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Monday, August 15, 2011
Why I am an Atheist by Bhagat Singh (1931)
It is a matter of debate whether my lack of belief in the existence of an Omnipresent, Omniscient God is due to my arrogant pride and vanity. It never occurred to me that sometime in the future I would be involved in polemics of this kind. As a result of some discussions with my friends, (if my claim to friendship is not uncalled for) I have realised that after having known me for a little time only, some of them have reached a kind of hasty conclusion about me that my atheism is my foolishness and that it is the outcome of my vanity. Even then it is a serious problem. I do not boast of being above these human follies. I am, after all, a human being and nothing more. And no one can claim to be more than that. I have a weakness in my personality, for pride is one of the human traits that I do possess. I am known as a dictator among my friends. Sometimes I am called a boaster. Some have always been complaining that I am bossy and I force others to accept my opinion. Yes, it is true to some extent. I do not deny this charge. We can use the word ‘vainglory’ for it. As far as the contemptible, obsolete, rotten values of our society are concerned, I am an extreme sceptic. But this question does not concern my person alone. It is being proud of my ideas, my thoughts. It cannot be called empty pride. Pride, or you may use the word, vanity, both mean an exaggerated assessment of one’s personality. Is my atheism because of unnecessary pride, or have I ceased believing in God after thinking long and deep on the matter? I wish to put my ideas before you. First of all, let us differentiate between pride and vanity as these are two different things.
I have never been able to understand how unfounded, baseless pride or empty vanity can hinder a person from believing in God. I may refuse to acknowledge the greatness of a really great person only when I have got fame without doing any serious efforts or when I lack the superior mental powers necessary to become great. It is easy to understand but how is it possible that a believer can turn into a non-believer because of his vanity? Only two things are possible: either a man deems himself to be in possession of Godly qualities, or he goes a step further and declares himself to be a god. In both these states of mind he cannot be an atheist in the true sense of the word. In the first case, it is not an outright rejection of God’s existence; in the other, he is affirming the existence of some kind of supernatural power responsible for the working of universe. It does not harm our argument whether he claims to be a god or considers God to be a reality in existence above his own being. The real point, however, is that in both cases he is a theist, a believer. He is not an atheist. I want to bring home this point to you. I am not one of these two creeds. I totally reject the existence of an Omnipresent, all powerful, all knowing God. Why so? I will discuss it later in the essay. Here I wish to emphasise that I am not an atheist for the reason that I am arrogant or proud or vain; nor am I a demi-god, nor a prophet; no, nor am I God myself. At least one thing is true that I have not evolved this thought because of vanity or pride. In order to answer this question I relate the truth. My friends say that after Delhi bombing and Lahore Conspiracy Case, I rocketed to fame and that this fact has turned my head. Let us discuss why this allegation is incorrect. I did not give up my belief in God after these incidents. I was an atheist even when I was an unknown figure. At least a college student cannot cherish any sort of exaggerated notion of himself that may lead him to atheism. It is true that I was a favourite with some college teachers, but others did not like me. I was never a hardworking or studious boy. I never got an opportunity to be proud. I was very careful in my behaviour and somewhat pessimistic about my future career. I was not completely atheistic in my beliefs. I was brought up under the care and protection of my father. He was a staunch Arya Samaji. An Arya Samaji can be anything but never an atheist. After my elementary education, I was sent to D. A. V College, Lahore. I lived in the boarding house for one year. Besides prayers early in the morning and at dusk time, I sat for hours and chanted religious Mantras. At that time, I was a staunch believer. Then I lived with my father. He was a tolerant man in his religious views. It is due to his teachings that I devoted my life for the cause of liberating my country. But he was not an atheist. His God was an all-pervading Entity. He advised me to offer my prayers every day. In this way I was brought up. In the Non-cooperation days, I got admission to the National College. During my stay in this college, I began thinking over all the religious polemics such that I grew sceptical about the existence of God. In spite of this fact I can say that my belief in God was firm and strong. I grew a beard and ‘Kais’ (long head of hair as a Sikh religious custom). In spite of this I could not convince myself of the efficacy of Sikh religion or any religion at all, for that matter. But I had an unswerving, unwavering belief in God.
Then I joined the Revolutionary Party. The first leader I met had not the courage to openly declare himself an atheist. He was unable to reach any conclusion on this point. Whenever I asked him about the existence of God, he gave me this reply: “You may believe in him when you feel like it.” The second leader with whom I came in contact was a firm believer. I should mention his name. It was our respected Comrade Sachindara Nath Sanyal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with Karachi conspiracy case. Right from the first page of his only book, ‘Bandi Jivan’ (Incarnated Life) he sings praises to the Glory of God. See the last page of the second part of this book and you find praises showered upon God in the way of a mystic. It is a clear reflection of his thoughts.
According to the prosecution, the ‘Revolutionary Leaflet’ which was distributed throughout India was the outcome of Sachindara Nath Sanyal’s intellectual labour. So often it happens that in revolutionary activities a leader expresses his own ideas which may be very dear to him, but in spite of having differences, the other workers have to acquiesce in them.
In that leaflet, one full paragraph was devoted to the praises of God and His doings which we, human beings, cannot understand. This is sheer mysticism. What I want to point out is that the idea of denying the existence of God did not even occur to the Revolutionary Party. The famous Kakory martyrs, all four of them, passed their last day in prayers. Ram Parshad Bismal was a staunch Arya Samaji. In spite of his vast studies in Socialism and Communism, Rajan Lahiri could not suppress his desire to recite hymns from Upanishads and Gita. There was but only one person among them who did not indulge in such activities. He used to say, “Religion is the outcome of human weakness or the limitation of human knowledge.” He is also in prison for life. But he also never dared to deny the existence of God.
Till that time I was only a romantic revolutionary, just a follower of our leaders. Then came the time to shoulder the whole responsibility. For some time, a strong opposition put the very existence of the party into danger. Many leaders as well as many enthusiastic comrades began to uphold the party to ridicule. They jeered at us. I had an apprehension that some day I will also consider it a futile and hopeless task. It was a turning point in my revolutionary career. An incessant desire to study filled my heart. ‘Study more and more’, said I to myself so that I might be able to face the arguments of my opponents. ‘Study’ to support your point of view with convincing arguments. And I began to study in a serious manner. My previous beliefs and convictions underwent a radical change. The romance of militancy dominated our predecessors; now serious ideas ousted this way of thinking. No more mysticism! No more blind faith! Now realism was our mode of thinking. At times of terrible necessity, we can resort to extreme methods, but violence produces opposite results in mass movements. I have talked much about our methods. The most important thing was a clear conception of our ideology for which we were waging a long struggle. As there was no election activity going on, I got ample opportunity to study various ideas propounded by various writers. I studied Bakunin, the anarchist leader. I read a few books of Marx, the father of Communism. I also read Lenin and Trotsky and many other writers who successfully carried out revolutions in their countries. All of them were atheists. The ideas contained in Bakunin’s ‘God and State’ seem inconclusive, but it is an interesting book. After that I came across a book ‘Common Sense’ by Nirlamba Swami. His point of view was a sort of mystical atheism. I developed more interest in this subject. By the end of 1926, I was convinced that the belief in an Almighty, Supreme Being who created, guided and controlled the universe had no sound foundations. I began discussions on this subject with my friends. I had openly declared myself an atheist. What it meant will be discussed in the following lines.
In May 1927, I was arrested in Lahore. This arrest came as a big surprise for me. I had not the least idea that I was wanted by the police. I was passing through a garden and all of a sudden the police surrounded me. To my own surprise, I was very calm at that time. I was in full control of myself. I was taken into police custody. The next day I was taken to the Railway Police lockup where I spent a whole month. After many days’ conversation with police personnel, I guessed that they had some information about my connection with the Kakori Party. I felt they had some intelligence of my other activities in the revolutionary movement. They told me that I was in Lucknow during the Kakori Party Trial so that I might devise a scheme to rescue the culprits. They also said that after the plan had been approved, we procured some bombs and by way of test, one of those bombs was thrown into a crowd on the occasion of Dussehra in 1926. They offered to release me on condition that I gave a statement on the activities of the Revolutionary Party. In this way I would be set free and even rewarded and I would not be produced as an approver in the court. I could not help laughing at their proposals. It was all humbug. People who have ideas like ours do not throw bombs at their own innocent people. One day, Mr. Newman, the then senior Superintendent of CID, came to me. After a long talk which was full of sympathetic words, he imparted to me what he considered to be sad news, that if I did not give any statement as demanded by them, they would be forced to send me up for trial for conspiracy to wage war in connection with Kakori Case and also for brutal killings in Dussehra gathering. After that he said that he had sufficient evidence to get me convicted and hanged.
I was completely innocent, but I believed that the police had sufficient power to do it if they desired it to be so. The same day some police officers persuaded me to offer my prayers to God two times regularly. I was an atheist. I thought that I would settle it to myself whether I could brag only in days of peace and happiness that I was an atheist, or in those hard times I could be steadfast in my convictions. After a long debate with myself, I reached the conclusion that I could not even pretend to be a believer nor could I offer my prayers to God. No, I never did it. It was time of trial and I would come out of it successful. These were my thoughts. Never for a moment did I desire to save my life. So I was a true atheist then and I am an atheist now. It was not an easy task to face that ordeal. Beliefs make it easier to go through hardships, even make them pleasant. Man can find a strong support in God and an encouraging consolation in His Name. If you have no belief in Him, then there is no alternative but to depend upon yourself. It is not child’s play to stand firm on your feet amid storms and strong winds. In difficult times, vanity, if it remains, evaporates and man cannot find the courage to defy beliefs held in common esteem by the people. If he really revolts against such beliefs, we must conclude that it is not sheer vanity; he has some kind of extraordinary strength. This is exactly the situation now. First of all we all know what the judgement will be. It is to be pronounced in a week or so. I am going to sacrifice my life for a cause. What more consolation can there be! A God-believing Hindu may expect to be reborn a king; a Muslim or a Christian might dream of the luxuries he hopes to enjoy in paradise as a reward for his sufferings and sacrifices. What hope should I entertain? I know that will be the end when the rope is tightened round my neck and the rafters move from under my feet. To use more precise religious terminology, that will be the moment of utter annihilation. My soul will come to nothing. If I take the courage to take the matter in the light of ‘Reward’, I see that a short life of struggle with no such magnificent end shall itself be my ‘Reward.’ That is all. Without any selfish motive of getting any reward here or in the hereafter, quite disinterestedly have I devoted my life to the cause of freedom. I could not act otherwise. The day shall usher in a new era of liberty when a large number of men and women, taking courage from the idea of serving humanity and liberating them from sufferings and distress, decide that there is no alternative before them except devoting their lives for this cause. They will wage a war against their oppressors, tyrants or exploiters, not to become kings, or to gain any reward here or in the next birth or after death in paradise; but to cast off the yoke of slavery, to establish liberty and peace they will tread this perilous, but glorious path. Can the pride they take in their noble cause be called vanity? Who is there rash enough to call it so? To him I say either he is foolish or wicked. Leave such a fellow alone for he cannot realise the depth, the emotions, the sentiment and the noble feelings that surge in that heart. His heart is dead, a mere lump of flesh, devoid of feelings. His convictions are infirm, his emotions feeble. His selfish interests have made him incapable of seeing the truth. The epithet ‘vanity’ is always hurled at the strength we get from our convictions.
You go against popular feelings; you criticise a hero, a great man who is generally believed to be above criticism. What happens? No one will answer your arguments in a rational way; rather you will be considered vainglorious. Its reason is mental insipidity. Merciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking. As Mahatmaji is great, he is above criticism; as he has risen above, all that he says in the field of politics, religion, Ethics is right. You agree or not, it is binding upon you to take it as truth. This is not constructive thinking. We do not take a leap forward; we go many steps back.
Our forefathers evolved faith in some kind of Supreme Being, therefore, one who ventures to challenge the validity of that faith or denies the existence of God, shall be called a Kafir (infidel), or a renegade. Even if his arguments are so strong that it is impossible to refute them, if his spirit is so strong that he cannot be bowed down by the threats of misfortune that may befall him through the wrath of the Almighty, he shall be decried as vainglorious. Then why should we waste our time in such discussions? This question has come before the people for the first time, hence the necessity and usefulness of such long discussions.
As far as the first question is concerned, I think I have made it clear that I did not turn atheist because of vanity. Only my readers, not I, can decide whether my arguments carry weight. If I were a believer, I know in the present circumstances my life would have been easier; the burden lighter. My disbelief in God has turned all the circumstances too harsh and this situation can deteriorate further. Being a little mystical can give the circumstances a poetic turn. But I need no opiate to meet my end. I am a realistic man. I want to overpower this tendency in me with the help of Reason. I am not always successful in such attempts. But it is man’s duty to try and make efforts. Success depends on chance and circumstances.
Now we come to the second question: if it is not vanity, there ought to be some sound reason for rejection of age-old belief in God. Yes, I come to this question. I think that any man who has some reasoning power always tries to understand the life and people around him with the help of this faculty. Where concrete proofs are lacking, [mystical] philosophy creeps in. As I have indicated, one of my revolutionary friends used to say that “philosophy is the outcome of human weakness.” Our ancestors had the leisure to solve the mysteries of the world, its past, its present and its future, its whys and its wherefores, but having been terribly short of direct proofs, every one of them tried to solve the problem in his own way. Hence we find wide differences in the fundamentals of various religious creeds. Sometimes they take very antagonistic and conflicting forms. We find differences in Oriental and Occidental philosophies. There are differences even amongst various schools of thoughts in each hemisphere. In Asian religions, the Muslim religion is completely incompatible with the Hindu faith. In India itself, Buddhism and Jainism are sometimes quite separate from Brahmanism. Then in Brahmanism itself, we find two conflicting sects: Aarya Samaj and Snatan Dheram. Charwak is yet another independent thinker of the past ages. He challenged the Authority of God. All these faiths differ on many fundamental questions, but each of them claims to be the only true religion. This is the root of the evil. Instead of developing the ideas and experiments of ancient thinkers, thus providing ourselves with the ideological weapon for the future struggle, – lethargic, idle, fanatical as we are – we cling to orthodox religion and in this way reduce human awakening to a stagnant pool.
It is necessary for every person who stands for progress to criticise every tenet of old beliefs. Item by item he has to challenge the efficacy of old faith. He has to analyse and understand all the details. If after rigorous reasoning, one is led to believe in any theory of philosophy, his faith is appreciated. His reasoning may be mistaken and even fallacious. But there is chance that he will be corrected because Reason is the guiding principle of his life. But belief, I should say blind belief is disastrous. It deprives a man of his understanding power and makes him reactionary.
Any person who claims to be a realist has to challenge the truth of old beliefs. If faith cannot withstand the onslaught of reason, it collapses. After that his task should be to do the groundwork for new philosophy. This is the negative side. After that comes in the positive work in which some material of the olden times can be used to construct the pillars of new philosophy. As far as I am concerned, I admit that I lack sufficient study in this field. I had a great desire to study the Oriental Philosophy, but I could get ample opportunity or sufficient time to do so. But so far as I reject the old time beliefs, it is not a matter of countering belief with belief, rather I can challenge the efficacy of old beliefs with sound arguments. We believe in nature and that human progress depends on the domination of man over nature. There is no conscious power behind it. This is our philosophy.
Being atheist, I ask a few questions from theists:
1. If, as you believe there is an Almighty, Omnipresent, Omniscient God, who created the earth or universe, please let me know, first of all, as to why he created this world. This world which is full of woe and grief, and countless miseries, where not even one person lives in peace.
2. Pray, don’t say it is His law. If He is bound by any law, He is not Omnipotent. Don’t say it is His pleasure. Nero burnt one Rome. He killed a very limited number of people. He caused only a few tragedies, all for his morbid enjoyment. But what is his place in history? By what names do we remember him? All the disparaging epithets are hurled at him. Pages are blackened with invective diatribes condemning Nero: the tyrant, the heartless, the wicked.
One Genghis Khan killed a few thousand people to seek pleasure in it and we hate the very name. Now, how will you justify your all powerful, eternal Nero, who every day, every moment continues his pastime of killing people? How can you support his doings which surpass those of Genghis Khan in cruelty and in misery inflicted upon people? I ask why the Almighty created this world which is nothing but a living hell, a place of constant and bitter unrest. Why did he create man when he had the power not to do so? Have you any answer to these questions? You will say that it is to reward the sufferer and punish the evildoer in the hereafter. Well, well, how far will you justify a man who first of all inflicts injuries on your body and then applies soft and soothing ointment on them? How far the supporters and organizers of Gladiator bouts were justified in throwing men before half starved lions, later to be cared for and looked after well if they escaped this horrible death. That is why I ask: Was the creation of man intended to derive this kind of pleasure?
Open your eyes and see millions of people dying of hunger in slums and huts dirtier than the grim dungeons of prisons; just see the labourers patiently or say apathetically while the rich vampires suck their blood; bring to mind the wastage of human energy that will make a man with a little common sense shiver in horror. Just observe rich nations throwing their surplus produce into the sea instead of distributing it among the needy and deprived. There are palaces of kings built upon the foundations laid with human bones. Let them see all this and say “All is well in God’s Kingdom.” Why so? This is my question. You are silent. All right. I proceed to my next point.
You, the Hindus, would say: Whosoever undergoes sufferings in this life, must have been a sinner in his previous birth. It is tantamount to saying that those who are oppressors now were Godly people then, in their previous births. For this reason alone they hold power in their hands. Let me say it plainly that your ancestors were shrewd people. They were always in search of petty hoaxes to play upon people and snatch from them the power of Reason. Let us analyse how much this argument carries weight!
Those who are well versed in the philosophy of Jurisprudence relate three of four justifications for the punishment that is to be inflicted upon a wrong-doer. These are: revenge, reform, and deterrence. The Retribution Theory is now condemned by all the thinkers. Deterrent theory is on the anvil for its flaws. Reformative theory is now widely accepted and considered to be necessary for human progress. It aims at reforming the culprit and converting him into a peace-loving citizen. But what in essence is God’s Punishment even if it is inflicted on a person who has really done some harm? For the sake of argument we agree for a moment that a person committed some crime in his previous birth and God punished him by changing his shape into a cow, cat, tree, or any other animal. You may enumerate the number of these variations in Godly Punishment to be at least eighty-four lack. Tell me, has this tomfoolery, perpetrated in the name of punishment, any reformative effect on human man? How many of them have you met who were donkeys in their previous births for having committed any sin? Absolutely no one of this sort! The so called theory of ‘Puranas’ (transmigration) is nothing but a fairy-tale. I do not have any intention to bring this unutterable trash under discussion. Do you really know the most cursed sin in this world is to be poor? Yes, poverty is a sin; it is a punishment! Cursed be the theoretician, jurist or legislator who proposes such measures as push man into the quagmire of more heinous sins. Did it not occur to your All Knowing God or he could learn the truth only after millions had undergone untold sufferings and hardships? What, according to your theory, is the fate of a person who, by no sin of his own, has been born into a family of low caste people? He is poor so he cannot go to a school. It is his fate to be shunned and hated by those who are born into a high caste. His ignorance, his poverty, and the contempt he receives from others will harden his heart towards society. Supposing that he commits a sin, who shall bear the consequences? God, or he, or the learned people of that society? What is your view about those punishments inflicted on the people who were deliberately kept ignorant by selfish and proud Brahmans? If by chance these poor creatures heard a few words of your sacred books, Vedas, these Brahmans poured melted lead into their ears. If they committed any sin, who was to be held responsible? Who was to bear the brunt? My dear friends, these theories have been coined by the privileged classes. They try to justify the power they have usurped and the riches they have robbed with the help of such theories. Perhaps it was the writer Upton Sinclair who wrote (Bhagat Singh is referring to Sinclair’s pamphlet ‘Profits of Religion’ – MIA transcriber) somewhere “only make a man firm believer in the immortality of soul, then rob him of all that he possesses. He will willingly help you in the process.” The dirty alliance between religious preachers and possessors of power brought the boon of prisons, gallows, knouts and above all such theories for the mankind.
I ask why your Omnipotent God does not hold a man back when he is about to commit a sin or offence. It is child’s play for God. Why did He not kill war lords? Why did He not obliterate the fury of war from their minds? In this way He could have saved humanity of many a great calamity and horror. Why does He not infuse humanistic sentiments into the minds of the Britishers so that they may willingly leave India? I ask why He does not fill the hearts of all capitalist classes with altruistic humanism that prompts them to give up personal possession of the means of production and this will free the whole labouring humanity from the shackles of money. You want to argue the practicability of Socialist theory, I leave it to your Almighty God to enforce it. Common people understand the merits of Socialist theory as far as general welfare is concerned but they oppose it under the pretext that it cannot be implemented. Let the Almighty step in and arrange things in a proper way. No more logic chopping! I tell you that the British rule is not there because God willed it but for the reason that we lack the will and courage to oppose it. Not that they are keeping us under subjugation with the consent of God, but it is with the force of guns and rifles, bombs and bullets, police and militia, and above all because of our apathy that they are successfully committing the most deplorable sin, that is, the exploitation of one nation by another. Where is God? What is He doing? Is He getting a diseased pleasure out of it? A Nero! A Genghis Khan! Down with Him!
Now another piece of manufactured logic! You ask me how I will explain the origin of this world and origin of man. Charles Darwin has tried to throw some light on this subject. Study his book. Also, have a look at Sohan Swami’s “Commonsense.” You will get a satisfactory answer. This topic is concerned with Biology and Natural History. This is a phenomenon of nature. The accidental mixture of different substances in the form of Nebulae gave birth to this earth. When? Study history to know this. The same process caused the evolution of animals and in the long run that of man. Read Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species.’ All the later progress is due to man’s constant conflict with nature and his efforts to utilise nature for his own benefit. This is the briefest sketch of this phenomenon.
Your next question will be why a child is born blind or lame even if he was not a sinner in his previous birth. This problem has been explained in a satisfactory manner by biologists as a mere biological phenomenon. According to them the whole burden rests upon the shoulders of parents whose conscious or unconscious deeds caused mutilation of the child prior to his birth.
You may thrust yet another question at me, though it is merely childish. The question is: If God does not really exist, why do people come to believe in Him? Brief and concise my answer will be. As they come to believe in ghosts, and evil spirits, so they also evolve a kind of belief in God: the only difference being that God is almost a universal phenomenon and well developed theological philosophy. However, I do disagree with radical philosophy. It attributes His origin to the ingenuity of exploiters who wanted to keep the people under their subjugation by preaching the existence of a Supreme Being; thus claimed an authority and sanction from Him for their privileged position. I do not differ on the essential point that all religions, faiths, theological philosophies, and religious creeds and all other such institutions in the long run become supporters of the tyrannical and exploiting institutions, men and classes. Rebellion against any king has always been a sin in every religion.
