, humanising the totality.

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This is an important reckoning as it means Indians have come to their present stage of development on their own efforts and worth and not because of some foreign influence.

It is noted that the institutional patterns of the Harrappan (Harappan Civilization ca. 3000-1500 BC) - pre-Aryan but Indian - are still preserved in some villages, discerned from ritual instruments to cults like mother goddesses, to linga, yoni, swastikas and deities that became part of Hinduism - e.g., the kali cult of the folk-goddess who emerged as the mother-force of the universe.

The Sindhu Valley Civilisation (or Indus Valley Civilisation) made a definite contribution to the cultural development of India. Also, the ideas of renunciation and asceticism leading to moksha, mukti and nirvana. The Jain precept of non-violence appears pre-Aryan as well.

The author points at the era that fermented the rise of the Upanishads (800 to 500 BC) as interesting from the humanist point of view, an era fluxed with diverse creeds and opinions. He quotes Radhakrishnan on the Upanishads: “Their aim was not science or philosophy, but right living.” Then came Buddhism and Jainism in rebellions against Vedic concepts of the divine, as thinkers began placing the human being as central value.

Indeed: “...in the post-Vedic philosophies of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Buddhist and the Jaina scriptures, it is men who hold the centre of interest, the gods are subsidiary’. “...we notice that in this period sacrifices yield place to human ethics, monotheism replaces polytheism, and instead of Vedic rituals we have a growing urge toward knowledge and devotion,” Garcia declares.

Garcia categories Buddhism and Jainism as revolutionary, and the other major forces of Vaishnavism and Saivism as Reformist movements. He also mentions that this epoch was that which gave birth to the intellectual visions of men like Plato, Lau Tzu, Second Isaiah, Yajnavalka and more.

“Both Mahavira and the Buddha opposed the idea 32

of a hereditary caste system..... no doubt both succeeded in removing caste distinctions in their monastic order, but they failed in their attempts to abolish it permanently from society,” concludes Garcia.

There are separate sections of the teaching of the Buddha, on the Jains, also on Ashoka where this reader learned that this king among kings of the Mauryan Dynasty became a Buddhist, which I knew, but that he did not impose Buddhism on his people, merely proposing the tenets that the Buddha taught as a way of life of holding to an attitude of social responsibility. Buddhism was not made the state religion.

In the paragraphs introducing Hinduism the Mahabharata is quoted. This book is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana. It contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion on the four “goals of life” as dharma (right action), artha (purpose), kama (pleasure), and moksha (liberation). Immediately we see the relevance to the present book’s title: “ One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire.”

For Garcia, by the time Hinduism took shape it had been given a humanistic touch, bringing human beings closer to the centre of religious concern.

“Now God dwells in the centre of all human beings,” he quips.

This identification of the universal divine principle with the essential identity of every human being was first formulated in the Upanishads, and was further elaborated by Shankara - (169 to 799 CE) - a Brahman from Kerala, propagator of Advaita(Monoism) philosophy where man is equal to the divine principle that permeates the whole of reality. “This dignifying tenet is at the heart of Hinduism, still struggling against the inertia of caste discrimination, communalism, and national chauvinism,” comments Garcia.

With the arrival of Islam at India’s door a further

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cross-cultural mix took place and when the turbulence mostly settled, as time took its toll, the remaining friction was due to bigotry on both sides: “...due to the respective orthodox minorities, namely the Muslim theologians (Ulema) and the Hindu Brahmin caste. These minorities monopolised the interpretation and application of religion, acting as intermediaries between scriptures and people, between the divinity and the believers,” he says.

Garcia hands authority over to K. M. Sen’s book Hinduism to point at the origins of another important influence – the Bhakti movement - that guided Indian thought: “The Bhakti movement seems to have therefore non-Aryan roots and indeed thePadmapurana declares Bhakti to be a product of the Dravidian land. There is no doubt that the Bhakti movement was long opposed by Brahmins because of its disregard of traditional religious ceremonies and its indifference to caste divisions annoyed the Brahmins.”

Quoting A. K. Majumdar’s Bhakti Renaissance, Garcia has it that: “Any person irrespective of age, sex or caste could have thedarsana or vision of the deity through His grace or surrender to Him. Therefore the sectarian creeds like Vaishnavism, Saivism, or Sakti worship developed catholicity of spirit and universal outlook which are absent in the Vedic religion, in which the knowledge of the Vedas, confined to the males of the upper castes, was a prerequisite to the realisation of Brahman or Supreme Reality.”

