Thursday, April 24, 2008

stop this slide into mediaval barbarism protest bjps black mail

Every day our rulers and media moghuls bombard us with the news of the arrival of India as new economic powerhouse contributing to the global march towards high modernity. But let us look at the flip side of our great sub-continent with tall claims of a civilization thousands of years of old and as the guru of the world. Two hapless middle level bureaucrats of Archeological Survey of India have been suspended for stating the obvious that Rama is mythological character, not a historical character. And no modern government, it doesn't matter what is the religious of its majority population, has to go by professional advice based on scientific and rational inquiry. All of us know the difference between myth and reality.

A nation boasting of having third highest numbers of scientists and technicians in the world and our pride of providing highest number of software engineers to the Silicon Valley can't be blackmailed by medieval religious bigots and especially the fascist Hindu Sangh Parivar to take the entire nation for a ride for its retrograde, regressive, obscurantist and fascist designs. This applies both to the Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists. Both Hindu and Muslim Talibanism are the two sides of the same coin. They are basically anti-women, anti-dalit and are poised to roll back all the democratic achievements after centuries of struggle, including the lofty ideals of the French Revolution and the big claims of the Indian Constitution.

Whatever happened since past few months shocks every rational, democratic mindset. Some religious leaders attacked Taslima Nasrin and later pass a fatwa to kill her. A group of mad Muslim clerics pass a fatwa that girls and boys cannot sit together in the same bench in the Kerala schools. Every month the newspapers report us a dalit woman is being paraded naked, jati panchayats punishing couples, no right thinking person can forget the Roshani incident two years ago. Eve teasing, bride burning and rapes are an every day experience of Indian women. So much to say for our great Indian civilization, much trumpeted by the Sangh Parivar.

We are yet to recoil from the gory days of NDA government's experimentation with education, saffronizing the text books and introducing stupid irrational subjects like Vedic Mathematics and astrology. What happened in the Rama Setu incident is quite medieval obscurantism. Even the NASA pictures and studies by the colonial government enshrined in the Gazetteers clearly say that the so-called Rama Setu is a natural coral reef. Any modern government should respect this fact. Thee sheer capitulation of Congress-led UPA government shows the dual character of the Congress party. We should not forget that it is the same Congress under Rajiv Gandhi's leadership passed the Muslim women's bill in the wake of the Shahbano controversy to appease the Muslim fundamentalists with the greedy eye on the Muslim vote bank. Thus sealing the fate of the democratic aspirations of Muslim women and their struggle for equal rights. They opened the Babri Masjid doors and provided an issue to BJP on a platter. Congress party's soft communalism gives BJP a bigger weapon to communalise the country and implement their fascist design.

We appeal to all the democratic and progressive organizations and individuals to demand the revocation of the two ASI officials and pressurise the government of India not to pamper to communal outfits and Hindu and Muslim clerics.

a breif comment on class nature of indian constitution

I think we should look at the concept oh human right in it's proper political historical and theoritical context the human rights discourse or the denial of human rights in India should be seen in the context of incomplete modernities or fractured modernity of the post colonial trajectory probably that is why many of the communist parties talk about democratic revolution in India the entire demands of the Human rights in india are nothing different from the declarations of the french revolution and american bill of rights adopted centuries ago afrticle 21 of Indian constitution doesn't make any sense as long as there are strong feudal remants in the country which makes a mockery of the french revolution the american bill of rights united nations charter and the Indian constitution therefore before we talk about human rights all the liberal democrats and socialist revolutionaries should join hands to wipe out feudal remanents that means giving a decisive fights to patriarchy and bramanical order then only India can be launched intro modernist trajectory otherwsie the whole discourse of human right does not make any sense it can be a good NGO career it is also high time we seriously look at the greatness of the indian constitution in any any class society its constitution will also be a class document the postcolonial capital accumelation was carried through the instrumentalities of the indian constitution despite the pretentious declaration of the directive priciples of state policies therefore under socialism the present discourse on human rights will lose all meanings because the entire present discourse on human rights is is centred around the capitalist nation states guarenteeing the rights of citizens without any way affecting the class power if we can separate class power from state power Ralph miliband explained years ago

asit