As regard the origin of God, my thought is that man created God in his imagination when he realized his weaknesses, limitations and shortcomings. In this way he got the courage to face all the trying circumstances and to meet all dangers that might occur in his life and also to restrain his outbursts in prosperity and affluence. God, with his whimsical laws and parental generosity was painted with variegated colours of imagination. He was used as a deterrent factor when his fury and his laws were repeatedly propagated so that man might not become a danger to society. He was the cry of the distressed soul for he was believed to stand as father and mother, sister and brother, brother and friend when in time of distress a man was left alone and helpless. He was Almighty and could do anything. The idea of God is helpful to a man in distress.
Society must fight against this belief in God as it fought against idol worship and other narrow conceptions of religion. In this way man will try to stand on his feet. Being realistic, he will have to throw his faith aside and face all adversaries with courage and valour. That is exactly my state of mind. My friends, it is not my vanity; it is my mode of thinking that has made me an atheist. I don’t think that by strengthening my belief in God and by offering prayers to Him every day, (this I consider to be the most degraded act on the part of man) I can bring improvement in my situation, nor can I further deteriorate it. I have read of many atheists facing all troubles boldly, so I am trying to stand like a man with the head high and erect to the last; even on the gallows.
Let us see how steadfast I am. One of my friends asked me to pray. When informed of my atheism, he said, “When your last days come, you will begin to believe.” I said, “No, dear sir, Never shall it happen. I consider it to be an act of degradation and demoralisation. For such petty selfish motives, I shall never pray.” Reader and friends, is it vanity? If it is, I stand for it.
I have never been able to understand how unfounded, baseless pride or empty vanity can hinder a person from believing in God. I may refuse to acknowledge the greatness of a really great person only when I have got fame without doing any serious efforts or when I lack the superior mental powers necessary to become great. It is easy to understand but how is it possible that a believer can turn into a non-believer because of his vanity? Only two things are possible: either a man deems himself to be in possession of Godly qualities, or he goes a step further and declares himself to be a god. In both these states of mind he cannot be an atheist in the true sense of the word. In the first case, it is not an outright rejection of God’s existence; in the other, he is affirming the existence of some kind of supernatural power responsible for the working of universe. It does not harm our argument whether he claims to be a god or considers God to be a reality in existence above his own being. The real point, however, is that in both cases he is a theist, a believer. He is not an atheist. I want to bring home this point to you. I am not one of these two creeds. I totally reject the existence of an Omnipresent, all powerful, all knowing God. Why so? I will discuss it later in the essay. Here I wish to emphasise that I am not an atheist for the reason that I am arrogant or proud or vain; nor am I a demi-god, nor a prophet; no, nor am I God myself. At least one thing is true that I have not evolved this thought because of vanity or pride. In order to answer this question I relate the truth. My friends say that after Delhi bombing and Lahore Conspiracy Case, I rocketed to fame and that this fact has turned my head. Let us discuss why this allegation is incorrect. I did not give up my belief in God after these incidents. I was an atheist even when I was an unknown figure. At least a college student cannot cherish any sort of exaggerated notion of himself that may lead him to atheism. It is true that I was a favourite with some college teachers, but others did not like me. I was never a hardworking or studious boy. I never got an opportunity to be proud. I was very careful in my behaviour and somewhat pessimistic about my future career. I was not completely atheistic in my beliefs. I was brought up under the care and protection of my father. He was a staunch Arya Samaji. An Arya Samaji can be anything but never an atheist. After my elementary education, I was sent to D. A. V College, Lahore. I lived in the boarding house for one year. Besides prayers early in the morning and at dusk time, I sat for hours and chanted religious Mantras. At that time, I was a staunch believer. Then I lived with my father. He was a tolerant man in his religious views. It is due to his teachings that I devoted my life for the cause of liberating my country. But he was not an atheist. His God was an all-pervading Entity. He advised me to offer my prayers every day. In this way I was brought up. In the Non-cooperation days, I got admission to the National College. During my stay in this college, I began thinking over all the religious polemics such that I grew sceptical about the existence of God. In spite of this fact I can say that my belief in God was firm and strong. I grew a beard and ‘Kais’ (long head of hair as a Sikh religious custom). In spite of this I could not convince myself of the efficacy of Sikh religion or any religion at all, for that matter. But I had an unswerving, unwavering belief in God.
Then I joined the Revolutionary Party. The first leader I met had not the courage to openly declare himself an atheist. He was unable to reach any conclusion on this point. Whenever I asked him about the existence of God, he gave me this reply: “You may believe in him when you feel like it.” The second leader with whom I came in contact was a firm believer. I should mention his name. It was our respected Comrade Sachindara Nath Sanyal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with Karachi conspiracy case. Right from the first page of his only book, ‘Bandi Jivan’ (Incarnated Life) he sings praises to the Glory of God. See the last page of the second part of this book and you find praises showered upon God in the way of a mystic. It is a clear reflection of his thoughts.
According to the prosecution, the ‘Revolutionary Leaflet’ which was distributed throughout India was the outcome of Sachindara Nath Sanyal’s intellectual labour. So often it happens that in revolutionary activities a leader expresses his own ideas which may be very dear to him, but in spite of having differences, the other workers have to acquiesce in them.
In that leaflet, one full paragraph was devoted to the praises of God and His doings which we, human beings, cannot understand. This is sheer mysticism. What I want to point out is that the idea of denying the existence of God did not even occur to the Revolutionary Party. The famous Kakory martyrs, all four of them, passed their last day in prayers. Ram Parshad Bismal was a staunch Arya Samaji. In spite of his vast studies in Socialism and Communism, Rajan Lahiri could not suppress his desire to recite hymns from Upanishads and Gita. There was but only one person among them who did not indulge in such activities. He used to say, “Religion is the outcome of human weakness or the limitation of human knowledge.” He is also in prison for life. But he also never dared to deny the existence of God.
Till that time I was only a romantic revolutionary, just a follower of our leaders. Then came the time to shoulder the whole responsibility. For some time, a strong opposition put the very existence of the party into danger. Many leaders as well as many enthusiastic comrades began to uphold the party to ridicule. They jeered at us. I had an apprehension that some day I will also consider it a futile and hopeless task. It was a turning point in my revolutionary career. An incessant desire to study filled my heart. ‘Study more and more’, said I to myself so that I might be able to face the arguments of my opponents. ‘Study’ to support your point of view with convincing arguments. And I began to study in a serious manner. My previous beliefs and convictions underwent a radical change. The romance of militancy dominated our predecessors; now serious ideas ousted this way of thinking. No more mysticism! No more blind faith! Now realism was our mode of thinking. At times of terrible necessity, we can resort to extreme methods, but violence produces opposite results in mass movements. I have talked much about our methods. The most important thing was a clear conception of our ideology for which we were waging a long struggle. As there was no election activity going on, I got ample opportunity to study various ideas propounded by various writers. I studied Bakunin, the anarchist leader. I read a few books of Marx, the father of Communism. I also read Lenin and Trotsky and many other writers who successfully carried out revolutions in their countries. All of them were atheists. The ideas contained in Bakunin’s ‘God and State’ seem inconclusive, but it is an interesting book. After that I came across a book ‘Common Sense’ by Nirlamba Swami. His point of view was a sort of mystical atheism. I developed more interest in this subject. By the end of 1926, I was convinced that the belief in an Almighty, Supreme Being who created, guided and controlled the universe had no sound foundations. I began discussions on this subject with my friends. I had openly declared myself an atheist. What it meant will be discussed in the following lines.
In May 1927, I was arrested in Lahore. This arrest came as a big surprise for me. I had not the least idea that I was wanted by the police. I was passing through a garden and all of a sudden the police surrounded me. To my own surprise, I was very calm at that time. I was in full control of myself. I was taken into police custody. The next day I was taken to the Railway Police lockup where I spent a whole month. After many days’ conversation with police personnel, I guessed that they had some information about my connection with the Kakori Party. I felt they had some intelligence of my other activities in the revolutionary movement. They told me that I was in Lucknow during the Kakori Party Trial so that I might devise a scheme to rescue the culprits. They also said that after the plan had been approved, we procured some bombs and by way of test, one of those bombs was thrown into a crowd on the occasion of Dussehra in 1926. They offered to release me on condition that I gave a statement on the activities of the Revolutionary Party. In this way I would be set free and even rewarded and I would not be produced as an approver in the court. I could not help laughing at their proposals. It was all humbug. People who have ideas like ours do not throw bombs at their own innocent people. One day, Mr. Newman, the then senior Superintendent of CID, came to me. After a long talk which was full of sympathetic words, he imparted to me what he considered to be sad news, that if I did not give any statement as demanded by them, they would be forced to send me up for trial for conspiracy to wage war in connection with Kakori Case and also for brutal killings in Dussehra gathering. After that he said that he had sufficient evidence to get me convicted and hanged.
I was completely innocent, but I believed that the police had sufficient power to do it if they desired it to be so. The same day some police officers persuaded me to offer my prayers to God two times regularly. I was an atheist. I thought that I would settle it to myself whether I could brag only in days of peace and happiness that I was an atheist, or in those hard times I could be steadfast in my convictions. After a long debate with myself, I reached the conclusion that I could not even pretend to be a believer nor could I offer my prayers to God. No, I never did it. It was time of trial and I would come out of it successful. These were my thoughts. Never for a moment did I desire to save my life. So I was a true atheist then and I am an atheist now. It was not an easy task to face that ordeal. Beliefs make it easier to go through hardships, even make them pleasant. Man can find a strong support in God and an encouraging consolation in His Name. If you have no belief in Him, then there is no alternative but to depend upon yourself. It is not child’s play to stand firm on your feet amid storms and strong winds. In difficult times, vanity, if it remains, evaporates and man cannot find the courage to defy beliefs held in common esteem by the people. If he really revolts against such beliefs, we must conclude that it is not sheer vanity; he has some kind of extraordinary strength. This is exactly the situation now. First of all we all know what the judgement will be. It is to be pronounced in a week or so. I am going to sacrifice my life for a cause. What more consolation can there be! A God-believing Hindu may expect to be reborn a king; a Muslim or a Christian might dream of the luxuries he hopes to enjoy in paradise as a reward for his sufferings and sacrifices. What hope should I entertain? I know that will be the end when the rope is tightened round my neck and the rafters move from under my feet. To use more precise religious terminology, that will be the moment of utter annihilation. My soul will come to nothing. If I take the courage to take the matter in the light of ‘Reward’, I see that a short life of struggle with no such magnificent end shall itself be my ‘Reward.’ That is all. Without any selfish motive of getting any reward here or in the hereafter, quite disinterestedly have I devoted my life to the cause of freedom. I could not act otherwise. The day shall usher in a new era of liberty when a large number of men and women, taking courage from the idea of serving humanity and liberating them from sufferings and distress, decide that there is no alternative before them except devoting their lives for this cause. They will wage a war against their oppressors, tyrants or exploiters, not to become kings, or to gain any reward here or in the next birth or after death in paradise; but to cast off the yoke of slavery, to establish liberty and peace they will tread this perilous, but glorious path. Can the pride they take in their noble cause be called vanity? Who is there rash enough to call it so? To him I say either he is foolish or wicked. Leave such a fellow alone for he cannot realise the depth, the emotions, the sentiment and the noble feelings that surge in that heart. His heart is dead, a mere lump of flesh, devoid of feelings. His convictions are infirm, his emotions feeble. His selfish interests have made him incapable of seeing the truth. The epithet ‘vanity’ is always hurled at the strength we get from our convictions.
You go against popular feelings; you criticise a hero, a great man who is generally believed to be above criticism. What happens? No one will answer your arguments in a rational way; rather you will be considered vainglorious. Its reason is mental insipidity. Merciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking. As Mahatmaji is great, he is above criticism; as he has risen above, all that he says in the field of politics, religion, Ethics is right. You agree or not, it is binding upon you to take it as truth. This is not constructive thinking. We do not take a leap forward; we go many steps back.
Our forefathers evolved faith in some kind of Supreme Being, therefore, one who ventures to challenge the validity of that faith or denies the existence of God, shall be called a Kafir (infidel), or a renegade. Even if his arguments are so strong that it is impossible to refute them, if his spirit is so strong that he cannot be bowed down by the threats of misfortune that may befall him through the wrath of the Almighty, he shall be decried as vainglorious. Then why should we waste our time in such discussions? This question has come before the people for the first time, hence the necessity and usefulness of such long discussions.
As far as the first question is concerned, I think I have made it clear that I did not turn atheist because of vanity. Only my readers, not I, can decide whether my arguments carry weight. If I were a believer, I know in the present circumstances my life would have been easier; the burden lighter. My disbelief in God has turned all the circumstances too harsh and this situation can deteriorate further. Being a little mystical can give the circumstances a poetic turn. But I need no opiate to meet my end. I am a realistic man. I want to overpower this tendency in me with the help of Reason. I am not always successful in such attempts. But it is man’s duty to try and make efforts. Success depends on chance and circumstances.
Now we come to the second question: if it is not vanity, there ought to be some sound reason for rejection of age-old belief in God. Yes, I come to this question. I think that any man who has some reasoning power always tries to understand the life and people around him with the help of this faculty. Where concrete proofs are lacking, [mystical] philosophy creeps in. As I have indicated, one of my revolutionary friends used to say that “philosophy is the outcome of human weakness.” Our ancestors had the leisure to solve the mysteries of the world, its past, its present and its future, its whys and its wherefores, but having been terribly short of direct proofs, every one of them tried to solve the problem in his own way. Hence we find wide differences in the fundamentals of various religious creeds. Sometimes they take very antagonistic and conflicting forms. We find differences in Oriental and Occidental philosophies. There are differences even amongst various schools of thoughts in each hemisphere. In Asian religions, the Muslim religion is completely incompatible with the Hindu faith. In India itself, Buddhism and Jainism are sometimes quite separate from Brahmanism. Then in Brahmanism itself, we find two conflicting sects: Aarya Samaj and Snatan Dheram. Charwak is yet another independent thinker of the past ages. He challenged the Authority of God. All these faiths differ on many fundamental questions, but each of them claims to be the only true religion. This is the root of the evil. Instead of developing the ideas and experiments of ancient thinkers, thus providing ourselves with the ideological weapon for the future struggle, – lethargic, idle, fanatical as we are – we cling to orthodox religion and in this way reduce human awakening to a stagnant pool.
It is necessary for every person who stands for progress to criticise every tenet of old beliefs. Item by item he has to challenge the efficacy of old faith. He has to analyse and understand all the details. If after rigorous reasoning, one is led to believe in any theory of philosophy, his faith is appreciated. His reasoning may be mistaken and even fallacious. But there is chance that he will be corrected because Reason is the guiding principle of his life. But belief, I should say blind belief is disastrous. It deprives a man of his understanding power and makes him reactionary.
Any person who claims to be a realist has to challenge the truth of old beliefs. If faith cannot withstand the onslaught of reason, it collapses. After that his task should be to do the groundwork for new philosophy. This is the negative side. After that comes in the positive work in which some material of the olden times can be used to construct the pillars of new philosophy. As far as I am concerned, I admit that I lack sufficient study in this field. I had a great desire to study the Oriental Philosophy, but I could get ample opportunity or sufficient time to do so. But so far as I reject the old time beliefs, it is not a matter of countering belief with belief, rather I can challenge the efficacy of old beliefs with sound arguments. We believe in nature and that human progress depends on the domination of man over nature. There is no conscious power behind it. This is our philosophy.
Being atheist, I ask a few questions from theists:
1. If, as you believe there is an Almighty, Omnipresent, Omniscient God, who created the earth or universe, please let me know, first of all, as to why he created this world. This world which is full of woe and grief, and countless miseries, where not even one person lives in peace.
2. Pray, don’t say it is His law. If He is bound by any law, He is not Omnipotent. Don’t say it is His pleasure. Nero burnt one Rome. He killed a very limited number of people. He caused only a few tragedies, all for his morbid enjoyment. But what is his place in history? By what names do we remember him? All the disparaging epithets are hurled at him. Pages are blackened with invective diatribes condemning Nero: the tyrant, the heartless, the wicked.
One Genghis Khan killed a few thousand people to seek pleasure in it and we hate the very name. Now, how will you justify your all powerful, eternal Nero, who every day, every moment continues his pastime of killing people? How can you support his doings which surpass those of Genghis Khan in cruelty and in misery inflicted upon people? I ask why the Almighty created this world which is nothing but a living hell, a place of constant and bitter unrest. Why did he create man when he had the power not to do so? Have you any answer to these questions? You will say that it is to reward the sufferer and punish the evildoer in the hereafter. Well, well, how far will you justify a man who first of all inflicts injuries on your body and then applies soft and soothing ointment on them? How far the supporters and organizers of Gladiator bouts were justified in throwing men before half starved lions, later to be cared for and looked after well if they escaped this horrible death. That is why I ask: Was the creation of man intended to derive this kind of pleasure?
Open your eyes and see millions of people dying of hunger in slums and huts dirtier than the grim dungeons of prisons; just see the labourers patiently or say apathetically while the rich vampires suck their blood; bring to mind the wastage of human energy that will make a man with a little common sense shiver in horror. Just observe rich nations throwing their surplus produce into the sea instead of distributing it among the needy and deprived. There are palaces of kings built upon the foundations laid with human bones. Let them see all this and say “All is well in God’s Kingdom.” Why so? This is my question. You are silent. All right. I proceed to my next point.
You, the Hindus, would say: Whosoever undergoes sufferings in this life, must have been a sinner in his previous birth. It is tantamount to saying that those who are oppressors now were Godly people then, in their previous births. For this reason alone they hold power in their hands. Let me say it plainly that your ancestors were shrewd people. They were always in search of petty hoaxes to play upon people and snatch from them the power of Reason. Let us analyse how much this argument carries weight!
Those who are well versed in the philosophy of Jurisprudence relate three of four justifications for the punishment that is to be inflicted upon a wrong-doer. These are: revenge, reform, and deterrence. The Retribution Theory is now condemned by all the thinkers. Deterrent theory is on the anvil for its flaws. Reformative theory is now widely accepted and considered to be necessary for human progress. It aims at reforming the culprit and converting him into a peace-loving citizen. But what in essence is God’s Punishment even if it is inflicted on a person who has really done some harm? For the sake of argument we agree for a moment that a person committed some crime in his previous birth and God punished him by changing his shape into a cow, cat, tree, or any other animal. You may enumerate the number of these variations in Godly Punishment to be at least eighty-four lack. Tell me, has this tomfoolery, perpetrated in the name of punishment, any reformative effect on human man? How many of them have you met who were donkeys in their previous births for having committed any sin? Absolutely no one of this sort! The so called theory of ‘Puranas’ (transmigration) is nothing but a fairy-tale. I do not have any intention to bring this unutterable trash under discussion. Do you really know the most cursed sin in this world is to be poor? Yes, poverty is a sin; it is a punishment! Cursed be the theoretician, jurist or legislator who proposes such measures as push man into the quagmire of more heinous sins. Did it not occur to your All Knowing God or he could learn the truth only after millions had undergone untold sufferings and hardships? What, according to your theory, is the fate of a person who, by no sin of his own, has been born into a family of low caste people? He is poor so he cannot go to a school. It is his fate to be shunned and hated by those who are born into a high caste. His ignorance, his poverty, and the contempt he receives from others will harden his heart towards society. Supposing that he commits a sin, who shall bear the consequences? God, or he, or the learned people of that society? What is your view about those punishments inflicted on the people who were deliberately kept ignorant by selfish and proud Brahmans? If by chance these poor creatures heard a few words of your sacred books, Vedas, these Brahmans poured melted lead into their ears. If they committed any sin, who was to be held responsible? Who was to bear the brunt? My dear friends, these theories have been coined by the privileged classes. They try to justify the power they have usurped and the riches they have robbed with the help of such theories. Perhaps it was the writer Upton Sinclair who wrote (Bhagat Singh is referring to Sinclair’s pamphlet ‘Profits of Religion’ – MIA transcriber) somewhere “only make a man firm believer in the immortality of soul, then rob him of all that he possesses. He will willingly help you in the process.” The dirty alliance between religious preachers and possessors of power brought the boon of prisons, gallows, knouts and above all such theories for the mankind.
I ask why your Omnipotent God does not hold a man back when he is about to commit a sin or offence. It is child’s play for God. Why did He not kill war lords? Why did He not obliterate the fury of war from their minds? In this way He could have saved humanity of many a great calamity and horror. Why does He not infuse humanistic sentiments into the minds of the Britishers so that they may willingly leave India? I ask why He does not fill the hearts of all capitalist classes with altruistic humanism that prompts them to give up personal possession of the means of production and this will free the whole labouring humanity from the shackles of money. You want to argue the practicability of Socialist theory, I leave it to your Almighty God to enforce it. Common people understand the merits of Socialist theory as far as general welfare is concerned but they oppose it under the pretext that it cannot be implemented. Let the Almighty step in and arrange things in a proper way. No more logic chopping! I tell you that the British rule is not there because God willed it but for the reason that we lack the will and courage to oppose it. Not that they are keeping us under subjugation with the consent of God, but it is with the force of guns and rifles, bombs and bullets, police and militia, and above all because of our apathy that they are successfully committing the most deplorable sin, that is, the exploitation of one nation by another. Where is God? What is He doing? Is He getting a diseased pleasure out of it? A Nero! A Genghis Khan! Down with Him!
Now another piece of manufactured logic! You ask me how I will explain the origin of this world and origin of man. Charles Darwin has tried to throw some light on this subject. Study his book. Also, have a look at Sohan Swami’s “Commonsense.” You will get a satisfactory answer. This topic is concerned with Biology and Natural History. This is a phenomenon of nature. The accidental mixture of different substances in the form of Nebulae gave birth to this earth. When? Study history to know this. The same process caused the evolution of animals and in the long run that of man. Read Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species.’ All the later progress is due to man’s constant conflict with nature and his efforts to utilise nature for his own benefit. This is the briefest sketch of this phenomenon.
Your next question will be why a child is born blind or lame even if he was not a sinner in his previous birth. This problem has been explained in a satisfactory manner by biologists as a mere biological phenomenon. According to them the whole burden rests upon the shoulders of parents whose conscious or unconscious deeds caused mutilation of the child prior to his birth.