Point being, that the Bhakti movement seems to have very early non-Aryan roots. However, it was Ramananda (ca. 1370 to 1440) that gave medieval mysticism its momentum by challenging caste divisions, questioning the traditional religious ceremonies, and by preaching in Hindi rather than Sanscrit. Ramananda founded a new school of Vaishnaivism. The saint Kabir was his most famous disciple.

From the fourteenth century on the Bhakti movement became a dynamic force in north India.

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However, the development of this movement was tightly linked to Sufism which came along with Islam with the arrival of Arabs, Turks and Afghans.

The early Sufis were Muslim mystics from Persia who first settled in Sind and Punjab, their teachings trickling into Gujarat, the Deccan, and Bengal.

Treated as heretics by the Islamic orthodoxy the Sufi sheikh or pir was treated just as the Hindu guru to the extent that over time multitudes of Hindu pilgrims began to visit the shrines of Sufi saints and holy sites. The Sufis contested with the theologians of the Ulema on grounds that they were deviating from the original democratic principles of the Quran, placing emphasis on their mystical doctrine of union with God achieved through the love of God. According to Garcia, for Sufis: “... love of God implied the love of humanity, so service for humanity was regarded as part of the mystical discipline.” This is an important tenet of Universal Humanism and the Humanist Movement activities practiced by Siloists, to which group Garcia belongs.

Garcia includes Akbar the Great in the paragraphs on Indo-Islamic interaction in recognition of this son of the sixteenth century Mughals as the sole exponent of Muslim rule that did not acquiesce to bigotry. Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar was born in Sind, and coming to power, he worked hard to promote Hindu-Muslim unity and it is said that under Akbar the Mughal Empire was equal to or ahead of Europe in most areas.

The saint Kabir ((1440—1518) nurtured an offshoot blend of Hindu and Muslim ideas, though continuing in the Bhakti line. He was a major influence of Nanak who founded the great Sikh religion. Both of these religious leaders... “had large followings among the artisans and cultivators to whom the emphasis on simple living and an absence of incomprehensible ritual made strong appeal,” notes Garcia, who continues with: “There was also much honest common sense and practicality in the writings of both men, extreme

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patterns of living being rejected in favour of a normal balanced life as a part of society.”

On the same note Garcia brings in the Bauls with the quote: “Be truthful, be natural; truth alone is natural. Seek the truth within your own heart, for there is no truth in external religious observances; neither in the sects or the holy vows, neither in the religious garb nor in pilgrimages. Truth resides within the heart and is revealed in love, in strength, in compassion. Conquer hatred, and extend your love to all mankind, for God resides in all.” From the book Bhakti Renaissance.

The Bauls are itinerant poets, reciters, musicians and singers as often as not met up with on river journeys, at festivals, on Holy Days. Gypsy-like nomads that live according to their simple dictates: “‘What need have we of other temples,’ they ask, ‘when our body is the temple where our spirit has its abode,”’ defines K. M. Sen in his writing, Hinduism. Thus, with the Bauls, the Bhakti movement is given further scrutiny.

Part 5, Response to Colonialism, takes in the nineteenth century with its foreign domination and lingering anti-humanist traits as factors influencing humanism in India, set as it was among the reform movements. Here we are introduced to the likes of Gujarat’s Swami Narayana (1781 to 1830) and West Bengal’s Raja Rammohan Roy (1774 to 1833).

Roy founded the Brahma Samaj to launch activities of anti-colonist agitation, especially against the armed British East India Company. His work was continued by Devendranath Tagore (1817 to 1905) - not to be confused with poet-activist Rabindranath Tagore came on the scene later (1861- to 1941) to play his valuable part - and Keshab-chandra Sen, with his Indian Reform Association. The Parsees had their own reformists within their community and Parsi women moved freely early on in public.

Garcia proceeds, after detailing the more well-known revivalists and spiritual figures that influenced events, to enlarge on the Independence

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Movement - Swaraj, meaning a movement leading to self-government: “... as one of the most significant historical processes of the twentieth century”.

Here we encounter civil disobedience, non-violent resistance, Swadeshi - starting up national industries, banks and factories, andSatyagraha Gandhi’s novel method of non-violent struggle.

This led to the straightforward statement by Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1869 to 1948) on 14 July, 1942, that there was no room for a compromise and that the British must “Quit India”.

