January 17th, 2001
The Tehelka tapes showed clearly that the BJP and the Samata are “open to offer”.
Corruption in India is now great enough to cause the wheels of commerce and industry to slowly grind to a halt.
What can be done to prevent utter hopelessness from enveloping our individual beings?
Although all poetry is unfashionable and Urdu dead as a dodo it may still help us to survive.
A verse of Raghupati Sahay “Firaq”s is offered to the reader with the translation. It might help.
“Tubeeyut upnee ghubaraatee hey in sunsaan raatoan koa
Hum eiysey meiyn teyree yaadoan kee chaadar taan leytey heiyn”
When my being gets tormented by the stillness of the night ; I take refuge under the cover (woven out) of memories of You,
Memories, nostalgia remembrances.
Perhaps remembering the beginnings of modern Indian politics will help.
Today politicians cannot afford to give up power even for a day. Like streetwalkers cannot give up their beat. It means a loss of the wages of sin. The politician”s income may run into lakhs and crores.
Things were different when modern political life started in India. The battle for freedom was joined nearly a hundred years ago between the Indians; an oppressed dispossessed and disarmed people and their British masters, the rulers of the mightiest empire the world has ever known. Joining politics meant relentless persecution, imprisonment, floggings, transportation, exile and even death.
How was the spirit of sacrifice built up?
The Yugantar on April 7th 1907 wrote:
“In almost every country the people can be divided into three before each revolution. One party turns traitor and helps the established government; the second and this consisits of the majority of the population, though hankering for freedom and prepared to make a little sacrifice for attaining it are not prepared to plunge into war for its sake; the third party consists of men to whom life without freedom is a burden and who are not unwilling to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their ideal”.
“It is gradually becoming necessary to form a third party like this in every town and every village and link them together.
After the people”s support has been enlisted:
“the blood that has so long sustained this body will be given as an offering to the Mother on the day of worship. That is the day on which the child which now lisps will roar. That is a day when the little hands which now carry toys will wield fierce weapons. O Mahakali in the guise of Death what need they fear whose Mother Thou Art!”
The response of the British government and the whites in India was reflected in The Pioneer” If the Bengalis act upon the advice that is given them we would descend upon them with the fire and the sword and we would shoot and hang as remorselessly as we did in 1857 – perhaps even more so. The tiger qualities of an imperialist race are not dead, they merely sleep”.
One confrontation took place in August 1907.
The editor of the Yugantar, Aurobindo, was prosecuted in the court of Kingsford Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta. Bepin Chandra Pal was summoned to give evidence against the accused. When asked to take the oath he refused and stated “I have conscientious objections to being sworn in or to take part in the proceedings”.
The Magistrate then tried Bepin Chandra Pal for contempt. The accused stated
“It is no doubt the duty of every member of society to help in the administration of justice to give evidence in the interest of social well being, but when prosecutions prompted by executive policy the consideration of which is outside the jurisdiction of law courts, are against that very interest, the duty of the individual on that self- same ground must necessarily be different.”
“I honestly believe that prosecutions like that of the Bande Mataram are unjust and injurious; unjust …. Because they are subversive of the rights of the people, and injurious because they are calculated to stifle freedom of thought and speech, nor are they justified in the interests of public peace.”
“I had accordingly, conscientious objections to take part in the prosecution. I, therefore refuse to be sworn or affirmed in that case. I had no intention of showing disrespect to the Court… As I was not allowed to make the statement then I do so now”.
Bepin Chandra Pal was sentenced to six months imprisonment.
This is what happened inside the temple of Justice set up by the feringhee. Outside, on the streets a fifteen years old boy was, without reason, assaulted by a sergeant. When he retaliated he was brutally beaten. Later he was prosecuted and sentenced to flogging. We shall return to the story of Sushil Kumar Sen in a future article.