You may thrust yet another question at me, though it is merely childish. The question is: If God does not really exist, why do people come to believe in Him? Brief and concise my answer will be. As they come to believe in ghosts, and evil spirits, so they also evolve a kind of belief in God: the only difference being that God is almost a universal phenomenon and well developed theological philosophy. However, I do disagree with radical philosophy. It attributes His origin to the ingenuity of exploiters who wanted to keep the people under their subjugation by preaching the existence of a Supreme Being; thus claimed an authority and sanction from Him for their privileged position. I do not differ on the essential point that all religions, faiths, theological philosophies, and religious creeds and all other such institutions in the long run become supporters of the tyrannical and exploiting institutions, men and classes. Rebellion against any king has always been a sin in every religion.
As regard the origin of God, my thought is that man created God in his imagination when he realized his weaknesses, limitations and shortcomings. In this way he got the courage to face all the trying circumstances and to meet all dangers that might occur in his life and also to restrain his outbursts in prosperity and affluence. God, with his whimsical laws and parental generosity was painted with variegated colours of imagination. He was used as a deterrent factor when his fury and his laws were repeatedly propagated so that man might not become a danger to society. He was the cry of the distressed soul for he was believed to stand as father and mother, sister and brother, brother and friend when in time of distress a man was left alone and helpless. He was Almighty and could do anything. The idea of God is helpful to a man in distress.
Society must fight against this belief in God as it fought against idol worship and other narrow conceptions of religion. In this way man will try to stand on his feet. Being realistic, he will have to throw his faith aside and face all adversaries with courage and valour. That is exactly my state of mind. My friends, it is not my vanity; it is my mode of thinking that has made me an atheist. I don’t think that by strengthening my belief in God and by offering prayers to Him every day, (this I consider to be the most degraded act on the part of man) I can bring improvement in my situation, nor can I further deteriorate it. I have read of many atheists facing all troubles boldly, so I am trying to stand like a man with the head high and erect to the last; even on the gallows.
Let us see how steadfast I am. One of my friends asked me to pray. When informed of my atheism, he said, “When your last days come, you will begin to believe.” I said, “No, dear sir, Never shall it happen. I consider it to be an act of degradation and demoralisation. For such petty selfish motives, I shall never pray.” Reader and friends, is it vanity? If it is, I stand for it.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Manufactured Goods Lead Surge in Indian Exports
When Ranjit Date returned to India 20 years ago after earning a doctorate in robotics from an American university, he hoped to help automate factory assembly lines in his home country.
Ranjit Date, president of Precision Automation and Robotics, PUNE, India.
His company, Precision Automation and Robotics India, has done that. But more recently it has also begun selling robots to Western manufacturers like Caterpillar, Ford and Chrysler. This year, in fact, a third of Precision Automation’s sales will come from exports, up from almost nothing five years ago.
Mr. Date’s company is emblematic of a recent surge in exports of engineered and other sophisticated goods from India — a country perhaps better known for exports of skilled services like software outsourcing.
But in fact, Indian exports of goods are now nearly double exports of services, growing 37.5 percent, to $245.9 billion, in the 12 months that ended in March. Leading the way are high-value products like industrial machinery, automobiles and car parts, and refined petroleum products.
Indian exports are following a different path from that taken by other Asian countries like Japan, Korea and China. Those countries started by exporting products like garments and toys made by large numbers of low-paid, low-skilled workers, before moving to more sophisticated products like cars and industrial machinery.
India has largely skipped the first step and gone straight to producing capital-intensive items that require skilled workers but not necessarily many of them. Rather than pursue the traditional developing-country model of exports, India aspires to eventually achieve something more like Germany’s mix of industrial goods for the global market — even if India has a long way to go before approaching Germany’s $1.3 trillion in annual exports.
Over the last decade, industrial export hubs have sprouted around India, some with the help of government planning. Here in Pune, about 100 miles east of Mumbai, a vibrant domestic automotive and engineering hub supplies the United States and other Western markets.
Chennai in the south has become India’s Detroit, as car factories ship small Fords, Nissans and Hyundais to Europe, Africa and Latin America.
In the west, Gujarat State is home to several large petroleum refineries that take imported crude oil and process it into products like jet and diesel fuel that are sold in other Asian countries. (The need to import crude oil for domestic use, though, is the main reason India continues to run a trade deficit — $104.8 billion in the last fiscal year.)
Meanwhile, traditional exports like textiles and agricultural products together account for less than 20 percent of the goods India sells to the world. India now exports fewer garments than its neighbor Bangladesh, which has one-eighth India’s population and an economy only about one-fifteenth as large.
“India has moved away from the textiles story,” said Rohini Malkani, an economist at Citigroup in India. “Now, it’s engineering goods and chemicals, including pharmaceuticals.”
In many ways, these are virtues born of necessity. The country’s poor transportation and electricity infrastructure and restrictive labor laws have discouraged companies from setting up labor-intensive manufacturing plants like those for which China is known. Instead, many Indian exporters specialize in higher-value goods and services that require fewer, but more skilled, workers.
The flowering of these industrial bases can be traced to the early 1990s. That is when a financial crisis forced Indian policy makers to slough off socialist policies known as the “licenses raj,” which tightly regulated industrial production and kept foreign competition out. The changes let businesses set up factories based on market demand and allowed foreigners to invest in India, exposing domestic companies to greater competition.
“India is beginning to get its act together in terms of the productivity of its industrial sector,” said Eswar S. Prasad, an Indian-born economics professor at Cornell University. “Fundamentally, India always had a good productive base. And given the low base which we were starting from, it’s not surprising that India is doing so well.”
But still not as well as it could be. Some economists predict the Indian economy will grow by 7.5 percent this year, to $1.6 trillion. Such growth might thrill many countries, but it would be down from 8.5 percent last year. And it is below the 10 percent growth rate that many economists say India could achieve if it invested more in infrastructure and if the government further relaxed its tight grip on many parts of the economy.
The slowing growth is all the more reason the increase in industrial exports is a bright spot for India.
Here in Pune, manufacturers say exports are booming.
Mr. Date, the robotics entrepreneur, expects sales at his company to increase 20 percent this year, to $67 million. The company is building a second factory, a 150,000-square-foot plant on the outskirts of Pune, to keep up with demand for its robots and automated assembly lines. He said Precision Automation’s products were 10 to 50 percent less expensive than similar equipment made by Western suppliers.
Mr. Date started the business with a friend, Mangesh Kale, who, like him, grew up in Pune. After earning advanced degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., they returned to India in the early 1990s — just as policy makers were pushing through early economic changes.
At first many Indian manufacturers were unwilling to invest in robots, Mr. Date said, because labor in India was so cheap. But in the increasing global economy, Indian manufacturers had to improve productivity to meet rising demand and compete with foreign companies.
“We have grown in waves with the Indian economy,” he said.
In 2003, the company opened an office near Detroit and started winning small contracts to supply assembly line machinery and other equipment to auto parts makers. After a few years, it landed a small contract with Caterpillar, which has since become one of its biggest customers. It also won overseas orders from companies like Renault after supplying their Indian factories.
Analysts say Indian exporters like Precision Automation have performed admirably given the challenges they face. But for India to become an export powerhouse like China — which had exports of $1.58 trillion last year — policy makers must substantially improve its infrastructure, make labor regulations more flexible and improve basic education, said K. T. Chacko, director of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New Delhi.
Mr. Date said his biggest challenge was finding, training and keeping qualified engineers. His company puts every entry-level engineer through a year of paid in-house training that he says costs it 1 million rupees (about $22,200) each, because college graduates do not have sufficient skills. About one-quarter of employees stay for just three years before jumping to other companies.
Infrastructure is another big concern. His factory receives power from the electric utility only about half the time, forcing him to rely on diesel generators.
Yet, roads and regulatory approvals are improving, Mr. Date said. As recently as five years ago, it took customs and tax authorities seven days to approve export shipments. That has been reduced to two days, he said.
“It is bearable,” he added, “but still needs improvement.”
Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/business/media/manufactured-goods-lead-surge-in-indian-exports.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Monday, July 18, 2011
Sonia Gandhi wanted Colombo to decimate LTTE without finalising a Political Solution
by Sam Rajappa in stateman
THE Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India, Prasad Kariyawasam, now in Colombo for consultations, has sought an appointment with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalitha, in Chennai to extend to her a personal invitation from President Mahinda Rajapaksa to visit Sri Lanka. In its attempt to pamper Rajapaksa to serve the agenda of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, India had betrayed the cause of Sri Lankan Tamils who have been struggling for equal rights with the majority Sinhalese.
While the DMK, an important constituent of the UPA, remained passive content with amassing wealth, even as India extended military, material and moral support to Sri Lanka in its war on its Tamil citizens in the crucial 2008-2009 period, the AIADMK, voted to power in the Assembly election held in April, and its leader Jayalalitha, have chosen a proactive role in rescuing fellow Tamils across the Palk Bay who have been progressively reduced from second class citizenship they enjoyed since independence in 1948 to serfs of the Sinhalese.
David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, former foreign ministers of Britain and France respectively, after a recent visit to Sri Lanka, wrote: “Tamil life is treated as fourth or fifth class citizens. If foreign policy is about anything, it should be about stopping this kind of inhumanity.”
South Block remaining a silent spectator, Chennai has wrested the initiative and Rajapaksa is worried. When the Tamil Nadu Assembly passed a resolution seeking retrieval of Kachchatheevu, a part of Ramanathapuram district which Indira Gandhi illegally ceded to Sri Lanka in 1974, and urged the Centre to call upon the UN to investigate war crimes against Rajapaksa, Colombo dismissed the whole thing as the rantings of a Chief Minister who has no locus standi on foreign affairs.
Even our own external affairs ministry which gave scant regard to public sentiments in Tamil Nadu while gifting Kachchtheevu to Sri Lanka or while fishermen from the State were being shot dead like wanton flies by the Lankan navy seems to have undergone a sea change after Jayalalitha’s assumption of office in Fort St. George. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao told a group of Sri Lankan journalists visiting New Delhi last week “the Indian government can no longer remain insensitive to the sentiments expressed by the Tamil Nadu government, the politicians and the people of Tamil Nadu about the issues affecting the Tamils in Sri Lanka.”
The screening of Channel 4’s “Killing fields of Sri Lanka” by a national television channel for three consecutive days last week showing naked Tamil prisoners shot in the head, dead bodies of women who had been raped and dumped on a truck, the immediate aftermath of shells landing on a hospital in a ‘no fire zone’ and the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces in the final moments of the brutal civil war have left the people nauseated and shell-shocked.
The authenticity of the footage has been confirmed by a forensic pathologist, forensic video analyst, firearms evidence expert and a forensic video expert of international repute. Channel 4’s senior news executive Dorothy Byrne had cautioned viewers not to watch the programme saying “it is horrific, the images will remain in your mind may be for years.” The 53-minute footage is being dubbed in Tamil to be screened by Jaya TV owned by Jayalalitha in the next few days. Already Tamil Nadu is on the boil for India’s contribution to the genocide Sri Lanka.
There is an untold story about how New Delhi became instrumental in the brutality brought out in the Channel 4 documentary. India was hoping for the victory of Ranil Wickremasinghe of the UNP with whom our then High Commissioner in Colombo, Nirupama Rao, had established a close relationship, in the 2005 presidential election. Rajapaksa of the SLFP, a known hawk, won by the narrowest of margins, as President. Had it not been the boycott of the election by the Tamils in response to a call given by the LTTE, Wickremasinghe would have won easily. Rajapaksa wanted to outlive his image of a hawk and establish rapport with the Indian political leadership but New Delhi repeatedly rebuffed him.
This made him realise the importance of involving civil society in Tamil Nadu to resolve the intractable ethnic problem in his country. His emissaries were scouting for a group in Tamil Nadu who could act as a bridge between the two countries. After much persuasion by Colombo, a small four-member group comprising MG Devasahayam, a former IAS officer and close associate of Jayaprakash Narayan and Mother Teresa as convenor, SP Ambrose, retired IAS officer who was home secretary of Tamil Nadu and Secretary to Government of India, a senior journalist working for a national daily, and a military veteran well versed in Sri Lankan affairs was formed and held its preliminary meeting in Chennai on 10 May 2007, with Sunimal Fernando, adviser to President Rajapaksa, participating. It was unanimously agreed that a military victory for one side without a political strategy to address the grievances of the Tamil community was unlikely to produce a lasting solution to the ethnic crisis.
The group had its first meeting with President Rajapaksa and his team comprising Lalith Weeratunga, secretary to the President, assistant secretary Waruna Sri Dhanapala and adviser Fernando in Colombo on 17 July 2007. Throughout the two-hour discussions, Rajapaksa gave the impression that he was not unduly worried about international criticism of his regime but was greatly concerned about Indian opinion. He fully endorsed the group’s opinion expressed by Devasahayam that the solution to the crisis should emerge from within Sri Lanka and refined through international opinion, particularly from India.
After the two-day meetings with the Tamil Nadu group, Rajapaksa said at a public function “we ought to be sensitive and responsive to the genuine grievances of the people in the North-East,” traditional homeland of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
To cut a long story short, the Tamil Nadu civil society group had a series of meetings with Rajapaksa’s team of officials and ministers in Sri Lanka and Chennai to carry forward the progress made so far and agreed upon many steps to resolve the conflict. A crucial conference was held with President Rajapaksa in Colombo on 25 March 2008, followed by a series of meetings with DEW Gunasekara, Sri Lankan Minister for Constitutional Affairs and National Integration, Raja Collure, chairman of official language commission, and others for evolving a political solution and confidence-building measures. An action agenda was set.
The Indian High Commission in Colombo got wind of the Tamil Nadu group’s activities and the Deputy High Commissioner, A Manickam, sought an appointment with Devasahayam. It was fixed at 5 p.m. at the hotel he was staying which was next door to Manickam’s office.
Manickam never kept his appointment but the High Commission later reprimanded the Sri Lankan presidential team for holding peace talks with ‘unauthorised’ persons. The civil society initiative was conveyed to Sonia Gandhi by a Congress member of the Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu who was trying to sell the idea of panchayat raj system to Rajapaksa to resolve the ethnic crisis.
Unaware of these developments in New Delhi, Devasahayam wrote to TKA Nair, one of his former colleagues who was occupying the post of principal secretary to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on 1 April 2008, recalling the Indian defence ministry’s annual report to Parliament which said: “We strongly believe that there is no military solution. What is required is a settlement of the political, constitutional and other issues within the framework of a united Sri Lanka which addresses the concerns of all communities, especially that of the ethnic minority.”
Devasahayam outlined the progress made by the Tamil Nadu group and the action agenda that had been set. The letter regretted that government of India, while providing Sri Lanka with weapons systems and training facilities, remained indifferent to activating any peaceful negotiated settlement. It requested the government to support the initiative taken by the Tamil Nadu group to end the long-festering humanitarian crisis. The letter remains unanswered to this day.
It was after this group’s successful initiative that India changed track and gave the green signal to the Sri Lankan government to go all out to decimate the LTTE without insisting on a political solution to resolve the ethnic crisis. According to sources in Colombo, Sonia Gandhi wanted LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan and its intelligence chief Pottu Amman decapitated and pledged all military support to Sri Lanka to achieve her goal.
The then national security adviser MK Narayanan, foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon and the clique controlling the Prime Minister’s Office put Sonia Gandhi’s interest above national interest and actively assisted the brutal Sri Lankan genocide that could be seen in the Channel 4 documentary thus creating the quagmire Sri Lanka finds itself in. This is evident from the fact that while the whole world is seething at what they saw in the documentary, the government of India is deafeningly silent.
There is every possibility of Rajapaksa and company being hauled up before the International Court of Justice at The Hague to stand trial for war crimes and genocide. In the event, New Delhi cannot escape responsibility for this horrendous brutality. The bell is tolling.
http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/2565
THE Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India, Prasad Kariyawasam, now in Colombo for consultations, has sought an appointment with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalitha, in Chennai to extend to her a personal invitation from President Mahinda Rajapaksa to visit Sri Lanka. In its attempt to pamper Rajapaksa to serve the agenda of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, India had betrayed the cause of Sri Lankan Tamils who have been struggling for equal rights with the majority Sinhalese.
While the DMK, an important constituent of the UPA, remained passive content with amassing wealth, even as India extended military, material and moral support to Sri Lanka in its war on its Tamil citizens in the crucial 2008-2009 period, the AIADMK, voted to power in the Assembly election held in April, and its leader Jayalalitha, have chosen a proactive role in rescuing fellow Tamils across the Palk Bay who have been progressively reduced from second class citizenship they enjoyed since independence in 1948 to serfs of the Sinhalese.
David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, former foreign ministers of Britain and France respectively, after a recent visit to Sri Lanka, wrote: “Tamil life is treated as fourth or fifth class citizens. If foreign policy is about anything, it should be about stopping this kind of inhumanity.”
South Block remaining a silent spectator, Chennai has wrested the initiative and Rajapaksa is worried. When the Tamil Nadu Assembly passed a resolution seeking retrieval of Kachchatheevu, a part of Ramanathapuram district which Indira Gandhi illegally ceded to Sri Lanka in 1974, and urged the Centre to call upon the UN to investigate war crimes against Rajapaksa, Colombo dismissed the whole thing as the rantings of a Chief Minister who has no locus standi on foreign affairs.
Even our own external affairs ministry which gave scant regard to public sentiments in Tamil Nadu while gifting Kachchtheevu to Sri Lanka or while fishermen from the State were being shot dead like wanton flies by the Lankan navy seems to have undergone a sea change after Jayalalitha’s assumption of office in Fort St. George. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao told a group of Sri Lankan journalists visiting New Delhi last week “the Indian government can no longer remain insensitive to the sentiments expressed by the Tamil Nadu government, the politicians and the people of Tamil Nadu about the issues affecting the Tamils in Sri Lanka.”
The screening of Channel 4’s “Killing fields of Sri Lanka” by a national television channel for three consecutive days last week showing naked Tamil prisoners shot in the head, dead bodies of women who had been raped and dumped on a truck, the immediate aftermath of shells landing on a hospital in a ‘no fire zone’ and the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces in the final moments of the brutal civil war have left the people nauseated and shell-shocked.
The authenticity of the footage has been confirmed by a forensic pathologist, forensic video analyst, firearms evidence expert and a forensic video expert of international repute. Channel 4’s senior news executive Dorothy Byrne had cautioned viewers not to watch the programme saying “it is horrific, the images will remain in your mind may be for years.” The 53-minute footage is being dubbed in Tamil to be screened by Jaya TV owned by Jayalalitha in the next few days. Already Tamil Nadu is on the boil for India’s contribution to the genocide Sri Lanka.
There is an untold story about how New Delhi became instrumental in the brutality brought out in the Channel 4 documentary. India was hoping for the victory of Ranil Wickremasinghe of the UNP with whom our then High Commissioner in Colombo, Nirupama Rao, had established a close relationship, in the 2005 presidential election. Rajapaksa of the SLFP, a known hawk, won by the narrowest of margins, as President. Had it not been the boycott of the election by the Tamils in response to a call given by the LTTE, Wickremasinghe would have won easily. Rajapaksa wanted to outlive his image of a hawk and establish rapport with the Indian political leadership but New Delhi repeatedly rebuffed him.
This made him realise the importance of involving civil society in Tamil Nadu to resolve the intractable ethnic problem in his country. His emissaries were scouting for a group in Tamil Nadu who could act as a bridge between the two countries. After much persuasion by Colombo, a small four-member group comprising MG Devasahayam, a former IAS officer and close associate of Jayaprakash Narayan and Mother Teresa as convenor, SP Ambrose, retired IAS officer who was home secretary of Tamil Nadu and Secretary to Government of India, a senior journalist working for a national daily, and a military veteran well versed in Sri Lankan affairs was formed and held its preliminary meeting in Chennai on 10 May 2007, with Sunimal Fernando, adviser to President Rajapaksa, participating. It was unanimously agreed that a military victory for one side without a political strategy to address the grievances of the Tamil community was unlikely to produce a lasting solution to the ethnic crisis.
The group had its first meeting with President Rajapaksa and his team comprising Lalith Weeratunga, secretary to the President, assistant secretary Waruna Sri Dhanapala and adviser Fernando in Colombo on 17 July 2007. Throughout the two-hour discussions, Rajapaksa gave the impression that he was not unduly worried about international criticism of his regime but was greatly concerned about Indian opinion. He fully endorsed the group’s opinion expressed by Devasahayam that the solution to the crisis should emerge from within Sri Lanka and refined through international opinion, particularly from India.
After the two-day meetings with the Tamil Nadu group, Rajapaksa said at a public function “we ought to be sensitive and responsive to the genuine grievances of the people in the North-East,” traditional homeland of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
To cut a long story short, the Tamil Nadu civil society group had a series of meetings with Rajapaksa’s team of officials and ministers in Sri Lanka and Chennai to carry forward the progress made so far and agreed upon many steps to resolve the conflict. A crucial conference was held with President Rajapaksa in Colombo on 25 March 2008, followed by a series of meetings with DEW Gunasekara, Sri Lankan Minister for Constitutional Affairs and National Integration, Raja Collure, chairman of official language commission, and others for evolving a political solution and confidence-building measures. An action agenda was set.
The Indian High Commission in Colombo got wind of the Tamil Nadu group’s activities and the Deputy High Commissioner, A Manickam, sought an appointment with Devasahayam. It was fixed at 5 p.m. at the hotel he was staying which was next door to Manickam’s office.
Manickam never kept his appointment but the High Commission later reprimanded the Sri Lankan presidential team for holding peace talks with ‘unauthorised’ persons. The civil society initiative was conveyed to Sonia Gandhi by a Congress member of the Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu who was trying to sell the idea of panchayat raj system to Rajapaksa to resolve the ethnic crisis.
Unaware of these developments in New Delhi, Devasahayam wrote to TKA Nair, one of his former colleagues who was occupying the post of principal secretary to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on 1 April 2008, recalling the Indian defence ministry’s annual report to Parliament which said: “We strongly believe that there is no military solution. What is required is a settlement of the political, constitutional and other issues within the framework of a united Sri Lanka which addresses the concerns of all communities, especially that of the ethnic minority.”
Devasahayam outlined the progress made by the Tamil Nadu group and the action agenda that had been set. The letter regretted that government of India, while providing Sri Lanka with weapons systems and training facilities, remained indifferent to activating any peaceful negotiated settlement. It requested the government to support the initiative taken by the Tamil Nadu group to end the long-festering humanitarian crisis. The letter remains unanswered to this day.