“Gandhi’s idea of ahimsa was not based on the Vedic concept of ahimsa. He ruled out all exceptions in the application of ahimsa. He derived his ahimsa from ascetic sources, and it was this ascetic or sramanic concept which he applied, for the first time, to politics and economics,” declares Garcia.

The final pages of Humanism in India are devoted to After Independence, the title of Part 6, beginning with the Radical Humanist M. N. Roy Manabendra Nath Roy, of West Bengal. Vinoba Bhave and the Sarvodaya (Welfare for All) movement is also introduced.

The resurgence of Buddhism in India is highlighted by bringing Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891 to 1956) forward who’s wholehearted efforts at liberating the Untouchables from the oppression of the caste system got him wide public attention in India, and vastly repopulated the Indian Buddhist community.

In his winding up Garcia notes that besides the issue of caste as a factor that runs throughout the efforts at the humanising of India, the role of mysticism or religion is also integral to India’s social transformation.

Further: “Indian history shows three distinct moments in which humanist values flourished.

These three moments are linked to respective rebellions against anti-humanist issues when different cultures came into contact. There was always an ascendant one, clashing with, the rest,

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and an ultimate convergence and merge. The first was during Aryan ascendancy, i.e., marked by the Sramanic resistance led by Buddhism and Jainism.

The second was during Islamic ascendancy, ‘against Hindu and Muslim orthodoxies, i.e., marked by the Bhakti movement led by Hindus, Muslims, Jains and Buddhists. The third was during British ascendancy, against colonialism, i.e., Renaissance and Independence movements, which everybody joined.”

As his writing tells, mysticism or religiosity was always the underlying force for change in India, a benign force that held the proponents of positive change together and deposited what is today a field tilled and ready for universal humanism, whether so-named or not.

Tony Henderson, Chairman, Humanist Association of Hong Kong can be contacted at: tonyhen@humanist.org.hk; www.pressenza.com

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Humanist News Section: I

Remembering M.N. Roy: A Report from Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh TheAssociation arranged a

Rationalist meeting at Hyderabad on 25th January, 2014 to commemorate the 60th death anniversary of late M.N.Roy. It was a well-attended gathering of people who have high regard for Roy and who are well acquainted with his life and philosophy.

The meeting was presided over by Mr. Ravela Somayya, a confirmed Socialist with great respect for Roy. Mr. Somayya attended the condolence meeting at Guntur after hearing the news of death of Roy in 1954. He attended along with his friend Mr. Inturi Sambasivarao who was a humanist and also attended the conference at Dehradun. From then onwards, Mr. Somayya was in constant touch with Mrs. Ellen Roy till her death in 1960. In his presidential address he stated that Roy was highly influenced by the teachings of Vivekananda, Jatindranath and Lajapat Rai. He reminded that Roy was the man who founded communist parties outside Russia, particularly in Mexico and India.

He was a delegate to the Comintern. His revolutionary crusade attracted the attention of Lenin. The man with such intimate association with communism was later disillusioned with it and turned a humanist. He also revealed that the late Shoebullah Khan, who stood against the brutal onslaught of Razakars during the last days of Nizam in Hyderabad was also under the influence of Roy’s thinking. He requested Prof. K.S.Chalam, who was present on the occasion, to release the book “What Shall We Do? – Art, Science and Philosophy” written by the veteran rationalist Mr.Ravipudi Venkatadri.

Prof. K.S.Chalam, former Member of UPSC, on releasing the book, stated that the author laid a road map to realize the ideals of humanism. He said Roy belonged to the category of people like Dr.B.R.Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia who 36

thought of the nation beyond the narrow politics of the day.The fact that we are remembering him sixty years after his death is an indication of the value of his philosophy that has eternal significance. There is scarcity of people like them now and it is the cause for the fall in values.