It was after this group’s successful initiative that India changed track and gave the green signal to the Sri Lankan government to go all out to decimate the LTTE without insisting on a political solution to resolve the ethnic crisis. According to sources in Colombo, Sonia Gandhi wanted LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan and its intelligence chief Pottu Amman decapitated and pledged all military support to Sri Lanka to achieve her goal.
The then national security adviser MK Narayanan, foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon and the clique controlling the Prime Minister’s Office put Sonia Gandhi’s interest above national interest and actively assisted the brutal Sri Lankan genocide that could be seen in the Channel 4 documentary thus creating the quagmire Sri Lanka finds itself in. This is evident from the fact that while the whole world is seething at what they saw in the documentary, the government of India is deafeningly silent.
There is every possibility of Rajapaksa and company being hauled up before the International Court of Justice at The Hague to stand trial for war crimes and genocide. In the event, New Delhi cannot escape responsibility for this horrendous brutality. The bell is tolling.
http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/2565
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
அப்பாடக்கர் என்றால் என்ன?
Indraiya pothu arivu kealvi.
அப்பாடக்கர் என்றால் என்ன?
இது சென்னையைச் சேர்ந்த செந்தமிழ். மகான் தக்கர் பாபா சென்னையில் சிலகால இருந்தபோது சென்னைவாழ் மக்கள் அவரை அன்புடன் அப்பா தக்கர் பாபா என்று அன்போடு அழைத்து இருக்கின்றனர். வேதங்களிலும்,ஞானங்களிலும் கரைகண்ட அவரிடம் ஆன்மீகம் தொடர்பாக எந்தக் கேள்வி கேட்டாலும் தெளிவான பதில் கிடைக்கும். அதேபோல ஒருவன் அவன் துறையில் தெளிவாக அனைத்தையும் தெரிந்தவனாக இருந்தால் அவன் பெரிய அப்பாதக்கர் என்று சொல்லபட்டு பின்னர் சென்னை உச்சரிப்பில் அப்பாடக்கர் ஆகிவிட்டது. அப்பா தக்கர் பாபா வித்யாலயான்னு டிநகர்ல ஒரு ஸ்கூல் இருக்கு. இப்படி சொல்லிக் கேட்டீங்கன்னா அங்க ஒரு பயலுக்கும் தெரியாது. அப்பாடக்கர் ஸ்கோலு எங்கருக்குன்னு கேளுங்க, டக்குனு காட்டுவானுங்க :)
அப்பாடக்கர் என்றால் என்ன?
இது சென்னையைச் சேர்ந்த செந்தமிழ். மகான் தக்கர் பாபா சென்னையில் சிலகால இருந்தபோது சென்னைவாழ் மக்கள் அவரை அன்புடன் அப்பா தக்கர் பாபா என்று அன்போடு அழைத்து இருக்கின்றனர். வேதங்களிலும்,ஞானங்களிலும் கரைகண்ட அவரிடம் ஆன்மீகம் தொடர்பாக எந்தக் கேள்வி கேட்டாலும் தெளிவான பதில் கிடைக்கும். அதேபோல ஒருவன் அவன் துறையில் தெளிவாக அனைத்தையும் தெரிந்தவனாக இருந்தால் அவன் பெரிய அப்பாதக்கர் என்று சொல்லபட்டு பின்னர் சென்னை உச்சரிப்பில் அப்பாடக்கர் ஆகிவிட்டது. அப்பா தக்கர் பாபா வித்யாலயான்னு டிநகர்ல ஒரு ஸ்கூல் இருக்கு. இப்படி சொல்லிக் கேட்டீங்கன்னா அங்க ஒரு பயலுக்கும் தெரியாது. அப்பாடக்கர் ஸ்கோலு எங்கருக்குன்னு கேளுங்க, டக்குனு காட்டுவானுங்க :)
Sunday, June 19, 2011
where Ganga is going ?
Many people knew about anna hazare movement , baba Ram dev movement , these people fasting got media support so their movement became popular . But because of the partiality of the media support , Swami Nigamanand ,who aimed to protect Ganga river ,went for fast until death and he died on June 13th 2011
Nigamanand, 36, a founder-member of Matri Sadan, went on an indefinite fast on February 19 seeking a ban on quarrying in and around the Ganga in the Kumbh area. The district administration admitted him to the Haridwar District Hospital after his condition deteriorated on April 27.He was admitted in at the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust (HIHT) hospital at Jolly Grant in Dehra Dun district.
Doctors at HIHT said the Swami was brought in a state of coma on May 2. He was immediately put on ventilator. He was, however, ‘brain dead' in a few days. Even then, they tried their very best to revive him until he was finally declared dead on June 13, the doctors said.
His aim to protect Ganga is very important because ganga serve livelihood for many farmers and source of drinking water for many people in the north and eastern part of india. It is considered as holy river for Hindus living around the globe.
Initially Now BJP Leader Uma Bharathi supported his protest . Her aim was to prevent the Building of dam . because by building dam . water could submerge the temple . in order to protect the temple she protested . But not against the mining of the activities held near Kumbh region for what swami went for fast .Unlike Anna Hazare & Baba Ramdev there is no political support for Nigamananda .
People are Thinking that the purity of Ganga is getting destroyed by the throwing of half burned , or not burned dead bodies into the river . But this custom is happening for the long time you can say for ages. But microbes like virus and fishes in the river eat those dead bodies and make it pure .it is scientific truth.
People take Ganga water into vessel and even though keeping it for long years in the vessel ,the purity of the water remain same because of presence of more oxygen in ganga compare to other rivers .But now a days , case is different . water get spoiled in the vessel in few days itself
Because of mixing chemical industrial and domestic waste into the river , chemicals destroying microbes in the river and make it impure . according to the report nearly from rishikesh to pragati , nearly from 146 industries , 260 billion litres of industries waste per day are mixing into the ganga river.another 100 towns added domestic waste into the river daily .
Nobody is taking action against these industries . because of nexus between politics and business.swami Nigamananda wanted to stop mining action . He went for fast to death . he died . even his death will become as news rather than action plan . How many youngster did protest for him .Baba ramdev every one knew that.he has support of RSS & BJP . he died for cause . according to me he was a great mahatma even mahatma Gandhi didnt die in the fasting.
People didnt even drop the tears for the sage who wanted to tell the public regarding what will happen if the ganga dried up and not suitable for agriculture . if it happened then whole india will be in the famine . How they drop tears ?. they dont know about the genocide happened in srilanka which is near to india .Indian media needs glamour , political backing . motives. If they continue to do , true mahamata will die unnoticed like swami Nigamanand .
People give importance to religion rather than people lives . To save india in future and many families who are depend upon agriculture we have to save river ganga for what he died. at least for the sake of religion save river ganga . Please save Ganga river.
source
dinamani
hindu
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/ganga-losing-its-resilience
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
9 Female foetuses found in drain In Maharashtra
9 female foetuses found in drain In Maharashtra
In yet another shocking case of female foeticide, nine foetuses have been found in a drain in Maharashtra's Beed district.
As per a news channel, although an FIR has been lodged against unknown accused, the district administration is trying to down play the situation and has been claiming that only two foetuses have been found, not nine as being claimed by the media.
A postmortem was conducted on the two foetuses recovered by the police, who have said that that the foetuses are 4-5 months old.
A manhunt has been launched to nab the accused, including the doctors who are played a role in the crime.
Beed has always been a trouble spot when it came to sex ratio. The district has the lowest child sex ratio in Maharashtra with 801 girls per 1000 boys, while the state's average stands at 883 girls per 1000 boys.
link
http://zeenews.india.com/news/maharashtra/maharashtra-shocker-9-foetuses-found-in-drain_711919.html
In yet another shocking case of female foeticide, nine foetuses have been found in a drain in Maharashtra's Beed district.
As per a news channel, although an FIR has been lodged against unknown accused, the district administration is trying to down play the situation and has been claiming that only two foetuses have been found, not nine as being claimed by the media.
A postmortem was conducted on the two foetuses recovered by the police, who have said that that the foetuses are 4-5 months old.
A manhunt has been launched to nab the accused, including the doctors who are played a role in the crime.
Beed has always been a trouble spot when it came to sex ratio. The district has the lowest child sex ratio in Maharashtra with 801 girls per 1000 boys, while the state's average stands at 883 girls per 1000 boys.
link
http://zeenews.india.com/news/maharashtra/maharashtra-shocker-9-foetuses-found-in-drain_711919.html
Friday, June 10, 2011
Messi, set to play in INDIA
o
NEW DELHI: Lionel Messi and his Argentina team mates will travel to India later this year to take on Venezuela in a friendly designed to boost football on the subcontinent, a report said on Tuesday.
The FIFA-sanctioned game is scheduled for September 2 in the eastern city of Kolkata and the Argentinian team will then travel to Bangladesh where they will take on Nigeria, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
“The Argentina Football Association has indeed signed a contract to bring in the full-strength squad including Messi and Carlos Tevez among others,” Bhaskar Goswami of the Celebrity Management Group was quoted as saying by PTI.
“The contract guarantees their participation.”
The Argentina squad will arrive in Kolkata on August 30 and will take part in a number of events, including a charity programme and a football clinic for children during a four-day stay.
It was unclear if world player of the year Messi, whose club side Barcelona begin their La Liga title defence the day before, would fly out with his Argentina team mates or join the tour later.
After the Kolkata outing, the Argentine contingent will travel to Dhaka for another friendly against Nigeria on September 6, the report said.
Football is yet to take off in cricket-mad India despite enjoying considerable success in the 1950s and 1960s when they won two Asian Games gold medals.
The size of its population and the associated commercial potential has long seen it regarded as one of the great untapped markets for the sport.
Top European clubs including Bayern Munich have visited India in the past to play exhibition matches in a bid to build on the interest in the game in the country of 1.2 billion people.
சட்டப் பேரவையில் தீர்மானம்: கச்சத்தீவு வழக்கில் தமிழக அரசு
சென்னை, ஜூன் 9: கச்சத்தீவை இலங்கைக்கு அளித்தது சட்டப்படி செல்லத்தக்கது அல்ல என அதிமுக சார்பில் 2008-ல் உச்ச நீதிமன்றத்தில் தொடரப்பட்டுள்ள வழக்கில் தமிழக அரசின் வருவாய்த்துறை தன்னையும் இணைத்துக் கொள்ள வலியுறுத்தி சட்டப்பேரவையில் வியாழக்கிழமை ஒருமனதாக தீர்மானம் நிறைவேற்றப்பட்டது.
இலங்கைக்கு எதிராக மற்ற நாடுகளுடன் சேர்ந்து இந்திய அரசு பொருளாதாரத் தடை விதிக்க மத்திய அரசு நடவடிக்கை எடுக்க வேண்டும் என வலியுறுத்தி தமிழக சட்டப்பேரவையில் புதன்கிழமை தீர்மானம் நிறைவேற்றப்பட்டது. அதற்கடுத்த நாளில் தமிழக மீனவர்களைப் பாதுகாப்பது தொடர்பாக இந்தத் தீர்மானம் கொண்டு வரப்பட்டுள்ளது.
இந்தத் தீர்மானத்தை முதல்வர் ஜெயலலிதா வியாழக்கிழமை சட்டப்பேரவையில் கொண்டு வந்தார்.
தீர்மான விவரம்: ""இந்திய நாட்டுக்குச் சொந்தமான ஒரு பகுதியை அன்னிய நாட்டிற்குக் கொடுப்பது தொடர்பான உடன்பாட்டை, நாடாளுமன்றத்தின் இரு அவைகளின் ஒப்புதலோடு இந்திய அரசியலமைப்பு சட்டத் திருத்தத்தின் மூலம் மட்டுமே நடைமுறைப்படுத்த முடியும்'' என 1960-ல் உச்ச நீதிமன்றம் பெருபாரி வழக்கில் தீர்ப்பு அளித்தது.
ஆனால் இதற்கு முற்றிலும் முரணாக, நாடாளுமன்ற ஒப்புதல் இல்லாமல், இந்தியா மற்றும் இலங்கை இடையே 1974 மற்றும் 1976-ம் ஆண்டுகளில் ஏற்பட்ட ஒப்பந்தங்கள் வாயிலாக கச்சத்தீவு இலங்கைக்கு தாரைவார்க்கப்பட்டு இருக்கிறது.
இந்த ஒப்பந்தங்கள் சட்டப்படி செல்லத்தக்கவை அல்ல என 2008-ம் ஆண்டு உச்ச நீதிமன்றத்தில் அதிமுக பொதுச் செயலாளர் ஜெயலலிதாவால் வழக்கு தொடுக்கப்பட்டு இருக்கிறது.
இந்த வழக்கிற்கு மேலும் வலு சேர்க்கும் விதமாக, கச்சத்தீவு குறித்த அனைத்து ஆவணங்களையும் தன் வசம் வைத்துள்ள தமிழக அரசின் வருவாய்த் துறை தன்னை இந்த வழக்கில் சேர்த்துக் கொள்ளும்படி உச்ச நீதிமன்றத்தில் மனுத்தாக்கல் செய்ய வேண்டும் என்று தமிழ்நாடு சட்டமன்றப் பேரவை தீர்மானிக்கிறது.
தே.மு.தி.க. தலைவர் விஜயகாந்த் இந்தத் தீர்மானத்தை முழு மனதோடு வரவேற்பதாகக் கூறினார்.
இத் தீர்மானத்தின் மீது கருத்து கூறிய டாக்டர் கிருஷ்ணசாமி (புதிய தமிழகம்), இலங்கைத் தமிழர் பிரச்னையில் தமிழக அரசு இரண்டாவது முக்கியமான மைல்கல்லாக இருக்கும் வகையில் இத் தீர்மானத்தைக் கொண்டு வந்திருப்பதாகக் கூறினார். இந்தப் பிரச்சினைக்காக இந்த பேரவையிலேயே ஒரு தீர்மானம் கொண்டு வரலாம் என்றும் அவர் கேட்டுக் கொண்டார்.
இந்திய கம்யூனிஸ்ட் எஸ்.பி. முத்துக்குமரன் (புதுக்கோட்டை) : தமிழக மீனவர்களுக்கு யார் பாதுகாப்பு தர முடியும் என்ற ஏக்கம் இருக்கும் சூழ்நிலையில் இத் தீர்மானம் கூடுதல் பலமாக இருக்கும் என்று குறிப்பிட்டார். மீன்பிடித் தமிழர்களின் உரிமையை நிலைநாட்டுவதை இந்த ஒரு தீர்மானம் மூலமாகத்தான் செய்ய முடியும் என்றார் அவர்.
ஏற்கெனவே தமிழக மீனவர்கள் சென்ற எல்லை வரை மீண்டும் செல்ல இந்தத் தீர்மானம் ஒரு வாய்ப்பை ஏற்படுத்தித் தரும் என மார்க்சிஸ்ட் குழு தலைவர் அ. சவுந்திரராஜன் கூறினார்.
கச்சத்தீவு ஒப்பந்தத்தைத் தொடர்ந்து, 1983 தமிழ்நாடு கடல்வள மீனவர் சட்டம் கொண்டுவரப்பட்டபோது, கச்சத்தீவு எல்லை மாற்றி குறிப்பிடப்பட்டதும் இப்போதைய சங்கடங்களுக்கு காரணம் என்பதால் அந்தச் சட்டத்தையும் திருத்த வேண்டும் என ஜவாஹிருல்லா (மனிதநேய மக்கள் கட்சி) கேட்டுக் கொண்டார்.
முதல்வரின் பதிலுரைக்குப் பிறகு தீர்மானம் ஒருமனதாக நிறைவேறியது.
இந்தத் தீர்மானத்தின் மீது காங்கிரஸ், பா.ம.க.வினர் கருத்து எதுவும் கூறவில்லை. இரு கட்சிகளின் உறுப்பினர்களும் அப்போது பேரவையில் இருந்தனர்.
திமுக உறுப்பினர்கள் கூட்டம் தொடங்குவதற்கு முன்பு வரை சட்டப்பேரவை வளாகத்தில் இருந்தனர். ஆனால் கூட்டம் தொடங்கியபோது யாரும் உள்ளே வரவில்லை.
உள்ளே வராததற்கான காரணம் குறித்து அக் கட்சியின் குழு தலைவர் ஸ்டாலின் பேரவைக்கு வெளியே செய்தியாளர்களிடம் விளக்கினார்.
nandri : dinamani
இலங்கைக்கு எதிராக மற்ற நாடுகளுடன் சேர்ந்து இந்திய அரசு பொருளாதாரத் தடை விதிக்க மத்திய அரசு நடவடிக்கை எடுக்க வேண்டும் என வலியுறுத்தி தமிழக சட்டப்பேரவையில் புதன்கிழமை தீர்மானம் நிறைவேற்றப்பட்டது. அதற்கடுத்த நாளில் தமிழக மீனவர்களைப் பாதுகாப்பது தொடர்பாக இந்தத் தீர்மானம் கொண்டு வரப்பட்டுள்ளது.
இந்தத் தீர்மானத்தை முதல்வர் ஜெயலலிதா வியாழக்கிழமை சட்டப்பேரவையில் கொண்டு வந்தார்.
தீர்மான விவரம்: ""இந்திய நாட்டுக்குச் சொந்தமான ஒரு பகுதியை அன்னிய நாட்டிற்குக் கொடுப்பது தொடர்பான உடன்பாட்டை, நாடாளுமன்றத்தின் இரு அவைகளின் ஒப்புதலோடு இந்திய அரசியலமைப்பு சட்டத் திருத்தத்தின் மூலம் மட்டுமே நடைமுறைப்படுத்த முடியும்'' என 1960-ல் உச்ச நீதிமன்றம் பெருபாரி வழக்கில் தீர்ப்பு அளித்தது.
ஆனால் இதற்கு முற்றிலும் முரணாக, நாடாளுமன்ற ஒப்புதல் இல்லாமல், இந்தியா மற்றும் இலங்கை இடையே 1974 மற்றும் 1976-ம் ஆண்டுகளில் ஏற்பட்ட ஒப்பந்தங்கள் வாயிலாக கச்சத்தீவு இலங்கைக்கு தாரைவார்க்கப்பட்டு இருக்கிறது.
இந்த ஒப்பந்தங்கள் சட்டப்படி செல்லத்தக்கவை அல்ல என 2008-ம் ஆண்டு உச்ச நீதிமன்றத்தில் அதிமுக பொதுச் செயலாளர் ஜெயலலிதாவால் வழக்கு தொடுக்கப்பட்டு இருக்கிறது.
இந்த வழக்கிற்கு மேலும் வலு சேர்க்கும் விதமாக, கச்சத்தீவு குறித்த அனைத்து ஆவணங்களையும் தன் வசம் வைத்துள்ள தமிழக அரசின் வருவாய்த் துறை தன்னை இந்த வழக்கில் சேர்த்துக் கொள்ளும்படி உச்ச நீதிமன்றத்தில் மனுத்தாக்கல் செய்ய வேண்டும் என்று தமிழ்நாடு சட்டமன்றப் பேரவை தீர்மானிக்கிறது.
தே.மு.தி.க. தலைவர் விஜயகாந்த் இந்தத் தீர்மானத்தை முழு மனதோடு வரவேற்பதாகக் கூறினார்.
இத் தீர்மானத்தின் மீது கருத்து கூறிய டாக்டர் கிருஷ்ணசாமி (புதிய தமிழகம்), இலங்கைத் தமிழர் பிரச்னையில் தமிழக அரசு இரண்டாவது முக்கியமான மைல்கல்லாக இருக்கும் வகையில் இத் தீர்மானத்தைக் கொண்டு வந்திருப்பதாகக் கூறினார். இந்தப் பிரச்சினைக்காக இந்த பேரவையிலேயே ஒரு தீர்மானம் கொண்டு வரலாம் என்றும் அவர் கேட்டுக் கொண்டார்.
இந்திய கம்யூனிஸ்ட் எஸ்.பி. முத்துக்குமரன் (புதுக்கோட்டை) : தமிழக மீனவர்களுக்கு யார் பாதுகாப்பு தர முடியும் என்ற ஏக்கம் இருக்கும் சூழ்நிலையில் இத் தீர்மானம் கூடுதல் பலமாக இருக்கும் என்று குறிப்பிட்டார். மீன்பிடித் தமிழர்களின் உரிமையை நிலைநாட்டுவதை இந்த ஒரு தீர்மானம் மூலமாகத்தான் செய்ய முடியும் என்றார் அவர்.
ஏற்கெனவே தமிழக மீனவர்கள் சென்ற எல்லை வரை மீண்டும் செல்ல இந்தத் தீர்மானம் ஒரு வாய்ப்பை ஏற்படுத்தித் தரும் என மார்க்சிஸ்ட் குழு தலைவர் அ. சவுந்திரராஜன் கூறினார்.
கச்சத்தீவு ஒப்பந்தத்தைத் தொடர்ந்து, 1983 தமிழ்நாடு கடல்வள மீனவர் சட்டம் கொண்டுவரப்பட்டபோது, கச்சத்தீவு எல்லை மாற்றி குறிப்பிடப்பட்டதும் இப்போதைய சங்கடங்களுக்கு காரணம் என்பதால் அந்தச் சட்டத்தையும் திருத்த வேண்டும் என ஜவாஹிருல்லா (மனிதநேய மக்கள் கட்சி) கேட்டுக் கொண்டார்.
முதல்வரின் பதிலுரைக்குப் பிறகு தீர்மானம் ஒருமனதாக நிறைவேறியது.
இந்தத் தீர்மானத்தின் மீது காங்கிரஸ், பா.ம.க.வினர் கருத்து எதுவும் கூறவில்லை. இரு கட்சிகளின் உறுப்பினர்களும் அப்போது பேரவையில் இருந்தனர்.
திமுக உறுப்பினர்கள் கூட்டம் தொடங்குவதற்கு முன்பு வரை சட்டப்பேரவை வளாகத்தில் இருந்தனர். ஆனால் கூட்டம் தொடங்கியபோது யாரும் உள்ளே வரவில்லை.
உள்ளே வராததற்கான காரணம் குறித்து அக் கட்சியின் குழு தலைவர் ஸ்டாலின் பேரவைக்கு வெளியே செய்தியாளர்களிடம் விளக்கினார்.
nandri : dinamani
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
மோனோ ரயில் – “ஜெ” வின் இமாலயத்தவறு
மோனோ ரயில் – “ஜெ” வின் இமாலயத்தவறு
ஜெ கலைஞர் அறிவித்தத் திட்டங்களை மாற்றிக்கொண்டு இருப்பது அல்லது நிறுத்திக்கொண்டு இருப்பது தெரிந்த விஷயம் தான் என்றாலும் ஜீரணிக்க முடியாத விசயமாக உள்ளது மோனோ ரயில் திட்டம். கலைஞர் காப்பீட்டுத் திட்டம் நிறுத்தப்பட்டு பொதுக்காப்பீட்டு திட்டம் கொண்டு வந்துள்ளார் சரி! சட்டசபை வளாகத்தை மறுபடியும் கோட்டைக்கே மாற்றி உள்ளார் சரி! ஒரு ருபாய் அரிசித் திட்டத்தை இலவச அரிசி ஆக்கி உள்ளார் சரி! மற்றும் இதைப்போல பல திட்டங்களை மாற்றி உள்ளார் எல்லாம் சரி! ஆனால் மோனோ ரயில் திட்டத்தை கொண்டு வருவது மிக மிக முட்டாள்த்தனம்.
இதை நான் ஏன் இவ்வாறு கூறுகிறேன் என்பதை விளக்கமாகவே கூறுகிறேன்.
காப்பீட்டுத் திட்டம், இலவச அரிசித்திட்டம், கோட்டை மாற்றம் இவற்றில் எல்லாம் பணம் மட்டுமே இழப்பு ஆகும். நஷ்டம் ஏற்ப்பட்டால் அரசால் எப்படியும் சமாளிக்க முடியும் மற்றும் மாற்று ஏற்பாடுகளைச் செய்ய முடியும். இதனால் பெரியளவில் பாதிப்பு என்றால் அது நிச்சயம் “பணம்” மட்டுமே ஆகும். தமிழகம் பார்க்காத ஊழல், நஷ்டமில்லை ஒவ்வொரு முறையும் ஆட்சி மாறும் போதும் ஜெ கலைஞர் இருவரும் மாற்றி மாற்றி மற்றவர் திட்டங்களை நிறுத்துவதும் புதிய திட்டங்களை அறிவிப்பதும் தமிழக மக்களின் சாபக்கேடாகி விட்டது. தற்போது இதை எல்லாம் தூக்கிச் சாப்பிடும் விதமாக ஜெ வின் மோனோ ரயில் அறிவிப்புத் திட்டம் உள்ளது.
மோனோ ரயில் என்றால் என்ன?
Mono Rayil மோனோ ரயில் ஜெ வின் இமாலயத்தவறு மோனோ ரயில் என்பது சிறு ரயிலாகும் அதாவது இரு விமான [Terminal] நிலையத்தை இணைக்கவும், சுற்றுலா வருபவர்கள் சுற்றிப்பார்க்கவும், பெரிய தீம் பார்க்கை வலம் வரவும் பயன்படுத்தப்படும் ஒரு போக்குவரத்துச் சேவையாகும். இவை அல்லாமல் சிறிய அளவில் நான்கு அல்லது ஐந்து பெட்டிகளைக்கொண்டு பயணிகளை ஒரு இடத்தில் இருந்து மற்றொரு இடத்திற்கு கொண்டு செல்ல மற்ற மெட்ரோ ரயில்களைப் போல பயன்படுத்தப்படும் சிறு போக்குவரத்துச் சேவையாகும்.
இந்த சிறு விளக்கமே போதும் இந்த மோனோ ரயில் எந்த அளவிற்கு சென்னை கூட்டத்திற்கு பயன்படும் என்று. சென்னையின் பேருந்து மற்றும் மெட்ரோ ரயில் நெருக்கடியை அனுபவித்தவன் என்கிற முறையில் சிறு சந்தேகமும் இல்லாமல் இது அடி முட்டாள்த்தனமான சேவை [சென்னைக்கு] என்பதை நிச்சயம் கூற முடியும். நான் சென்னையை விட்டு சிங்கப்பூர் வந்து நான்கு வருடம் ஆகிறது தற்போது உள்ள ஜன நெருக்கடியை என்னால் கற்பனை கூட செய்ய முடியவில்லை. மக்கள் அலுவலகம் செல்லும் போதும் முடிந்து திரும்ப வீட்டிற்கு வரும் போதும் படும் அவஸ்தை கொஞ்ச நஞ்சமல்ல. இது சென்னையில் உள்ள மற்றும் வந்து செல்லும் அனைத்து மக்களுக்கும் தெரிந்த ஒன்றாகும். இதை எவராலும் மறுக்க முடியாது.
இவ்வாறு இருக்கையில் இந்த மோனோ ரயில் எப்படி மக்களின் பிரச்னையை தீர்க்க முடியும்? அறிவுள்ள எவரும் இதை ஏற்றுக்கொள்ள மாட்டார்கள். மெட்ரோ ரயில் சேவையின் 20% கூட்டத்தைக்கூட இதனால் சமாளிக்க முடியாது. மிகச்சிறிய பெட்டிகளாகும். கூட்டத்தை சமாளிக்க தற்போது மீட்டர் கேஜ் பாதைகளை எல்லாம் மாற்றி பிராட் கேஜ் பாதைகளாக மாற்றிக்கொண்டு இருக்கும் இந்தத் தருணத்தில் மீட்டர் கேஜ் ஐ விட சிறிய அளவில் கொண்டு வந்தால் இதை என்னவென்று கூறுவது?
போக்குவரத்து நெரிசல் மிகுந்த நேரமான “பீக்” நேரங்களில் ரயிலில் உள்ளே சென்று வெளியே வருவதற்குள் தாவு தீர்ந்து விடும். கூட்ட நெரிசலில் மூச்சு விடுவதே சிரமம் இப்படி கூட்ட நெரிசலால் சென்னை திணறிக்கொண்டு இருக்கிறது அப்படி இருக்கையில் இதை சமாளிக்க மோனோ ரயில் என்ற குட்டி ரயிலைக் கொண்டு வந்தால் என்ன ஆவது? நீங்கள் இன்னொன்றையும் புரிந்து கொள்ள வேண்டும் இதை பாதாள ரயிலாக அமைக்க முடியாது ஒரே வழி பறக்கும் ரயில் அதாவது மாடி ரயில் மட்டுமே ஆனால் மெட்ரோ ரயில் அப்படி அல்ல.
ஏன் இதில் பணம் மட்டுமே ஒரு முக்கியப் பிரச்சனை இல்லை?
நான் முன்னரே கூறியபடி ஊழல் செய்தால் எப்படியும் பின்னாளில் அதை சரி செய்யக் கூடிய வாய்ப்புள்ளது அல்லது வேறு வழியில் பணத்தை பெறக்கூடிய வாய்ப்புள்ளது. திட்டங்களை மாற்றுவதால் மக்கள் வேறு வழியில் (கலைஞர் திட்டம் இல்லாமல் ஜெ திட்டம்) திரும்பப் பெற முடியும். கோட்டைக்கு மாற்றினால் 1000 கோடி நஷ்டத்தோடு அது முடிந்து போனது மற்றபடி அதனால் எந்த வேலையும் பெரியளவில் பாதிக்கப்படப்போவதில்லை. எடுத்துக்காட்டாக கோட்டைக்கு மாறியதால் எந்த பணியும் நின்று விடவில்லை வழக்கம்போல நடந்து கொண்டு தான் உள்ளது. கலைஞர் காப்பீட்டு திட்டம் சென்று பொதுக் காப்பீட்டு திட்டம் வரும். இதை மாற்ற ஆகும் செலவு மட்டுமே நமக்கு பிரச்சனை மக்களின் வரிப்பணம் வீண்.
பின் என்ன தான் பிரச்சனை?
ரயில் பாதை அமைப்பது என்பது இந்த மாதம் தொடங்கி அடுத்த மாதம் முடிக்கக்கூடிய சாதாரண விசயமல்ல அதுவும் சென்னை போன்ற நெரிசல் மிகுந்த நகரங்களில் இதை நீங்கள் அறிவீர்கள். மிக மிகப்பெரிய ப்ராஜக்ட். பறக்கும் ரயில் திட்டம் செயல்படுத்தப்பட்ட போது அதை முடிக்க எவ்வளவு வருடங்கள் ஆனது (அது கூட கூவம் பகுதியில் மட்டுமே)அதனால் எத்தனை மக்கள் சிரமப்பட்டார்கள் என்பதை நான் அனுபவப்பூர்வமாக உணர்ந்தவன். இந்தப்பாதை அமைப்பதற்காக பல்வேறு வழித் தடங்கள் மாற்றி விடப்பட்டும் பொதுமக்கள் டேக் டைவர்சன் டேக் டைவர்சன் என்று தலை சுற்றிக் கீழே விழாத குறையாக அவதிப்பட்டார்கள்.
இது நடந்து பல வருடங்கள் ஆகி விட்டது தற்போது மக்கள் தொகை என்ன அதே அளவிலா இருக்கும்? எத்தனை மடங்கு அதிகரித்து இருக்கும். மோனோ ரயில் அமைப்பதால் போக்குவரத்து இடைஞ்சல் இருக்காது ஆக்கிரமிப்பு அகற்ற வேண்டியது இருக்காது என்றெல்லாம் தப்புக்கணக்கு போட்டு விடாதீர்கள். மெட்ரோ ரயில் அளவை விட பாதிப்பு குறைவாக இருக்கலாம் அவ்வளவே. மோனோ ரயில் அமைக்க மெட்ரோ ரயிலை அமைப்பதை விட குறைந்த செலவு ஆகும், விரைவாக முடிக்கலாம் ஆனால் அதனால் போக்குவரத்துப் பிரச்சனைகளை சமாளிக்க முடியாது.
அரசு என்பது தற்கால சிரமத்தைக் கணக்கில் கொள்ளாமல் எதிர்காலத்தை கணித்தே தனது திட்டங்களை செயல்படுத்த வேண்டும் அதுவே உண்மையான அரசு. கலைஞர் மீது பல குற்றங்கள் சுமத்தப்பட்டு இருந்தாலும் சென்னையில் பல பாலங்களை கட்டியது அவரது ஆட்சியிலேயே என்பதை யாராலும் மறுக்க முடியாது. அவர் பெயரை பொறிக்க கட்டினாரா என்பதெல்லாம் இரண்டாவது பட்சம். மெட்ரோ ரயில் அமைக்க தற்போது சிரமப்பட்டாலும் எதிர்காலத்தில் மக்கள் அந்தப்பயனை நிச்சயம் அனுபவிப்பார்கள். மோனோ ரயில் வந்தால்?
தற்போது ஜெ கட்டளைப்படி மோனோ ரயில் கொண்டு வருகிறார்கள் என்றே வைத்துக்கொள்வோம். இத்தனை மக்களை எப்படி அது தாங்கும்? சரி பின்னாளில் இத்திட்டம் கணிப்பு தவறாகி விட்டது போக்குவரத்து நெரிசலை எந்த விதத்திலும் குறைக்கவில்லை அதனால் மோனோ ரயிலை எடுத்து விட்டு மெட்ரோ ரயிலை கொண்டு வந்து விடலாம் என்று just like that செய்யக்கூடிய விஷயம் அல்ல என்பது யோசிக்கும் திறன் கொண்ட அனைவருக்கும் புரிந்த விசயமாகும். கலைஞர் காப்பீட்டு திட்டம் போல அதை மாற்றி விட்டு வேறு திட்டத்தை அறிவித்து கொடுக்க கூடிய விசயமா இது!
எத்தனை பேரின் உழைப்பு இதில் உள்ளது, எத்தனை வருடம் இதற்காக செலவழிக்கப்படும், இதனால் மக்கள் படும் அவஸ்தைகள் என்ன ஆவது? இன்னும் ஒரு 10 வருடம் கழித்து இருக்கும் போக்குவரத்து நெரிசலில் எப்படி மெட்ரோ ரயிலை அமைக்க முடியும்? கண்டிப்பாக முடியும்! முடியும் என்று நினைத்தால் ஆனால் அதனால் பொதுமக்களுக்கு எவ்வளவு சிரமம். இதை எல்லாம் யோசித்துப்பார்த்தால் தலை சுற்றுகிறது.
இதற்கு ஏன் மக்களிடம் பெரிதாக எதிர்ப்பு இல்லை?
காரணம் மிக மிக எளிது. மக்களுக்கு இன்னும் மோனோ ரயில் என்பதன் முழு அர்த்தம் தெரியவில்லை என்பதே. மோனோ ரயிலும் மெட்ரோ ரயில் போலவே ஒரு மாஸ் போக்குவரத்து என்றே நினைத்துக்கொண்டுள்ளார்கள். இதைப் படித்துக்கொண்டு இருக்கும் உங்களில் பலருக்குக் கூட இன்னும் மோனோ ரயில் என்பதன் முழு அர்த்தம் தெரிந்து இருக்காது என்றே கருதுகிறேன். இதில் தவறாக நினைக்க எதுவுமில்லை காரணம் பலருக்கு இது பற்றி தெரிந்து கொள்ளக்கூடிய வாய்ப்பு மிக மிகக் குறைவு. இதைப் பற்றிய அறிமுகமோ அல்லது இதைப் பயன்படுத்தக்கூடிய வாய்ப்புகளோ உள்ள மக்கள் மிகக் குறைவு அப்படி இருக்கையில் மக்களை தவறாக நினைக்க முடியாது.
மக்களைத் தான் தவறாக நினைக்க முடியாதே தவிர இந்த திட்டத்தை செயல்படுத்துகிற அரசை மற்றும் அதற்கு திட்டங்களைக் வகுத்துக் கொடுக்கும் அரசு அதிகாரிகளை நாம் நிச்சயம் மன்னிக்க முடியாது. இதைப்போல மிகப்பெரிய திட்டங்களை செய்யப்போகிறவர்கள் அதனுடைய சாதக பாதகங்களை அறியாமலா செய்வார்கள்? தெரிந்து செய்தால் அதன் பெயர் என்ன? தெரியாமல் செய்தால் அவர்கள் எதற்கு அந்த பொறுப்பில் இருக்கிறார்கள்?
சிங்கப்பூர் & மலேசியா
கட்டமைப்பு சிறப்பாக உள்ள மிகவும் குட்டி நாடான சிங்கப்பூரிலேயே (சென்னையை விட பரப்பளவில் சிங்கப்பூர் சிறியது) மோனோ ரயில் ஆரம்பிக்கப்பட்டு பின் அது நிறுத்தப்பட்டு விட்டது. தற்போது அது அமைக்கப்பட்ட இடங்களில் மட்டுமே செயல்பட்டு வருகிறது. தற்போது அமைக்கப்படும் புதிய வழித்தடங்கள் அனைத்தும் MRT என்று அழைக்கப்படும் Mass Rapid Transport என்கிற நமது ஊர் மெட்ரோ ரயில் போலவே அமைக்கப்படுகிறது. பெரும்பாலும் இங்கே பாதாள வழித்தடங்கள் அதிகம் எனவே இதற்கும் கூட்டத்தை சமாளிக்கவும் சிங்கப்பூர் அரசாங்கம் மோனோ ரயிலை நிறுத்தி விட்டு MRT எனப்படும் முறையையே பின் பற்றி வருகிறது.
சிங்கப்பூர் போல மலேசியாவிலும் மோனோ ரயில் உள்ளது ஆனால் அவர்களும் உருவாக்கிய காரணத்திற்க்காக அதை நடத்திக்கொண்டுள்ளார்கள். எவ்வகையிலும் மக்களின் முழுப் பிரச்னையை தீர்க்க உதவவில்லை. தற்போது உள்ள இடத்தில் இதே மெட்ரோ ரயில் போல இருந்து இருந்தால் இன்னும் பல மக்கள் பயன்பெறுவார்கள் என்பது உண்மை (அமைப்பதில் உள்ள இட நெருக்கடி தவிர்த்து). சில ஆசிய நாடுகளான சீனா ஜப்பான் வெகு சில ஐரோப்பா நாடுகள் மட்டுமே இதைப் பயன்படுத்துகிறார்கள் அங்கும் கூட மோனோ ரயிலை பயணிகளின் முக்கியப் போக்குவரத்துச் சேவையாக பயன்படுத்தவில்லை அல்லது பயன்படுத்த முடியவில்லை. நிலைமை இப்படி இருக்கும் போது இந்தியாவிலேயே மக்கள் தொகை அதிகமுள்ள நகரங்களில் ஒன்றான சென்னையில் மோனோ ரயில் வந்தால் சென்னை மக்களின் விதி என்று கூறுவதைத் தவிர வேறு ஒன்றும் தோன்றவில்லை.
நம்மால் அரசை (ஜெ வை) மீறி எதுவும் செய்ய முடியாது என்றாலும் குறைந்த பட்சம் மோனோ ரயில் வந்தால் ஏற்படும் பிரச்சனைகளை கொஞ்சமாவது நாம் அனைவரும் தெரிந்து வைத்து இருக்க வேண்டும். ஒருவேளை (ஒருவேளை தான்) எதிர்ப்புகள் அதிகமானால் மாற்றம் ஏற்பட வாய்ப்புண்டு.
by கிரி on June 7, 2011
link
http://www.giriblog.com/2011/06/mono-rail.html
ஜெ கலைஞர் அறிவித்தத் திட்டங்களை மாற்றிக்கொண்டு இருப்பது அல்லது நிறுத்திக்கொண்டு இருப்பது தெரிந்த விஷயம் தான் என்றாலும் ஜீரணிக்க முடியாத விசயமாக உள்ளது மோனோ ரயில் திட்டம். கலைஞர் காப்பீட்டுத் திட்டம் நிறுத்தப்பட்டு பொதுக்காப்பீட்டு திட்டம் கொண்டு வந்துள்ளார் சரி! சட்டசபை வளாகத்தை மறுபடியும் கோட்டைக்கே மாற்றி உள்ளார் சரி! ஒரு ருபாய் அரிசித் திட்டத்தை இலவச அரிசி ஆக்கி உள்ளார் சரி! மற்றும் இதைப்போல பல திட்டங்களை மாற்றி உள்ளார் எல்லாம் சரி! ஆனால் மோனோ ரயில் திட்டத்தை கொண்டு வருவது மிக மிக முட்டாள்த்தனம்.
இதை நான் ஏன் இவ்வாறு கூறுகிறேன் என்பதை விளக்கமாகவே கூறுகிறேன்.
காப்பீட்டுத் திட்டம், இலவச அரிசித்திட்டம், கோட்டை மாற்றம் இவற்றில் எல்லாம் பணம் மட்டுமே இழப்பு ஆகும். நஷ்டம் ஏற்ப்பட்டால் அரசால் எப்படியும் சமாளிக்க முடியும் மற்றும் மாற்று ஏற்பாடுகளைச் செய்ய முடியும். இதனால் பெரியளவில் பாதிப்பு என்றால் அது நிச்சயம் “பணம்” மட்டுமே ஆகும். தமிழகம் பார்க்காத ஊழல், நஷ்டமில்லை ஒவ்வொரு முறையும் ஆட்சி மாறும் போதும் ஜெ கலைஞர் இருவரும் மாற்றி மாற்றி மற்றவர் திட்டங்களை நிறுத்துவதும் புதிய திட்டங்களை அறிவிப்பதும் தமிழக மக்களின் சாபக்கேடாகி விட்டது. தற்போது இதை எல்லாம் தூக்கிச் சாப்பிடும் விதமாக ஜெ வின் மோனோ ரயில் அறிவிப்புத் திட்டம் உள்ளது.
மோனோ ரயில் என்றால் என்ன?
Mono Rayil மோனோ ரயில் ஜெ வின் இமாலயத்தவறு மோனோ ரயில் என்பது சிறு ரயிலாகும் அதாவது இரு விமான [Terminal] நிலையத்தை இணைக்கவும், சுற்றுலா வருபவர்கள் சுற்றிப்பார்க்கவும், பெரிய தீம் பார்க்கை வலம் வரவும் பயன்படுத்தப்படும் ஒரு போக்குவரத்துச் சேவையாகும். இவை அல்லாமல் சிறிய அளவில் நான்கு அல்லது ஐந்து பெட்டிகளைக்கொண்டு பயணிகளை ஒரு இடத்தில் இருந்து மற்றொரு இடத்திற்கு கொண்டு செல்ல மற்ற மெட்ரோ ரயில்களைப் போல பயன்படுத்தப்படும் சிறு போக்குவரத்துச் சேவையாகும்.
இந்த சிறு விளக்கமே போதும் இந்த மோனோ ரயில் எந்த அளவிற்கு சென்னை கூட்டத்திற்கு பயன்படும் என்று. சென்னையின் பேருந்து மற்றும் மெட்ரோ ரயில் நெருக்கடியை அனுபவித்தவன் என்கிற முறையில் சிறு சந்தேகமும் இல்லாமல் இது அடி முட்டாள்த்தனமான சேவை [சென்னைக்கு] என்பதை நிச்சயம் கூற முடியும். நான் சென்னையை விட்டு சிங்கப்பூர் வந்து நான்கு வருடம் ஆகிறது தற்போது உள்ள ஜன நெருக்கடியை என்னால் கற்பனை கூட செய்ய முடியவில்லை. மக்கள் அலுவலகம் செல்லும் போதும் முடிந்து திரும்ப வீட்டிற்கு வரும் போதும் படும் அவஸ்தை கொஞ்ச நஞ்சமல்ல. இது சென்னையில் உள்ள மற்றும் வந்து செல்லும் அனைத்து மக்களுக்கும் தெரிந்த ஒன்றாகும். இதை எவராலும் மறுக்க முடியாது.
இவ்வாறு இருக்கையில் இந்த மோனோ ரயில் எப்படி மக்களின் பிரச்னையை தீர்க்க முடியும்? அறிவுள்ள எவரும் இதை ஏற்றுக்கொள்ள மாட்டார்கள். மெட்ரோ ரயில் சேவையின் 20% கூட்டத்தைக்கூட இதனால் சமாளிக்க முடியாது. மிகச்சிறிய பெட்டிகளாகும். கூட்டத்தை சமாளிக்க தற்போது மீட்டர் கேஜ் பாதைகளை எல்லாம் மாற்றி பிராட் கேஜ் பாதைகளாக மாற்றிக்கொண்டு இருக்கும் இந்தத் தருணத்தில் மீட்டர் கேஜ் ஐ விட சிறிய அளவில் கொண்டு வந்தால் இதை என்னவென்று கூறுவது?