Sri T. Purushottam Rao, a former minister in the state, explained how Roy tried to establish democracy without involving political parties and depending on the people at grass root level. He believed in decentralization of power by involving people in decision process. He said, Roy had the good fortune of having the full devotion of Ellen Roy who dedicated herself to support and spread the principles and philosophy of Roy. Mr.Jawaharlal stated that Roy gave a scientific base for the rational and ethical behavior of modern man and his philosophy of New Humanism is based on that finding. But the present day politics have ruined all the democratic institutions and devastatedthe moral caliber of the society.It may take a very long time to resurrect the values that are essential to establish a humanist society as envisaged by Roy. His philosophy of partyless politics also has not caught the attention of the public. In fact there were occasions when the idea of partyless politics should have been mentioned to the people. The movement that started as “India Against Corruption”, instead of keeping away from politics that has bred corruption, its followers felt it necessary to constitute themselves into a political party to implement their program. Similarly, the Lok Satta, that started as a movement for ‘good governance’ later converted itself into the Lok Satta Party. But these two parties are finding it difficult to get a toehold in the muddled political field dominated by the unprincipled political parties. For them it is impossible to do anything without power and political party is the means to get that power. That is the attraction, the possibility of getting power someday, for the people to join the parties which is lacking in movements. Roy preferred to disband the party rather than adopting such tactics. The result is that his philosophy lost its

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attraction to people. Being against communism he was hated by the leftists and being against capitalism, the rightists stood away from him. Now the problem remains how to get the people accept Humanism and establish grass root level democracy.

Mr.C.L.N.Gandhi, stated that the very fact that the present day politics are unprincipled shows the need for the politics of humanism as propounded

by Roy. He exhorted to work in that direction.

Mr. Venkata Swami explained how he came to know of M.N.Roy and his literature which impressed him and made him a captive. In the present day, he said, Roy’s philosophy is the only safe bet for the future of India.

Mr. Gumma Veeranna, the President of Andhra Pradesh Rationalist Association, explained the need for humanist politics. He stated that the veteran rationalist Mr. Ravipudi Venkatadri, is making a stupendous effort to spread the idea of rationalism and humanism. He wrote many books in Telugu attacking the obnoxious traditions and foolish beliefs prevailing in the society. Unless we, the people who believe in rationalism and humanism, take active interest there is danger of leftist ideals overtaking the society leading to undemocratic practices. It is to uphold the torch of humanism that the meetings like this are felt necessary. He expressed his gratitude to the members who attended the meeting and made it a success. He specially extended his thanks to the speakers who explained the various aspects of humanism and the late M.N.Roy. —Report sent by Jawaharlal Jasthi II

Remembering M.N.Roy: A report from Guntur meeting was organised by Dr. G. ASrinivas MD, a great admirer of M.N. Roy, on behalf of the Radical Humanist friends of Guntur on 25th January 2014 at Vavilala Foundation on the occasion of the 60th death anniversary of M.N. Roy and also to commemorate the death of veteran Radical Humanist Inturi 37

Sambasiva Rao who passed away on 15th October 2013. Dr. Srinivas welcomed the guests to the dias and narrated his reminiscences of Mr. Sambasiva Rao and paid tributes to him.

Mr. N. Thirupathaiah, a retired Professor of Political Science and a close friend of Mr. Sambasiva Rao presided over the meeting. He said that Mr. Sambasiva Rao strongly believed in the ideology of humanism and practiced the same in his life and society. He gave utmost importance to practice the philosophy instead of simply propagating it. His conviction was really praise-worthy. He fought on behalf of the down-trodden in government offices against the rampant corruption till his last breath.

Mr. Kurra Hanumanth Rao, President, Rationalist Association of India, delivered his key-note address. He elaborately described the humanist philosophy and various developments of Communism and its failures. He also narrated how this philosophy gave utmost importance to individual liberty and propagated democratic and secular values. He said that Radical Humanism was the only source of sloving the problems of mankind forever.

Later Mr.T. Ravichand, a Buddhist writer and publisher, paid tribute to Mr. Sambasiva Rao and said that he was an ardent follower and practitioner of Radical Humanism. He said that these views were also expressed by Mrs. Ellen Roy in a Humanist Study Camp held in Dehradun where Mr. Sambasiva Rao was introduced as the Jesus of A.P. He said that he worked at the grass-root level yet he was a veracious reader of different ideologies and always considered them positively. He opined that four points needed further discussion viz. 1) Role of M.N Roy in Marxist ideology 2) Roy's contribution to modern scientific philosophy 3) Role of intellectuals according to Gramsci and 4) Buddhism and Roy's views.

—Report sent by G. Srinivas

III

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Press Conference held on 10-12-2013 on 10th December – 2013 On (Human Right Day) in Ahmadabad: Scrutiny of EVMs being used for Elections in India. Back to Ballot is the only remedy.

Report of the Scientific Scrutiny by Experts.

The main aim of the ‘Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties’ (PUCL), Gujarat, is to preserve the democratic values and to establish the same in the people’s mindset. The organization believes that the democracy is a system of life and beauty of its life lies in the diversity and differences of opinions.