போக்குவரத்து நெரிசல் மிகுந்த நேரமான “பீக்” நேரங்களில் ரயிலில் உள்ளே சென்று வெளியே வருவதற்குள் தாவு தீர்ந்து விடும். கூட்ட நெரிசலில் மூச்சு விடுவதே சிரமம் இப்படி கூட்ட நெரிசலால் சென்னை திணறிக்கொண்டு இருக்கிறது அப்படி இருக்கையில் இதை சமாளிக்க மோனோ ரயில் என்ற குட்டி ரயிலைக் கொண்டு வந்தால் என்ன ஆவது? நீங்கள் இன்னொன்றையும் புரிந்து கொள்ள வேண்டும் இதை பாதாள ரயிலாக அமைக்க முடியாது ஒரே வழி பறக்கும் ரயில் அதாவது மாடி ரயில் மட்டுமே ஆனால் மெட்ரோ ரயில் அப்படி அல்ல.
ஏன் இதில் பணம் மட்டுமே ஒரு முக்கியப் பிரச்சனை இல்லை?
நான் முன்னரே கூறியபடி ஊழல் செய்தால் எப்படியும் பின்னாளில் அதை சரி செய்யக் கூடிய வாய்ப்புள்ளது அல்லது வேறு வழியில் பணத்தை பெறக்கூடிய வாய்ப்புள்ளது. திட்டங்களை மாற்றுவதால் மக்கள் வேறு வழியில் (கலைஞர் திட்டம் இல்லாமல் ஜெ திட்டம்) திரும்பப் பெற முடியும். கோட்டைக்கு மாற்றினால் 1000 கோடி நஷ்டத்தோடு அது முடிந்து போனது மற்றபடி அதனால் எந்த வேலையும் பெரியளவில் பாதிக்கப்படப்போவதில்லை. எடுத்துக்காட்டாக கோட்டைக்கு மாறியதால் எந்த பணியும் நின்று விடவில்லை வழக்கம்போல நடந்து கொண்டு தான் உள்ளது. கலைஞர் காப்பீட்டு திட்டம் சென்று பொதுக் காப்பீட்டு திட்டம் வரும். இதை மாற்ற ஆகும் செலவு மட்டுமே நமக்கு பிரச்சனை மக்களின் வரிப்பணம் வீண்.
பின் என்ன தான் பிரச்சனை?
ரயில் பாதை அமைப்பது என்பது இந்த மாதம் தொடங்கி அடுத்த மாதம் முடிக்கக்கூடிய சாதாரண விசயமல்ல அதுவும் சென்னை போன்ற நெரிசல் மிகுந்த நகரங்களில் இதை நீங்கள் அறிவீர்கள். மிக மிகப்பெரிய ப்ராஜக்ட். பறக்கும் ரயில் திட்டம் செயல்படுத்தப்பட்ட போது அதை முடிக்க எவ்வளவு வருடங்கள் ஆனது (அது கூட கூவம் பகுதியில் மட்டுமே)அதனால் எத்தனை மக்கள் சிரமப்பட்டார்கள் என்பதை நான் அனுபவப்பூர்வமாக உணர்ந்தவன். இந்தப்பாதை அமைப்பதற்காக பல்வேறு வழித் தடங்கள் மாற்றி விடப்பட்டும் பொதுமக்கள் டேக் டைவர்சன் டேக் டைவர்சன் என்று தலை சுற்றிக் கீழே விழாத குறையாக அவதிப்பட்டார்கள்.
இது நடந்து பல வருடங்கள் ஆகி விட்டது தற்போது மக்கள் தொகை என்ன அதே அளவிலா இருக்கும்? எத்தனை மடங்கு அதிகரித்து இருக்கும். மோனோ ரயில் அமைப்பதால் போக்குவரத்து இடைஞ்சல் இருக்காது ஆக்கிரமிப்பு அகற்ற வேண்டியது இருக்காது என்றெல்லாம் தப்புக்கணக்கு போட்டு விடாதீர்கள். மெட்ரோ ரயில் அளவை விட பாதிப்பு குறைவாக இருக்கலாம் அவ்வளவே. மோனோ ரயில் அமைக்க மெட்ரோ ரயிலை அமைப்பதை விட குறைந்த செலவு ஆகும், விரைவாக முடிக்கலாம் ஆனால் அதனால் போக்குவரத்துப் பிரச்சனைகளை சமாளிக்க முடியாது.
அரசு என்பது தற்கால சிரமத்தைக் கணக்கில் கொள்ளாமல் எதிர்காலத்தை கணித்தே தனது திட்டங்களை செயல்படுத்த வேண்டும் அதுவே உண்மையான அரசு. கலைஞர் மீது பல குற்றங்கள் சுமத்தப்பட்டு இருந்தாலும் சென்னையில் பல பாலங்களை கட்டியது அவரது ஆட்சியிலேயே என்பதை யாராலும் மறுக்க முடியாது. அவர் பெயரை பொறிக்க கட்டினாரா என்பதெல்லாம் இரண்டாவது பட்சம். மெட்ரோ ரயில் அமைக்க தற்போது சிரமப்பட்டாலும் எதிர்காலத்தில் மக்கள் அந்தப்பயனை நிச்சயம் அனுபவிப்பார்கள். மோனோ ரயில் வந்தால்?
தற்போது ஜெ கட்டளைப்படி மோனோ ரயில் கொண்டு வருகிறார்கள் என்றே வைத்துக்கொள்வோம். இத்தனை மக்களை எப்படி அது தாங்கும்? சரி பின்னாளில் இத்திட்டம் கணிப்பு தவறாகி விட்டது போக்குவரத்து நெரிசலை எந்த விதத்திலும் குறைக்கவில்லை அதனால் மோனோ ரயிலை எடுத்து விட்டு மெட்ரோ ரயிலை கொண்டு வந்து விடலாம் என்று just like that செய்யக்கூடிய விஷயம் அல்ல என்பது யோசிக்கும் திறன் கொண்ட அனைவருக்கும் புரிந்த விசயமாகும். கலைஞர் காப்பீட்டு திட்டம் போல அதை மாற்றி விட்டு வேறு திட்டத்தை அறிவித்து கொடுக்க கூடிய விசயமா இது!
எத்தனை பேரின் உழைப்பு இதில் உள்ளது, எத்தனை வருடம் இதற்காக செலவழிக்கப்படும், இதனால் மக்கள் படும் அவஸ்தைகள் என்ன ஆவது? இன்னும் ஒரு 10 வருடம் கழித்து இருக்கும் போக்குவரத்து நெரிசலில் எப்படி மெட்ரோ ரயிலை அமைக்க முடியும்? கண்டிப்பாக முடியும்! முடியும் என்று நினைத்தால் ஆனால் அதனால் பொதுமக்களுக்கு எவ்வளவு சிரமம். இதை எல்லாம் யோசித்துப்பார்த்தால் தலை சுற்றுகிறது.
இதற்கு ஏன் மக்களிடம் பெரிதாக எதிர்ப்பு இல்லை?
காரணம் மிக மிக எளிது. மக்களுக்கு இன்னும் மோனோ ரயில் என்பதன் முழு அர்த்தம் தெரியவில்லை என்பதே. மோனோ ரயிலும் மெட்ரோ ரயில் போலவே ஒரு மாஸ் போக்குவரத்து என்றே நினைத்துக்கொண்டுள்ளார்கள். இதைப் படித்துக்கொண்டு இருக்கும் உங்களில் பலருக்குக் கூட இன்னும் மோனோ ரயில் என்பதன் முழு அர்த்தம் தெரிந்து இருக்காது என்றே கருதுகிறேன். இதில் தவறாக நினைக்க எதுவுமில்லை காரணம் பலருக்கு இது பற்றி தெரிந்து கொள்ளக்கூடிய வாய்ப்பு மிக மிகக் குறைவு. இதைப் பற்றிய அறிமுகமோ அல்லது இதைப் பயன்படுத்தக்கூடிய வாய்ப்புகளோ உள்ள மக்கள் மிகக் குறைவு அப்படி இருக்கையில் மக்களை தவறாக நினைக்க முடியாது.
மக்களைத் தான் தவறாக நினைக்க முடியாதே தவிர இந்த திட்டத்தை செயல்படுத்துகிற அரசை மற்றும் அதற்கு திட்டங்களைக் வகுத்துக் கொடுக்கும் அரசு அதிகாரிகளை நாம் நிச்சயம் மன்னிக்க முடியாது. இதைப்போல மிகப்பெரிய திட்டங்களை செய்யப்போகிறவர்கள் அதனுடைய சாதக பாதகங்களை அறியாமலா செய்வார்கள்? தெரிந்து செய்தால் அதன் பெயர் என்ன? தெரியாமல் செய்தால் அவர்கள் எதற்கு அந்த பொறுப்பில் இருக்கிறார்கள்?
சிங்கப்பூர் & மலேசியா
கட்டமைப்பு சிறப்பாக உள்ள மிகவும் குட்டி நாடான சிங்கப்பூரிலேயே (சென்னையை விட பரப்பளவில் சிங்கப்பூர் சிறியது) மோனோ ரயில் ஆரம்பிக்கப்பட்டு பின் அது நிறுத்தப்பட்டு விட்டது. தற்போது அது அமைக்கப்பட்ட இடங்களில் மட்டுமே செயல்பட்டு வருகிறது. தற்போது அமைக்கப்படும் புதிய வழித்தடங்கள் அனைத்தும் MRT என்று அழைக்கப்படும் Mass Rapid Transport என்கிற நமது ஊர் மெட்ரோ ரயில் போலவே அமைக்கப்படுகிறது. பெரும்பாலும் இங்கே பாதாள வழித்தடங்கள் அதிகம் எனவே இதற்கும் கூட்டத்தை சமாளிக்கவும் சிங்கப்பூர் அரசாங்கம் மோனோ ரயிலை நிறுத்தி விட்டு MRT எனப்படும் முறையையே பின் பற்றி வருகிறது.
சிங்கப்பூர் போல மலேசியாவிலும் மோனோ ரயில் உள்ளது ஆனால் அவர்களும் உருவாக்கிய காரணத்திற்க்காக அதை நடத்திக்கொண்டுள்ளார்கள். எவ்வகையிலும் மக்களின் முழுப் பிரச்னையை தீர்க்க உதவவில்லை. தற்போது உள்ள இடத்தில் இதே மெட்ரோ ரயில் போல இருந்து இருந்தால் இன்னும் பல மக்கள் பயன்பெறுவார்கள் என்பது உண்மை (அமைப்பதில் உள்ள இட நெருக்கடி தவிர்த்து). சில ஆசிய நாடுகளான சீனா ஜப்பான் வெகு சில ஐரோப்பா நாடுகள் மட்டுமே இதைப் பயன்படுத்துகிறார்கள் அங்கும் கூட மோனோ ரயிலை பயணிகளின் முக்கியப் போக்குவரத்துச் சேவையாக பயன்படுத்தவில்லை அல்லது பயன்படுத்த முடியவில்லை. நிலைமை இப்படி இருக்கும் போது இந்தியாவிலேயே மக்கள் தொகை அதிகமுள்ள நகரங்களில் ஒன்றான சென்னையில் மோனோ ரயில் வந்தால் சென்னை மக்களின் விதி என்று கூறுவதைத் தவிர வேறு ஒன்றும் தோன்றவில்லை.
நம்மால் அரசை (ஜெ வை) மீறி எதுவும் செய்ய முடியாது என்றாலும் குறைந்த பட்சம் மோனோ ரயில் வந்தால் ஏற்படும் பிரச்சனைகளை கொஞ்சமாவது நாம் அனைவரும் தெரிந்து வைத்து இருக்க வேண்டும். ஒருவேளை (ஒருவேளை தான்) எதிர்ப்புகள் அதிகமானால் மாற்றம் ஏற்பட வாய்ப்புண்டு.
by கிரி on June 7, 2011
link
http://www.giriblog.com/2011/06/mono-rail.html
HOW USA FEARED BY "TOKYO ROSE"
In this article i want to write about psychological operations done by Japan against allies forces in world war 2 . when allied forces Britain USA want to defeat Japan and try to stop their occupation in Asian continent . japan, a small force try to stop their action not only by through their army but also through their propaganda . their propaganda had great effect on the morale of the allied forces .one of the operation was done by "Tokyo Rose"
Who was Tokyo rose?. Her name was "Iva Toguri D'Aquino." .After the end of the war it was found that she was a citizen of America . Tokyo rose was the name of the radio broadcaster . the main aim of the announcer was to disrupt the morale of the allied forces. Tokyo rose used to do "zero hour" for Tokyo radio . The program was so popular even most of the allied forces glue to the radio even during war.
What she did ? Through her Fluent English she did "Zero Hour" program for the Tokyo Radio . In that program , she said about the captured soldiers whom she interviewed.she said about how allied soldiers general were living luxurious life and putting soldiers life in death , how Japanese were advanced in fighting skill , technology , numbers compare to allied forced in the battle field .she gave credible information also about the allied regiment, who were majors , about numbers , rank etc about allied forces in fluent English. It made allied forcs to believe her .
Most of the time , she used say allied forces could not defeat Japan via captured soldiers . It create a dis belief among the allied soldiers itself . their morale was disrupted . they were glue to radio during her program ,and allied started to doubting about their ability
Actually she didn't meet any of the soldiers . Japan army gave information about the soldiers who were captured by them . they aimed to create a disruptive among soldiers so that Japanese could get time to regroup and to divert the allied army from Japanese weak position in the war field .
i would say they achieved partial result through their pyscho fear operation by "Tokyo Rose" . because japan able to fight against other allied even after fall of berlin .
From this article what i am trying to say in during war time we have to be careful while listen to enemy propaganda because it may completely misguide about their enemy strength and their weakness. Japan did with Tokyo Rose and Britian did with BBC.
source
niraj david
wiki
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Pratibha Patil-- True story, by Arun Shourie
Electing a President, rashtramaataa
Pratibha Patil, True Story – by Arun Shourie (Disturbing Credentials)
(the financial frauds, the murder, the deliberate derailment of the investigation)
'A big step for women… This shows India has a lot of respect for women… My nomination will inspire other women and help their empowerment…' – that is how Pratibha Patil described her selection as the UPA candidate for being our President. Loyalists, of course, went one better. 'A firm believer in women's causes and a tireless champion of spreading education among girls… One who always stands for a better deal for women… active role in checking such evils as female foeticide and dowry...' 'Working women of Mumbai hail…' 'Yes, Ma'am Commander' – Armymen look forward to reporting to first woman Supreme Commander of Armed Forces…
And all this within two days of her selection.
Her bio-data lists her 'special interests' as 'development of rural economy and welfare of women', and lists as evidence, 'Establishment of Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank at Jalgaon, Maharashtra… of Mahila Vikas Mahamandal…' It records her being Managing Trustee, Shram Sadhana Trust, as her being the 'Chief Promoter and Chairperson of Sugar Factory in Jalgaon District'. It records her having set up the Engineering College 'for the benefit of rural youth'…
We start with the 'cooperative bank' she set up in her own name to help other women – the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank.
Although this is listed in her bio-data, and although it has been referred to again and again by newspapers, how is it that neither the bio-data nor the newspapers mention that the bank has actually been liquidated? Under orders of the Reserve Bank of India, no less. And that too on the telling ground that its continuance would be prejudicial to the interests of depositors.
Brief history
Pratibha Patil established the bank in 1973 with herself as the chairperson, and with many members of her own family as its directors. She herself became a director for several terms. As for members of her family, they inter-changed, among themselves, the chairs of the Board of Directors in one 'election' after another. But while others changed places, Pratibha Patil continued as Founder Chairperson right till the demise of the bank.
Since the bank was not being managed properly, the Reserve Bank of India, in 1995, included it in its list of 'weak banks' and placed it under rehabilitation 'due to heavy erosion in its assets as observed in the inspection in March 1994.'
The RBI conducted an in-depth inspection of the bank's functioning again in 2002. In his order dated 25 February 2003, P.B . Mathur, Executive Director of the RBI, stated that the inspection revealed the following irregularities:
1: The real or exchangeable value of the bank's paid-up share capital and reserves stands at minus Rs. 197.67 lakh. Thus, the bank is not having adequate assets to meet its liabilities. The bank does not comply with the RBI's requirement of minimum share capital…
2: The ratio of the net erosion to net owned funds of the bank is as high as 312.4% and the erosion in the value of the bank's assets has not only wiped out its owned funds but has also affected the deposits to the extent of Rs. 197.67 lakh, forming 26% of total deposits…
3: The gross NPAs of the bank, that is loans that have gone bad, amount to 65.8% of the total loans and advances…
4: The Board has not made any concerted effort to improve the bank's financial position and bring it out of the weak status…
As a consequence, the RBI in its order stated: 'Having regard to all the facts, the Reserve Bank of India is satisfied that allowing the bank to carry on banking business any further would be detrimental to the interest of the present and future depositors and hence the license granted to the PRATIBHA MAHILA SAHAKARI BANK LTD. is hereby cancelled.'
Who got the loans?
But how did the assets of the bank get eroded? Why did this 'cooperative bank' – functioning as it must have been in the interests of its members – not take any action to retrieve the loans and instead endanger its very existence? Remember that the order of the RBI to liquidate the bank was not a sudden bolt. The RBI had put the bank on its list of 'weak banks' in 1995, that is a full eight years before the RBI had to decide that it just must be liquidated, and cancelled its license. Throughout these eight years why did Board not make any "concerted effort to improve the bank's financial position"?
A brief list of the sorts of persons who had been given the 'loans' and were not repaying them, tells the tale.
Name of the NPA holder Relationship to P. Patil Amount due with penalty
Rajeshwari Kishorisingh Patil Brother's daughter-in-law Rs. 45, 82, 670
Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew Rs. 51, 02, 183
Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew Rs. 43, 87, 680
Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput Brother's kin
Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput Brother's kin and wife Rs. 42, 89, 602
Jayashri Udhavsingh Rajput
Randhirsingh Dilipsingh Rajput Nephew Rs. 21, 44, 800
Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput
Jyoti Vijaysingh Patil
Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew Rs. 10, 69, 893
Dilispsingh N. Patil Brother Rs. 3, 09, 562
Dilispsingh N. Patil Brother Rs. 5, 62, 840
Total: Rs. 2, 24, 49, 150
____________________________________________________________
Notice that among the women that were being empowered by this cooperative for women – this Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank – were the brother and nephews of Pratibha Patil! Males behind the Muslim veil, Dr. Watson!
For my friends, the champions of employees' unions
The Cooperative Bank Employees Union wrote one memorandum after another exposing how the directors of the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank were systematically bankrupting the bank. They demanded dismissal of the family-controlled board. They demanded 'a CBI inquiry against Pratibha Patil, former Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, for the irregularities in the bank'. They wrote these letters, in Marathi, to the relevant authorities in Maharashtra looking after the affairs of cooperative banks. They sent them to the then President, to the then Prime Minister, to among others, 'Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)…'
In one such lengthy memorandum dated 3.12.2001, the Employees' Union complained, 'Founder Chairperson Pratibha Patil – during, before and after the period when she was formally on the Board of Directors – has facilitated the loot of large sums of money in the form of unlawful loans without surety extended to her own relatives and to people close to her family.' The Union alleged that, even though the bank was on the verge of bankruptcy, Pratibha Patil got huge amounts of interest waived on the loans given to her close relatives. As illustrations, they listed three such accounts:
1) Anjali Dilipsingh Patil (Pratibha Patil's niece), who got a waiver of Rs. 21.86 lakh;
2) Kavita Aravind Patil (sister-in-law of Pratibha Patil), who got a waiver of Rs. 8.59 lakh; and
3) Rajkaur Dilipsingh Patil (another sister-in-law of Pratibha Patil), who got a waiver of Rs. 2.47 lakh.
The waivers given, the accounts were promptly closed!
This, the Union stated, 'is a loot of Rs. 32.93 lakh'. You will not be surprised to learn that, within the bank, the complaint got nowhere. And for good reason: the legal advisor to the bank was Pratibha Patil's elder brother, Dilipsingh Patil, and Dilipsingh Patil's own wife was one of the beneficiaries of the loan waiver!
'The purpose of the cooperative movement,' the Union's letter stated, 'is to promote people's economic, social and educational development and thereby strengthen patriotism in them. But (in this bank), Pratibha Patil, her elder brother Dilipsingh Patil and the Board of Directors have, through different means, robbed nearly Rs. 2 crore… The bank is thus being bankrupted through a collusive strategy.' 'What kind of morality is this?,' the Union asked.
In a writ filed in the Bombay High Court – Pratibha Patil is one of the respondents in the case -- the employees of the bank also said something else that will be of particular interest to our champions of social justice. They said, 'The respondent Directors have also appointed staff without following the recruitment procedure that the posts are reserved for reserve categories such as S.C., S.T., O.B.C. The managing Directors have appointed their relatives as employees of the Bank…'
To rescue the bank from imminent demise, the Union demanded 'seizure of the property of Smt. Pratibha Patil, her brother Dilipsingh Patil and her relatives'. In addition it demanded an inquiry into how they had amassed 'such huge assets'.
As a result of this memorandum, the Department of Cooperatives, Government of Maharashtra, initiated an inquiry. Even as the inquiry was going on, a past president of the Employees Union, Anantsingh Patil, wrote an ever-so-helpful letter to Pratibha Patil, on the Union's letterhead, informing her that she had nothing to do with the irregularities of the bank! He even tendered an apology to her on behalf of the Union! The Union nails the lie. It points to several telling facts. For instance, it says, on 22, January, 2002, the Board had met and, much as the Congress does today !, by resolution no. 23, authorized Pratibha Patil to decide who should be on the Board of Directors and who should be the bank's Chief Executive.
But the matter did not end with the Union's letter or the inquiry of the Maharashtra Government's Cooperative Department. The Reserve Bank of India went into the waiver also. In its confidential inspection report dated 18 June, 2002, found the charge of financial fraud involving those large interest waivers to Pratibha Patil's three close relatives to be valid. It also noted that the Board had not taken approval of the AGM for the loan waiver.
Some women were certainly getting empowered!
A pattern
Memoranda of the Employees Union show that such enterprising sleights-of-account-books were part of a pattern. The memoranda and communications were sent to, among others, Pratibha Patil herself. For instance, in a letter to her on 13 March, 2002, the President, Vice-president and Secretary of the Union informed her that
· She had allowed her elder brother, Dilipsingh Patil, to use the bank's telephone (no. 224672, which he had got installed at his residence) for running his stock exchange business. He ran up a bill of Rs. 20 lakh. Phone records showed that the calls were made to sharebrokers in Mumbai. These records were subsequently destroyed. But later the charge was found to be one of substance. It was one of the things that Amol Khairnar, who was appointed as the chief administrator of bank, asked P.D. Patil, manager of the bank, to explain in the show-cause notice that the former issued on 1 February, 2003.
· The show-cause notice also mentioned that the Pratibha Mahil Sahakari Bank had extended unlawful loans to the Sant Muktabai Cooperative Sugar Factory from time to time. As you will recall, the sugar factory too was set up by Pratibha Patil herself to help rural youth! It was inaugurated by Sonia Gandhi in 1999. As The Asian Age has reported, like the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank, the mill too has closed down – but only after running up a loan default of nearly Rs. 20 crore and without ever producing much sugar!
· The bank also gave loans to undeserving persons to buy shares of the Sant Muktabai Cooperative Sugar Factory. Pratibha Patil and her brothers did so for a reason that my good friend of long-standing, Sharad Pawar would again find nothing extraordinary: they did so in order to retain control over the sugar factory by having these shareholders support her in 'elections' to the cooperative.
If you don't stop…
'It is because of these reasons that the bank is now on the verge of going bankrupt,' the Employees Union charged. It then posed a question to her that those – like my friend Sharad Pawar -- who are making light of this state of affairs in the bank on the ground that such things are nothing new in cooperatives would like to answer: 'Whom should the society trust if politicians like you start cooperative institutions to rob the hard-earned wealth of ordinary people?'
And then come two paragraphs that should be weighed in the scale of the high office to which Pratibha Patil is being catapulted. Before concluding, the Union's President, Vice-president and Secretary state, 'You are the Founder Chairperson of this bank, but you are today attempting, out of selfish reasons, to lead the bank to its demise. You know that the RBI has decided to cancel the bank's license if its financial condition does not improve by March 2002. Once the license is cancelled and the bank is liquidated, you are quite capable of covering-up the fraud you have committed on the bank and the people of this region by using your influence on the Government of Maharashtra.'
And then comes the last para. To get to know our next President, the one who will be the Guardian of our Constitution, do read it twice: 'There is threat to our lives and to the lives of our family members from you. You have already communicated this to us in our meeting with you. Although you have made us aware of this threat, we are prepared to lay down our lives for the pursuit of truth. If something happens to us or to members of our families, accidentally or otherwise, you will be responsible for it, which please note.'
And a letter from the women who were to be empowered
We have focused on 'women' who got loans. But who were the depositors? They were the poor women of the area – who were eking out a living by selling vegetables, by collecting rags… What were they telling our 'firm believer in women's causes', our 'tireless champion of…'? A representative, and typically plaintive letter from them, awakens us to their wail:
'We opened accounts in your bank trusting that it had been established to help poor women and to come to their aid in times of need. You know that the bank is now on the brink of bankruptcy. Therefore, a crisis is looming before ordinary depositors. Politicians plant saplings on Tree Plantation Day and get their photographs printed in newspapers the next day. But they don't take care of the sapling thereafter. This bank too was a sapling that you had planted. It was growing well and promised to bear fruit. It had given shelter to you too. Then who killed this tree? Once the bank is liquidated, those who took the loans do not have to worry, just as when a sahukar dies, the persons to whom he had lent money heave a sigh of relief. But what about poor women depositors like us who are vegetable vendors, fruit-sellers, rag-pickers, etc, who saved our meager earnings in your bank, hoping that the money would be useful to us in our old age or for the marriage of our daughters? Pratibhatai, we tried a lot to meet you personally. We were unsuccessful. But you know everything. Therefore, we urge you to disclose the names of all those culprits who are responsible for the bankruptcy of our bank.'
And what did our tireless champion of women's rights, our devotee of rural development do?
'It is all a BJP-conspiracy'
A murder they don't care about
Arun Shourie
The 'cooperative' bank for empowering women liquidated under orders of the Reserve Bank… The sugar mill bankrupt, having swallowed over Rs. 20 crore of unpaid loans… We see the very same pattern in the other endeavours of our next President. Her bio-data speaks of the Shram Sadhana Trust that she has set up. It runs an engineering college – for rural youth, as the bio-data says.
What do documents show? A Medical Aid Account is set up for students. Naturally, money from it goes to doctors – and, lo and behold, her brother, Dr. GN Patil's name stands out by a mile… Employees of the college turn out to be working at the residences of the various directors – some in Mumbai. A guest house is built, and comes to be used, not by academicians visiting the college, but by members of the family… Money collected from the students goes to the soon-to-be-declared bankrupt sugar mill… Money is taken from the teachers' salaries as compulsory deposits in that family-controlled 'cooperative' bank; these deposits are used to enroll 'shareholders' in the bank – who in turn help the family win the 'elections' of the cooperative bank… A pattern through and through.
Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who has been so exercised about enforcing morality on the media, is unmoved. 'A visibly upset Dasmunsi hit out at the NDA for trying to malign Patil's image,' The Indian Express reports. 'In the process, he drew a parallel between Patil's case and "many political leaders" whose brothers, sisters and relatives were loan defaulters and also "electronic media industry" which has been slapped with plenty of notices.'
Surely, the answer is to bring them to book too. Surely, the answer is to do what so many of us have been demanding for so long – namely, to publish the names of all bank-defaulters. Not to pick one of them at random and make her or him President of India!
In any case, even Munsi, in spite of his fertile imagination, will not claim that murder has brushed the hem of the 'electronic media industry' as closely as it has in this instance.
Names and dates
But first a few names and dates.
Vishram G. Patil: Professor of English at a college in Jalagaon affiliated to the North Maharashtra University. A Congressman for thirty years. Elected President of the District Congress Committee not once but thrice. Murdered on 21 September, 2005.
Rajani Patil: his wife. Professor of Marathi at the same college.
G.N. Patil: brother of the UPA nominee for the Presidentship of India. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Defeated by Vishram Patil in his effort to become President of the District Congress Committee.
Ulhas Patil: former member of Parliament. Close associate of G.N. Patil. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Runs a number of NGOs.
Raju Mali and Raju Sonawane: two arrested for murdering Vishram Patil. Raju Mali tells Aaj Tak correspondent that they are just being made sacrificial goats. The real perpetrators of the murder are at large. Who are they, he is asked. "The persons who are being named by Rajani Patil," he says. He suddenly dies in police custody – three days after, at long last, the CBI team visits Jalagaon on its first visit.
Leeladhar Narkhede and Damodar Lokhande: two who are named as having financed the murder of Vishram Patil. Phone records show several calls between them and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after. The two are picked up. But four months later, they are let off. The FIR about them is withdrawn.
A few dates: 21 September, 2005: Vishram Patil murdered. Great commotion in Jalagaon. People openly say that he has been killed as the result of a supari having been given to murder him. By the fourth day, Police say they have completed '90 per cent' of the investigation, and will soon get the killers and those behind them. Police arrest the two who confess to the actual murder.
October 2006: Aaj Tak puts out a detailed story by Manish Awasthi cataloguing the murder. In it, Aaj Tak takes viewers through the records of the mobile telephone company that establish that numerous calls were made between the two reported financiers of the murder and the brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil – the calls were made on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after the murder. The channel shows the exact times and duration of the calls from the records of the mobile phone company. Awasthi's story contains a devastating interview of Raju Mali from within the jail. In September 2005, they had gone on an indefinite fast inside the jail. Raju Mali says in the interview that they had stopped taking food to protest against the Police for not arresting, for not even questioning the real culprits, 'the persons named by Rajani Patil'. 'We have simply been made sacrificial goats in the case while the real culprits are untouched.'
4 April, 2007: a year and a half after the murder, and after vicissitudes that we shall soon encounter, the CBI team comes to Jalagaon for its first visit.
7 April, 2007: the CBI team interrogates Rajani Patil, the widow of the murdered DCC President. But something else happens in the jail not far away: Raju Mali dies in Police custody.
Events
The brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil -- who, as we have seen, has been a close collaborator in her endeavours to empower women and bring succour to rural youth – is a frustrated rival of Vishram Patil. The latter has defeated him to the Presidentship of the District Congress Committee.
Congress workers collect funds – ostensibly to provide relief to tsunami victims. These are never deposited in the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.
Congress workers again collect funds – this time to felicitate Pratibha Patil upon her appointment as Governor of Rajasthan. No one hears what happens to these funds either.
Several office-bearers of the District Congress Committee send a memorandum to Prabha Rau, head of the Maharashtra Congress, asking her to institute an inquiry into the missing funds. They receive no reply.
15 August, 2005: nine office-bearers of the DCC issue a press release saying that G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, has not submitted accounts of funds that were collected by Congress workers for felicitating Pratibha Patil.
Vishram Patil commences an inquiry within the Congress into the misappropriation of the funds. He also commences an inquiry into financial dealings of Ulhas Patil and his NGOs. He brings the matter to the attention of the high-command of the Congress.
He receives three anonymous letters. Written in hand, they state that a supari has been given out to kill him, that he should be careful. He persists with the inquiry.
He is killed. Local dailies are full of the murder. They surmise that it is the result of political rivalries in the District Congress Committee.
Because of the enormous commotion among the local people, the Police act. Within a few days, they nab the killers.
They make swift progress in the investigation. They tell Rajani Patil, the widow, that 90 per cent of the investigation is over, that they will soon get the ones who instigated the murder also.
Suddenly, the investigation goes off the rails. The police now put out a story that the murder actually took place because of a dispute over money that Raju Mali had borrowed from Vishram Patil. Rajani Patil strongly refutes the insinuation. Local papers puncture holes in this new concoction of the Police. As suddenly as the concoction had been put out, the investigation is taken out of the hands of the local police entirely, and turned over to the CID of the state Government.
26 September, 2005: alarmed at the way the investigation is being derailed, the widow, Rajani Patil writes to Sonia Gandhi. She says, 'The brain behind the crime is pressurizing the investigation process.'
27 September, 2005: a local paper, Deshdoot, reports that at a press conference, Rajiv Patil, the parabhari adhyaksha of the Congress, has said that Raju Mali, the killer, is an agent of G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. Another report in the paper says that everyone in Jalagaon is talking about the contract killing, about how much was paid for it, and by whom…
The same day, 27 September, 2005, thirteen office-bearers of the District Congress Committee write to the local Superintendent of Police. They name G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as being the persons behind the murder and express grave concern that the investigation is being dragged down to a crawl.
28 September, 2005: Local papers like Deshdoot and Deshunnati carry a tell-tale photograph. It is the day the election of the District Congress Committee President takes place. A group is standing around the victor, Vishram Patil. In the picture, mysteriously, is Raju Mali – the very man who is to kill Vishram Patil soon. He was not and is not a member of the Congress, the papers say. Who let him into the party office? With whose blessing was he roaming inside the office? With who is he linked? They have no doubt about the answer…
On 28 September, 2005, Manik Rao Gavit, the Minister of State in the Home Ministry at the Centre, writes to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He writes that he has received a letter from the Working President of the Jalagaon District Congress Committee, Rajiv Patil, in which the latter has named G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as the conspirators behind the murder. Gavit says that there is haa-haakaar in the local Congress, hence he is sending Rajiv Patil's letter. He urges the Chief Minister to have the matter investigated in this direction and to do everything necessary to get at the real culprits and have them punished.
The local papers are full of the inaction that has overtaken the investigation. The real culprits are at large, they say. The names of G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil are splashed across the headlines of stories connected with the murder. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to the local Police chief: 'This murder has been committed out of political enmity. I therefore urge you to investigate the case from this angle and arrest the persons concerned. I strongly believe that, under somebody's pressure, there is an attempt to misdirect the Police investigation by fabricating cock-and-bull stories.'
5 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil, the parabhari-adhyaksha of the Congress , writes to the Chief Minister, to the Director General of Police, and to the head of the Pune Branch of the CID. He records his concern that the investigation is going nowhere. He urges that some of the officers who were handling the initial investigation and who know the facts should be involved in the inquiry. He gives the names of the concerned officers. He receives no reply.
15 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil writes to the authorities again pointing to the connection between the killers and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. He says that the killers who have been nabbed were never Congress activists, that they were brought to the Congress office by G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil only at the time of the DCC election.
1 December, 2005: two months have gone by since the murder, the investigation has been steered into the wrong direction all too-patently. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to R.R. Patil, the Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She expresses her anguish at what has been done to the investigation. It is going nowhere, she says. The police had assured us that 90 per cent of the investigation is over and that they will soon get to the real conspirators. But as 'the real conspirators have high-level connections, when only 10 per cent of the investigation was left, the case was taken out of their hands and given to the state CID.'
8 December, 2005: Rajani Patil again writes to the Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She strongly repudiates the police insinuation that there was some financial dispute between her husband and the killers. My husband was killed because of the supari given by the political rivals of my husband, she writes. You can find out who gave the supari by asking the two who are in custody, she tells them. There is no response.
Rajani Patil travels to Delhi. She meets Sonia Gandhi personally in January 2006. She narrates the sequence of the case. She also meets other Congress bigwigs – Ahmed Patel, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Margaret Alva and others.
They move not a finger. Instead, the FIR against the two who are said to have financed the murder is dropped. Having first snatched the investigation away from the local police and transferred it to the state CID, the Government now decides that the investigation is best done by the CBI!
Three months pass – ostensibly waiting for the CBI to respond. Eventually, the CBI informs the state Government that it is overwhelmed with work, that as the case has no 'inter-state or international ramifications', it is not a fit case for the agency.
Everyone sees through the attempt to kill the inquiry and thus protect the real conspirators. The intrepid widow files a petition in the Aurangabad Bench of the High Court. On 23 February, 2007, by a detailed order the Court dismisses the CBI's objections about there being no 'inter-state or international ramifications'. We are aware of this as well as of the work which the agency is already handling, the Court records. That is why only in exceptional cases does the Court direct it to take the case in hand. This is a case of that kind. 'We have scrutinized the record with the help of counsel of both sides,' the Court records in its order. 'We have considered the chequered history of the present case, the developments which have taken place after filing of the chargesheet, issues involved, and the reference to alleged conspiracy by influential political leaders of the region. Having regard to the importance of the issues involved and the alleged complicity of the influential political leaders…, in our considered opinion, this is a fit case where the investigation should be conducted by the CBI.'
Of course, by knocking the investigation around – from the local police to the state CID to the CBI, only to have the CBI turn down the case – the powers-that-be have already achieved one objective: by now, more than a year and a half has passed since the murder was committed.
5 March, 2007: disheartened and broken, Rajani Patil again writes to Sonia Gandhi. As you also lost your husband, you are the one person who will understand my wound, she writes. She recalls the anonymous letters that her husband had received warning him to desist from the inquiry, warning that 'a supari to murder my husband had been given by Dr. Ulhas Patil and Dr. G.N. Patil, the brother of Smt. Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. On the morning of 21.9.2005, my husband was brutally murdered…' 'I fear that my whole family is likely to get liquidated by these brutal murderers if they continue to get politically patronized by the party,' she concludes.
She receives no reply.
Recounting all this in the memorandum she submits to the President later on, and driven to despondence by the fact that no one has paid the slightest heed to her tears and pleas, she adds, 'I feel anguished that they are indeed getting politically patronized by the party.'
The CBI team comes at last to Jalagaon on 4 April, 2007. It interrogates the widow on 7 April. On the same day, the killer, Raju Mali dies in police custody…
Throughout this period, the widow, Rajani Patil, is pleading before the state and Congress authorities. Not just she, but functionaries of the local Congress themselves, in particular Shridhar Bapu Chaudhury, the party's General Secretary keep dispatching letters and memoranda pointing to G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. All these letters as well as those of Rajiv Patil, the prabhari adhyaksha of the Congress in Jalagaon, are on letterheads of the Congress.
The response
'It is all a BJP ploy. It shows their desperation at not being able to find a candidate of the stature of Pratibha Patil,' proclaim the Congress spokesmen. But the record consists of letters, memoranda, press conferences, writ petitions of Congressmen.
But I am on another point: assume that everything is a conspiracy of the BJP. What about the facts? What about the facts, for instance, set out by Aaj Tak?
'But why now? The timing of these allegations itself shows that they have been manufactured only to tarnish the image of Pratibha Patil as she is standing for the Presidentship of the country. After all, why are they bringing up these things now?' This is their other, wholly predictable defence.
It so happens that all the events, documents, proceedings in court, communications, etc., pertain to the period before Pratibha Patil was plucked from nowhere to be the Presidential candidate. And they are being recounted today precisely because Pratibha Patil has been nominated to become the President of the country. Till the other day, these were frauds of some district politicians. The murder was of concern primarily to the Jalagaon people. Precisely because Pratibha Patil is likely to become the President, each facet -- the financial frauds, the murder, the deliberate derailment of the investigation -- becomes a matter of urgent national concern. If the frauds and murder are not exhumed today, why, that would be a real conspiracy…
The politics
Could it be that the Congress high-ups, in particular Sonia Gandhi, did not know about these associations of Pratibha Patil? I was at first inclined to think so. After all, Pratibha Patil's name had been picked out of a hat at the last minute. There might have been no time for a background check.
But on going through these letters after letters, these memoranda after memoranda – one and all of them written and sent by Congressmen, one and all of them sent to Congressmen; after reading Rajani Patil's account of her meeting with Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders in Delhi; after going through the proceedings in courts; after seeing the screaming headlines of the local papers, I just can not believe that neither Sonia Gandhi nor her immediate colleagues remembered nothing of the case. After all, the head of their own party in the district, the very man who had been thrice elected to the post, had been killed. After all, all concerned in the party unit had been pointing to an ex-MP of the Congress and the brother of the Governor of Rajasthan… how could everyone have forgotten? Murders of district Congress chiefs are still not that common.
So, the only inference is that they knew of the antecedents of Pratibha Patil and for the very antecedents selected her.
And that stands to reason. A person who is weak and dutifully submissive is already Prime Minister. But he has one defect – being financially honest, he is not vulnerable. There is always the danger, inconceivable though it seems at present, that at some point, he may throw up his hands...
So, what is needed is not just a weak person. What is needed is a person who is weak and vulnerable…
Pratibha Patil, True Story – by Arun Shourie (Disturbing Credentials)
(the financial frauds, the murder, the deliberate derailment of the investigation)
'A big step for women… This shows India has a lot of respect for women… My nomination will inspire other women and help their empowerment…' – that is how Pratibha Patil described her selection as the UPA candidate for being our President. Loyalists, of course, went one better. 'A firm believer in women's causes and a tireless champion of spreading education among girls… One who always stands for a better deal for women… active role in checking such evils as female foeticide and dowry...' 'Working women of Mumbai hail…' 'Yes, Ma'am Commander' – Armymen look forward to reporting to first woman Supreme Commander of Armed Forces…
And all this within two days of her selection.
Her bio-data lists her 'special interests' as 'development of rural economy and welfare of women', and lists as evidence, 'Establishment of Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank at Jalgaon, Maharashtra… of Mahila Vikas Mahamandal…' It records her being Managing Trustee, Shram Sadhana Trust, as her being the 'Chief Promoter and Chairperson of Sugar Factory in Jalgaon District'. It records her having set up the Engineering College 'for the benefit of rural youth'…
We start with the 'cooperative bank' she set up in her own name to help other women – the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank.
Although this is listed in her bio-data, and although it has been referred to again and again by newspapers, how is it that neither the bio-data nor the newspapers mention that the bank has actually been liquidated? Under orders of the Reserve Bank of India, no less. And that too on the telling ground that its continuance would be prejudicial to the interests of depositors.
Brief history
Pratibha Patil established the bank in 1973 with herself as the chairperson, and with many members of her own family as its directors. She herself became a director for several terms. As for members of her family, they inter-changed, among themselves, the chairs of the Board of Directors in one 'election' after another. But while others changed places, Pratibha Patil continued as Founder Chairperson right till the demise of the bank.
Since the bank was not being managed properly, the Reserve Bank of India, in 1995, included it in its list of 'weak banks' and placed it under rehabilitation 'due to heavy erosion in its assets as observed in the inspection in March 1994.'
The RBI conducted an in-depth inspection of the bank's functioning again in 2002. In his order dated 25 February 2003, P.B . Mathur, Executive Director of the RBI, stated that the inspection revealed the following irregularities:
1: The real or exchangeable value of the bank's paid-up share capital and reserves stands at minus Rs. 197.67 lakh. Thus, the bank is not having adequate assets to meet its liabilities. The bank does not comply with the RBI's requirement of minimum share capital…
2: The ratio of the net erosion to net owned funds of the bank is as high as 312.4% and the erosion in the value of the bank's assets has not only wiped out its owned funds but has also affected the deposits to the extent of Rs. 197.67 lakh, forming 26% of total deposits…
3: The gross NPAs of the bank, that is loans that have gone bad, amount to 65.8% of the total loans and advances…
4: The Board has not made any concerted effort to improve the bank's financial position and bring it out of the weak status…
As a consequence, the RBI in its order stated: 'Having regard to all the facts, the Reserve Bank of India is satisfied that allowing the bank to carry on banking business any further would be detrimental to the interest of the present and future depositors and hence the license granted to the PRATIBHA MAHILA SAHAKARI BANK LTD. is hereby cancelled.'
Who got the loans?
But how did the assets of the bank get eroded? Why did this 'cooperative bank' – functioning as it must have been in the interests of its members – not take any action to retrieve the loans and instead endanger its very existence? Remember that the order of the RBI to liquidate the bank was not a sudden bolt. The RBI had put the bank on its list of 'weak banks' in 1995, that is a full eight years before the RBI had to decide that it just must be liquidated, and cancelled its license. Throughout these eight years why did Board not make any "concerted effort to improve the bank's financial position"?
A brief list of the sorts of persons who had been given the 'loans' and were not repaying them, tells the tale.
Name of the NPA holder Relationship to P. Patil Amount due with penalty
Rajeshwari Kishorisingh Patil Brother's daughter-in-law Rs. 45, 82, 670
Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew Rs. 51, 02, 183
Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew Rs. 43, 87, 680
Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput Brother's kin
Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput Brother's kin and wife Rs. 42, 89, 602
Jayashri Udhavsingh Rajput
Randhirsingh Dilipsingh Rajput Nephew Rs. 21, 44, 800
Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput
Jyoti Vijaysingh Patil
Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew Rs. 10, 69, 893
Dilispsingh N. Patil Brother Rs. 3, 09, 562
Dilispsingh N. Patil Brother Rs. 5, 62, 840
Total: Rs. 2, 24, 49, 150
____________________________________________________________
Notice that among the women that were being empowered by this cooperative for women – this Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank – were the brother and nephews of Pratibha Patil! Males behind the Muslim veil, Dr. Watson!