Hence, wherever there are points / issues concerning the general public at large or where the points / issues concerning the human or constitutional rights which have become sensitive among the public, the organization remains alive to them and certainly engages itself in giving guidance for bringing such issues to the fore in the correction direction/perspective and to arouse or awaken public awareness. In our democracy and political system, electoral process is an important and integral part. People’s representatives getting elected on this basis have been working for the task of nation building. At such a time, it is very essential and mandatory that electoral system and its process is just and free. It should be entirely transparent and foolproof and far too above any kind of doubts. Democracy is a

way of life and to form a democratic society in its true sense for selection of people’s representatives, election process is its integral part. To ensure that election is conducted in a free and just manner, on the one hand, tactics like temptation, threat, caste-communalism, character assassination, liquor etc. should not be used and on the other hand it is very essential and inevitable that the entire electoral process arrangements are transparent and free from and far too above any kind of doubts. In the recent elections of Gujarat Legislature in the year 2012, doubts about credibility of EVM were expressed from all over and we had also received wide ranging complaints. Some complaints were based on the experience and some complaints were of such a nature that it was not possible to rationally 38

and logically reply. Some complaints were based on the analysis of results but were having substance in them. The outcome of Gujarat Legislature elections in the year 2012 was startling to some extent which gave rise to the doubts in the pubic mind at various stages in respect of the electoral process. When the shocking fact came to light that electronic voting machines being used in India are susceptible to be tampered with, then the ‘PUCL’, Gujarat, felt that the matter should be exhaustively inquired into by the experts and their conclusions / outcome should be placed before the concerned authorities and other stakeholders in the larger interest of the public. Realizing that to arrive at certain conclusion out of the above, it is necessary to make scientific scrutiny, a Committee consisting of engineers having technological knowledge and those supporting democracy, was formed by the PUCL in the interest of the nation as a whole. In this context, to conduct scientific scrutiny of the EVM, a Committee consisting of engineers having knowledge in this technology, was constituted by PUCL (Gujarat). In this Committee, following members rendered their honorary services for which we are thankful to them.

Rahul Mehta, Ahmadabad, (B.Tech, Computer Science, IIT Delhi, MS, Computer Science, Rutgers - New Jersey State Univ.); Balendu Vaghela, Rajkot, (Computer Technologist – Expert); Raju Dipti, Gandhinagar, (M.E.); Mahesh Pandya, Ahmadabad, (B.E. – Environment Engineer) These members were assigned following points for scrutiny.

1. Are the EVMs being used in the election process in India immune or above any kind of doubts?

2. Whether the above arrangements are technically satisfactory and defect-free or foolproof?

3. Are there any possibilities of tampering with the EVMs on a large scale? Whether there is scope for any improvement?

4. Whether free and just polls can be entirely possibly by this method alone? If no, then what can be suggested in this matter?

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Frequent interactions with all the friends were made as also interviews were held and meetings for discussions and deliberations took place. One questionnaire was prepared and sent out to certain associates and as a part of conclusions derived from it, certain serious doubts and issues were revealed about the EVMs being used in India. Series of meetings were held for over six months and opinions were solicited about this at various stage.

In the 2012 Gujarat Legislature Assembly elections, wide-spread discontent and complaints were noticed in respect of the EVMs. Some complaints were based on the experience and some were such whose answers were inexplicable on the anvil of principles or logic. Looking at the analysis of the election results also some complaints do have substance in them. Let us have a look at the quotes of some news papers during that point of time. a)The conspiracy of setting in the EVMs in Padra, (Dist. Baroda) got exposed. The votes registered were found to be more than those which were cast.

44 votes were cast in the EVM but after the counting, 111 Nos. of votes were reported.-(Gujarat To-day 22-10-10) b) The experts also recognized and endorsed to the questions raised against the EVM in Gujarat. The experts in the field of such technology, including the EVM accepted that no technology is foolproof and it is very easy to tamper with the EVMs. (Jay Hind; 27-10-2010) c)Votes outnumber voters at five polling booths in Surat. Total figure of voting was more than the number of voters registered. Collector promises action. (DNA. October 12, 2010) d) America felicitates the researcher who made presentation about the defects in the EVMs being used in India for the elections. Vemuru had recently made a startling revealing about security related flaws in the E-voting machines being used in India.