For my friends, the champions of employees' unions
The Cooperative Bank Employees Union wrote one memorandum after another exposing how the directors of the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank were systematically bankrupting the bank. They demanded dismissal of the family-controlled board. They demanded 'a CBI inquiry against Pratibha Patil, former Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, for the irregularities in the bank'. They wrote these letters, in Marathi, to the relevant authorities in Maharashtra looking after the affairs of cooperative banks. They sent them to the then President, to the then Prime Minister, to among others, 'Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)…'
In one such lengthy memorandum dated 3.12.2001, the Employees' Union complained, 'Founder Chairperson Pratibha Patil – during, before and after the period when she was formally on the Board of Directors – has facilitated the loot of large sums of money in the form of unlawful loans without surety extended to her own relatives and to people close to her family.' The Union alleged that, even though the bank was on the verge of bankruptcy, Pratibha Patil got huge amounts of interest waived on the loans given to her close relatives. As illustrations, they listed three such accounts:
1) Anjali Dilipsingh Patil (Pratibha Patil's niece), who got a waiver of Rs. 21.86 lakh;
2) Kavita Aravind Patil (sister-in-law of Pratibha Patil), who got a waiver of Rs. 8.59 lakh; and
3) Rajkaur Dilipsingh Patil (another sister-in-law of Pratibha Patil), who got a waiver of Rs. 2.47 lakh.
The waivers given, the accounts were promptly closed!
This, the Union stated, 'is a loot of Rs. 32.93 lakh'. You will not be surprised to learn that, within the bank, the complaint got nowhere. And for good reason: the legal advisor to the bank was Pratibha Patil's elder brother, Dilipsingh Patil, and Dilipsingh Patil's own wife was one of the beneficiaries of the loan waiver!
'The purpose of the cooperative movement,' the Union's letter stated, 'is to promote people's economic, social and educational development and thereby strengthen patriotism in them. But (in this bank), Pratibha Patil, her elder brother Dilipsingh Patil and the Board of Directors have, through different means, robbed nearly Rs. 2 crore… The bank is thus being bankrupted through a collusive strategy.' 'What kind of morality is this?,' the Union asked.
In a writ filed in the Bombay High Court – Pratibha Patil is one of the respondents in the case -- the employees of the bank also said something else that will be of particular interest to our champions of social justice. They said, 'The respondent Directors have also appointed staff without following the recruitment procedure that the posts are reserved for reserve categories such as S.C., S.T., O.B.C. The managing Directors have appointed their relatives as employees of the Bank…'
To rescue the bank from imminent demise, the Union demanded 'seizure of the property of Smt. Pratibha Patil, her brother Dilipsingh Patil and her relatives'. In addition it demanded an inquiry into how they had amassed 'such huge assets'.
As a result of this memorandum, the Department of Cooperatives, Government of Maharashtra, initiated an inquiry. Even as the inquiry was going on, a past president of the Employees Union, Anantsingh Patil, wrote an ever-so-helpful letter to Pratibha Patil, on the Union's letterhead, informing her that she had nothing to do with the irregularities of the bank! He even tendered an apology to her on behalf of the Union! The Union nails the lie. It points to several telling facts. For instance, it says, on 22, January, 2002, the Board had met and, much as the Congress does today !, by resolution no. 23, authorized Pratibha Patil to decide who should be on the Board of Directors and who should be the bank's Chief Executive.
But the matter did not end with the Union's letter or the inquiry of the Maharashtra Government's Cooperative Department. The Reserve Bank of India went into the waiver also. In its confidential inspection report dated 18 June, 2002, found the charge of financial fraud involving those large interest waivers to Pratibha Patil's three close relatives to be valid. It also noted that the Board had not taken approval of the AGM for the loan waiver.
Some women were certainly getting empowered!
A pattern
Memoranda of the Employees Union show that such enterprising sleights-of-account-books were part of a pattern. The memoranda and communications were sent to, among others, Pratibha Patil herself. For instance, in a letter to her on 13 March, 2002, the President, Vice-president and Secretary of the Union informed her that
· She had allowed her elder brother, Dilipsingh Patil, to use the bank's telephone (no. 224672, which he had got installed at his residence) for running his stock exchange business. He ran up a bill of Rs. 20 lakh. Phone records showed that the calls were made to sharebrokers in Mumbai. These records were subsequently destroyed. But later the charge was found to be one of substance. It was one of the things that Amol Khairnar, who was appointed as the chief administrator of bank, asked P.D. Patil, manager of the bank, to explain in the show-cause notice that the former issued on 1 February, 2003.
· The show-cause notice also mentioned that the Pratibha Mahil Sahakari Bank had extended unlawful loans to the Sant Muktabai Cooperative Sugar Factory from time to time. As you will recall, the sugar factory too was set up by Pratibha Patil herself to help rural youth! It was inaugurated by Sonia Gandhi in 1999. As The Asian Age has reported, like the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank, the mill too has closed down – but only after running up a loan default of nearly Rs. 20 crore and without ever producing much sugar!
· The bank also gave loans to undeserving persons to buy shares of the Sant Muktabai Cooperative Sugar Factory. Pratibha Patil and her brothers did so for a reason that my good friend of long-standing, Sharad Pawar would again find nothing extraordinary: they did so in order to retain control over the sugar factory by having these shareholders support her in 'elections' to the cooperative.
If you don't stop…
'It is because of these reasons that the bank is now on the verge of going bankrupt,' the Employees Union charged. It then posed a question to her that those – like my friend Sharad Pawar -- who are making light of this state of affairs in the bank on the ground that such things are nothing new in cooperatives would like to answer: 'Whom should the society trust if politicians like you start cooperative institutions to rob the hard-earned wealth of ordinary people?'
And then come two paragraphs that should be weighed in the scale of the high office to which Pratibha Patil is being catapulted. Before concluding, the Union's President, Vice-president and Secretary state, 'You are the Founder Chairperson of this bank, but you are today attempting, out of selfish reasons, to lead the bank to its demise. You know that the RBI has decided to cancel the bank's license if its financial condition does not improve by March 2002. Once the license is cancelled and the bank is liquidated, you are quite capable of covering-up the fraud you have committed on the bank and the people of this region by using your influence on the Government of Maharashtra.'
And then comes the last para. To get to know our next President, the one who will be the Guardian of our Constitution, do read it twice: 'There is threat to our lives and to the lives of our family members from you. You have already communicated this to us in our meeting with you. Although you have made us aware of this threat, we are prepared to lay down our lives for the pursuit of truth. If something happens to us or to members of our families, accidentally or otherwise, you will be responsible for it, which please note.'
And a letter from the women who were to be empowered
We have focused on 'women' who got loans. But who were the depositors? They were the poor women of the area – who were eking out a living by selling vegetables, by collecting rags… What were they telling our 'firm believer in women's causes', our 'tireless champion of…'? A representative, and typically plaintive letter from them, awakens us to their wail:
'We opened accounts in your bank trusting that it had been established to help poor women and to come to their aid in times of need. You know that the bank is now on the brink of bankruptcy. Therefore, a crisis is looming before ordinary depositors. Politicians plant saplings on Tree Plantation Day and get their photographs printed in newspapers the next day. But they don't take care of the sapling thereafter. This bank too was a sapling that you had planted. It was growing well and promised to bear fruit. It had given shelter to you too. Then who killed this tree? Once the bank is liquidated, those who took the loans do not have to worry, just as when a sahukar dies, the persons to whom he had lent money heave a sigh of relief. But what about poor women depositors like us who are vegetable vendors, fruit-sellers, rag-pickers, etc, who saved our meager earnings in your bank, hoping that the money would be useful to us in our old age or for the marriage of our daughters? Pratibhatai, we tried a lot to meet you personally. We were unsuccessful. But you know everything. Therefore, we urge you to disclose the names of all those culprits who are responsible for the bankruptcy of our bank.'
And what did our tireless champion of women's rights, our devotee of rural development do?
'It is all a BJP-conspiracy'
A murder they don't care about
Arun Shourie
The 'cooperative' bank for empowering women liquidated under orders of the Reserve Bank… The sugar mill bankrupt, having swallowed over Rs. 20 crore of unpaid loans… We see the very same pattern in the other endeavours of our next President. Her bio-data speaks of the Shram Sadhana Trust that she has set up. It runs an engineering college – for rural youth, as the bio-data says.
What do documents show? A Medical Aid Account is set up for students. Naturally, money from it goes to doctors – and, lo and behold, her brother, Dr. GN Patil's name stands out by a mile… Employees of the college turn out to be working at the residences of the various directors – some in Mumbai. A guest house is built, and comes to be used, not by academicians visiting the college, but by members of the family… Money collected from the students goes to the soon-to-be-declared bankrupt sugar mill… Money is taken from the teachers' salaries as compulsory deposits in that family-controlled 'cooperative' bank; these deposits are used to enroll 'shareholders' in the bank – who in turn help the family win the 'elections' of the cooperative bank… A pattern through and through.
Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who has been so exercised about enforcing morality on the media, is unmoved. 'A visibly upset Dasmunsi hit out at the NDA for trying to malign Patil's image,' The Indian Express reports. 'In the process, he drew a parallel between Patil's case and "many political leaders" whose brothers, sisters and relatives were loan defaulters and also "electronic media industry" which has been slapped with plenty of notices.'
Surely, the answer is to bring them to book too. Surely, the answer is to do what so many of us have been demanding for so long – namely, to publish the names of all bank-defaulters. Not to pick one of them at random and make her or him President of India!
In any case, even Munsi, in spite of his fertile imagination, will not claim that murder has brushed the hem of the 'electronic media industry' as closely as it has in this instance.
Names and dates
But first a few names and dates.
Vishram G. Patil: Professor of English at a college in Jalagaon affiliated to the North Maharashtra University. A Congressman for thirty years. Elected President of the District Congress Committee not once but thrice. Murdered on 21 September, 2005.
Rajani Patil: his wife. Professor of Marathi at the same college.
G.N. Patil: brother of the UPA nominee for the Presidentship of India. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Defeated by Vishram Patil in his effort to become President of the District Congress Committee.
Ulhas Patil: former member of Parliament. Close associate of G.N. Patil. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Runs a number of NGOs.
Raju Mali and Raju Sonawane: two arrested for murdering Vishram Patil. Raju Mali tells Aaj Tak correspondent that they are just being made sacrificial goats. The real perpetrators of the murder are at large. Who are they, he is asked. "The persons who are being named by Rajani Patil," he says. He suddenly dies in police custody – three days after, at long last, the CBI team visits Jalagaon on its first visit.
Leeladhar Narkhede and Damodar Lokhande: two who are named as having financed the murder of Vishram Patil. Phone records show several calls between them and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after. The two are picked up. But four months later, they are let off. The FIR about them is withdrawn.
A few dates: 21 September, 2005: Vishram Patil murdered. Great commotion in Jalagaon. People openly say that he has been killed as the result of a supari having been given to murder him. By the fourth day, Police say they have completed '90 per cent' of the investigation, and will soon get the killers and those behind them. Police arrest the two who confess to the actual murder.
October 2006: Aaj Tak puts out a detailed story by Manish Awasthi cataloguing the murder. In it, Aaj Tak takes viewers through the records of the mobile telephone company that establish that numerous calls were made between the two reported financiers of the murder and the brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil – the calls were made on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after the murder. The channel shows the exact times and duration of the calls from the records of the mobile phone company. Awasthi's story contains a devastating interview of Raju Mali from within the jail. In September 2005, they had gone on an indefinite fast inside the jail. Raju Mali says in the interview that they had stopped taking food to protest against the Police for not arresting, for not even questioning the real culprits, 'the persons named by Rajani Patil'. 'We have simply been made sacrificial goats in the case while the real culprits are untouched.'
4 April, 2007: a year and a half after the murder, and after vicissitudes that we shall soon encounter, the CBI team comes to Jalagaon for its first visit.
7 April, 2007: the CBI team interrogates Rajani Patil, the widow of the murdered DCC President. But something else happens in the jail not far away: Raju Mali dies in Police custody.
Events
The brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil -- who, as we have seen, has been a close collaborator in her endeavours to empower women and bring succour to rural youth – is a frustrated rival of Vishram Patil. The latter has defeated him to the Presidentship of the District Congress Committee.
Congress workers collect funds – ostensibly to provide relief to tsunami victims. These are never deposited in the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.
Congress workers again collect funds – this time to felicitate Pratibha Patil upon her appointment as Governor of Rajasthan. No one hears what happens to these funds either.
Several office-bearers of the District Congress Committee send a memorandum to Prabha Rau, head of the Maharashtra Congress, asking her to institute an inquiry into the missing funds. They receive no reply.
15 August, 2005: nine office-bearers of the DCC issue a press release saying that G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, has not submitted accounts of funds that were collected by Congress workers for felicitating Pratibha Patil.
Vishram Patil commences an inquiry within the Congress into the misappropriation of the funds. He also commences an inquiry into financial dealings of Ulhas Patil and his NGOs. He brings the matter to the attention of the high-command of the Congress.
He receives three anonymous letters. Written in hand, they state that a supari has been given out to kill him, that he should be careful. He persists with the inquiry.
He is killed. Local dailies are full of the murder. They surmise that it is the result of political rivalries in the District Congress Committee.
Because of the enormous commotion among the local people, the Police act. Within a few days, they nab the killers.
They make swift progress in the investigation. They tell Rajani Patil, the widow, that 90 per cent of the investigation is over, that they will soon get the ones who instigated the murder also.
Suddenly, the investigation goes off the rails. The police now put out a story that the murder actually took place because of a dispute over money that Raju Mali had borrowed from Vishram Patil. Rajani Patil strongly refutes the insinuation. Local papers puncture holes in this new concoction of the Police. As suddenly as the concoction had been put out, the investigation is taken out of the hands of the local police entirely, and turned over to the CID of the state Government.
26 September, 2005: alarmed at the way the investigation is being derailed, the widow, Rajani Patil writes to Sonia Gandhi. She says, 'The brain behind the crime is pressurizing the investigation process.'
27 September, 2005: a local paper, Deshdoot, reports that at a press conference, Rajiv Patil, the parabhari adhyaksha of the Congress, has said that Raju Mali, the killer, is an agent of G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. Another report in the paper says that everyone in Jalagaon is talking about the contract killing, about how much was paid for it, and by whom…
The same day, 27 September, 2005, thirteen office-bearers of the District Congress Committee write to the local Superintendent of Police. They name G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as being the persons behind the murder and express grave concern that the investigation is being dragged down to a crawl.
28 September, 2005: Local papers like Deshdoot and Deshunnati carry a tell-tale photograph. It is the day the election of the District Congress Committee President takes place. A group is standing around the victor, Vishram Patil. In the picture, mysteriously, is Raju Mali – the very man who is to kill Vishram Patil soon. He was not and is not a member of the Congress, the papers say. Who let him into the party office? With whose blessing was he roaming inside the office? With who is he linked? They have no doubt about the answer…
On 28 September, 2005, Manik Rao Gavit, the Minister of State in the Home Ministry at the Centre, writes to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He writes that he has received a letter from the Working President of the Jalagaon District Congress Committee, Rajiv Patil, in which the latter has named G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as the conspirators behind the murder. Gavit says that there is haa-haakaar in the local Congress, hence he is sending Rajiv Patil's letter. He urges the Chief Minister to have the matter investigated in this direction and to do everything necessary to get at the real culprits and have them punished.
The local papers are full of the inaction that has overtaken the investigation. The real culprits are at large, they say. The names of G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil are splashed across the headlines of stories connected with the murder. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to the local Police chief: 'This murder has been committed out of political enmity. I therefore urge you to investigate the case from this angle and arrest the persons concerned. I strongly believe that, under somebody's pressure, there is an attempt to misdirect the Police investigation by fabricating cock-and-bull stories.'
5 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil, the parabhari-adhyaksha of the Congress , writes to the Chief Minister, to the Director General of Police, and to the head of the Pune Branch of the CID. He records his concern that the investigation is going nowhere. He urges that some of the officers who were handling the initial investigation and who know the facts should be involved in the inquiry. He gives the names of the concerned officers. He receives no reply.
15 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil writes to the authorities again pointing to the connection between the killers and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. He says that the killers who have been nabbed were never Congress activists, that they were brought to the Congress office by G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil only at the time of the DCC election.
1 December, 2005: two months have gone by since the murder, the investigation has been steered into the wrong direction all too-patently. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to R.R. Patil, the Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She expresses her anguish at what has been done to the investigation. It is going nowhere, she says. The police had assured us that 90 per cent of the investigation is over and that they will soon get to the real conspirators. But as 'the real conspirators have high-level connections, when only 10 per cent of the investigation was left, the case was taken out of their hands and given to the state CID.'
8 December, 2005: Rajani Patil again writes to the Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She strongly repudiates the police insinuation that there was some financial dispute between her husband and the killers. My husband was killed because of the supari given by the political rivals of my husband, she writes. You can find out who gave the supari by asking the two who are in custody, she tells them. There is no response.
Rajani Patil travels to Delhi. She meets Sonia Gandhi personally in January 2006. She narrates the sequence of the case. She also meets other Congress bigwigs – Ahmed Patel, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Margaret Alva and others.
They move not a finger. Instead, the FIR against the two who are said to have financed the murder is dropped. Having first snatched the investigation away from the local police and transferred it to the state CID, the Government now decides that the investigation is best done by the CBI!
Three months pass – ostensibly waiting for the CBI to respond. Eventually, the CBI informs the state Government that it is overwhelmed with work, that as the case has no 'inter-state or international ramifications', it is not a fit case for the agency.
Everyone sees through the attempt to kill the inquiry and thus protect the real conspirators. The intrepid widow files a petition in the Aurangabad Bench of the High Court. On 23 February, 2007, by a detailed order the Court dismisses the CBI's objections about there being no 'inter-state or international ramifications'. We are aware of this as well as of the work which the agency is already handling, the Court records. That is why only in exceptional cases does the Court direct it to take the case in hand. This is a case of that kind. 'We have scrutinized the record with the help of counsel of both sides,' the Court records in its order. 'We have considered the chequered history of the present case, the developments which have taken place after filing of the chargesheet, issues involved, and the reference to alleged conspiracy by influential political leaders of the region. Having regard to the importance of the issues involved and the alleged complicity of the influential political leaders…, in our considered opinion, this is a fit case where the investigation should be conducted by the CBI.'
Of course, by knocking the investigation around – from the local police to the state CID to the CBI, only to have the CBI turn down the case – the powers-that-be have already achieved one objective: by now, more than a year and a half has passed since the murder was committed.
5 March, 2007: disheartened and broken, Rajani Patil again writes to Sonia Gandhi. As you also lost your husband, you are the one person who will understand my wound, she writes. She recalls the anonymous letters that her husband had received warning him to desist from the inquiry, warning that 'a supari to murder my husband had been given by Dr. Ulhas Patil and Dr. G.N. Patil, the brother of Smt. Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. On the morning of 21.9.2005, my husband was brutally murdered…' 'I fear that my whole family is likely to get liquidated by these brutal murderers if they continue to get politically patronized by the party,' she concludes.
She receives no reply.
Recounting all this in the memorandum she submits to the President later on, and driven to despondence by the fact that no one has paid the slightest heed to her tears and pleas, she adds, 'I feel anguished that they are indeed getting politically patronized by the party.'
The CBI team comes at last to Jalagaon on 4 April, 2007. It interrogates the widow on 7 April. On the same day, the killer, Raju Mali dies in police custody…
Throughout this period, the widow, Rajani Patil, is pleading before the state and Congress authorities. Not just she, but functionaries of the local Congress themselves, in particular Shridhar Bapu Chaudhury, the party's General Secretary keep dispatching letters and memoranda pointing to G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. All these letters as well as those of Rajiv Patil, the prabhari adhyaksha of the Congress in Jalagaon, are on letterheads of the Congress.
The response
'It is all a BJP ploy. It shows their desperation at not being able to find a candidate of the stature of Pratibha Patil,' proclaim the Congress spokesmen. But the record consists of letters, memoranda, press conferences, writ petitions of Congressmen.
But I am on another point: assume that everything is a conspiracy of the BJP. What about the facts? What about the facts, for instance, set out by Aaj Tak?
'But why now? The timing of these allegations itself shows that they have been manufactured only to tarnish the image of Pratibha Patil as she is standing for the Presidentship of the country. After all, why are they bringing up these things now?' This is their other, wholly predictable defence.
It so happens that all the events, documents, proceedings in court, communications, etc., pertain to the period before Pratibha Patil was plucked from nowhere to be the Presidential candidate. And they are being recounted today precisely because Pratibha Patil has been nominated to become the President of the country. Till the other day, these were frauds of some district politicians. The murder was of concern primarily to the Jalagaon people. Precisely because Pratibha Patil is likely to become the President, each facet -- the financial frauds, the murder, the deliberate derailment of the investigation -- becomes a matter of urgent national concern. If the frauds and murder are not exhumed today, why, that would be a real conspiracy…
The politics
Could it be that the Congress high-ups, in particular Sonia Gandhi, did not know about these associations of Pratibha Patil? I was at first inclined to think so. After all, Pratibha Patil's name had been picked out of a hat at the last minute. There might have been no time for a background check.
But on going through these letters after letters, these memoranda after memoranda – one and all of them written and sent by Congressmen, one and all of them sent to Congressmen; after reading Rajani Patil's account of her meeting with Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders in Delhi; after going through the proceedings in courts; after seeing the screaming headlines of the local papers, I just can not believe that neither Sonia Gandhi nor her immediate colleagues remembered nothing of the case. After all, the head of their own party in the district, the very man who had been thrice elected to the post, had been killed. After all, all concerned in the party unit had been pointing to an ex-MP of the Congress and the brother of the Governor of Rajasthan… how could everyone have forgotten? Murders of district Congress chiefs are still not that common.
So, the only inference is that they knew of the antecedents of Pratibha Patil and for the very antecedents selected her.
And that stands to reason. A person who is weak and dutifully submissive is already Prime Minister. But he has one defect – being financially honest, he is not vulnerable. There is always the danger, inconceivable though it seems at present, that at some point, he may throw up his hands...
So, what is needed is not just a weak person. What is needed is a person who is weak and vulnerable…
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