Vemuru had been felicitated with Pioneer Award for the year 2010 at the San Francisco based Head Quarter of Civil Liberties Group of America.

(Sambhav Metro; 25-10-2010)

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Findings and Recommendation: In the backdrop of the above, this study has been undertaken with an aim of making the whole process transparent, answerable and credible and to strengthen the democracy. The Findings and Recommendation put forth in the above context by the experts are as under: (1) There is a storm of protest against the EVM. This method is such that even the voter himself does not know in whose favor he is casting his vote.

Hence for free and just pole, it is inevitable to go back to the system of voting by the back to ballot.

(2) The fact that the Election Commission has admitted that there is scope for improvement in the present system, proves that the system is not foolproof.

(3) Every citizen of the country has a right to know whether the polling process being carried on by the autonomous body such as Election Commission is impartial, credible and foolproof or not. In this context, when these questions are raised at different stages then instead of giving clear and proper replies, the Election Commission is giving round-about and defensive replies. Why the Election Commission is not ready and willing to offer these EVMs for scientific scrutiny by the impartial experts in the electronic field, knowledgeable persons in this line and the experts to prove that the same are tamper-proof and foolproof and thus to prove its credibility and answerability. In the countries such as Germany and others, the Governments have indeed done this.

It is our demand that enough opportunity may be provided for scientific scrutiny of the EVM by the impartial technologists of electronic field, knowledgeable persons and the experts.

(4) Many countries of the world do not consider the EVM as reliable. Then why is there adamant and stubborn insistence for its use in India alone? The study of EVM was carried out for California State of America. On seeing that the result is negative, ban on use of EVM for election purposes was imposed by the California Government. Not only in

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California, is use of EVM banned in 21 other States of America. This has also been the case in Europe and other countries from which we had accepted this kind of method and they themselves are opposing it then we must learn from it and it is inevitable for us to go back to the polling by back to ballot paper method.

(5) When a case was filed in the Supreme Court against the Election Commission by raising doubts about credibility of the EVM, then later on, Election Commission admitted and confessed about the defect and advanced a contention / claim that new types of EVMs have been got ready. But to bring the same into implementation and looking to the need of the time, energy and finances there does not appear to be any possibility of using it during the parliamentary elections for the year 2014. Even if, this “ Voter Verifier Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) System is brought under implementation, then in the event of demand for recounting by any defeated candidate, voting slips will have to be counted which may result into double labour. In the general elections, there will be a need of 13 lac No. of VVPAT which will possible involve need of about Rs. 1,692.13 crores and it is not possible to manufacture in coming six months. Hence in order to conduct free and fair polls, it will be inevitable to take recourse to “back to ballot” method for voting, in which there will be expenditure of only Rs. 700 to 800 crores.

(6) The basis of decision for making use of EVM in India was taken in mysterious circumstances without taking into confidence the technicians and the stake holders and is incorrect in itself.

Moreover, having regard to sovereignty of the State, it is not proper that chip of the EVM is produced in a foreign country.

Partial and necessary data of the Experts is enclosed herewith: In the circumstances when the Election Commission itself has indirectly admitted that the EVM is not foolproof for free and fair polling process where is the sense in rigidly sticking to this process in the forthcoming

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elections? In the end, if nothing is possible, then in order to repose the credibility, is not it necessary to organize the forthcoming elections with the Dual System instead of conducting it in the present dubious atmosphere or circumstances? It is our feeling that instead of being dependant on a foreign country it is essential and inevitable to embrace or adopt the system where ballot papers are printed or prepared in our own country. This views expressed by the expert team seems to be logical and reasonable. We accept there views as findings, although we are not associated with any political party. This has been published in good faith and in larger public interest for mobilizing and influencing public opinion among the public bodies at large, through the various organizations such as Election Commission, different political parties, media – press, awakened citizens’ organizations etc.

Opinion of the committee: We have been handed over with the task to opine on below stated four issues pertaining to election process by EVM Technology.

1.Whether the EVM Machines used in Election process in India are beyond doubt?

2.Whether the EVM process is full proof and satisfactory?

3.Whether there are possibilities, in tampering with the EVM machines in big way? And whether the process system requires the corrections.

4.Whether fair and free elections are completely possible in present EVM system? If no, what suggestions could be made?

Our opinions on these four points are as under: 1. No 2. No 3. Yes 4. No —New Sent By Mr. Gautam Thakar General Secretary, PUCL (Gujarat)

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