Oris-saga

Statesman News Service , 3 December

Dam by AP to submerge 5,000 acres

BHUBANESWAR, Dec. 2: The high dam which is under construction by the Andhra Pradesh government on the Janjabati river would submerge at least 5,000 acres of land of 12 villages in Bandhugaon block on completion. Ironically, the Orissa government is silent on such a grave issue, despite innumerable intimations, alleged the Chasi Mulia Adibasi Sangha, a forum of tribal and other landless peasants, working in Koraput and Rayagada districts. All the construction work is going on in the name of the so-called green revolution, but it will have serious consequences on the existence and livelihood of thousands of tribals, the Sangha added.

Small check dams on the Janjabati, Champabati and other tributaries will serve the purpose, it was further clarified.

It also demanded the recovery of land belonging to the tribals, distribution of cultivable forest land and sloping portions of the lower part of mountains, proper irrigation facilities etc.

In a press conference, the Sangha brought forth the nexus among the landlords, the local police and the revenue officials to highlight their plights during their decade-long struggle for livelihood. One such burning example is the arrest of Nachika Linga, a Naib sarpanch of Podarpadar gram panchayat of Naranpatana and three others. A votary of land rights movement of the tribals, Linga after bringing a no-confidence motion against the sarpanch, who also happens to be a landlord, he along with three other members of the Sangha, Wadeka Syam, Huluka Tilusu and Wadeka Seneya were implicated in a conspiracy case under sections 121 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), besides Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1932.

After languishing in jail for over one and a half years and tortured, the four were acquitted on 14 November. They forced the illiterate tribals for ‘distress sale’ of paddy and other agri-products.

Describing landlessness as their main problem, the organisation alleged that the well-off landlords forcibly occupy their rightful lands and even community lands like burial grounds.

There is a gross violation of the prohibitory regulation namely 2/56, which aims to prevent alienation of land of tribals by non-tribals, they charged and added that the commercial forest and lemon-grass culture will have serious environmental hazards.

Illicit liquor is the prime weapon in the hands of the people, who try to make us intoxicated in order to snatch the land. Bauxite extraction from Malis would also cause harm to the environment and the eco-system.


Farmers’ rally for water


SAMBALPUR, Dec. 2: Playing the pro-farmer card to the hilt, the Congress leaders vowed to review all MoUs signed by the Naveen Patnaik government which go against the interest of agriculture. Hirakud was constructed for flood control, irrigation and power generation. Farmers will have the first right over its waters and not industries. Addressing an impressive gathering of farmers here today, the Union minister and AICC in charge of Orissa, Mr Ajay Maken, Mr Chenna Reddy, Central minister, Mr CS Sahu, the former CM, Mr JB Patnaik, the OPPC chief, Mr Jayadev Jena and others accused Mr Naveen Patnaik of safeguarding interest of MNCs at the expense of farmers.

The much hyped farmers' rally was aimed at encashing upon an agitation by the local peasants against the use of Hirakud waters by industrial houses. The lathicharge by police on farmers on 6 November provided the chance to the Opposition. The Congress mobilised people from several districts of western Orissa for today's rally. It was meant to be a show of strength, where people were to be told that it was only for farmers’ cause that the Opposition had stalled the house demanding a debate and a vote.

Hirakud dam was the first mega project of independent India and the brain child of Jawaharlal Nehru, who wanted the state to be agriculturally rich. Hence, the farmers of the state have the first right over water of the dam. But Mr Naveen Patnaik, who hardly knows anything about Orissa, is making pacts with industrialists. Congress will remain with the farmers and fight for their cause. “I have come from Delhi with this message from Mrs Sonia Gandhi and the Congress to the people and farmers of Orissa,” Mr Maken said.

The former chief minister of Orissa, Mr JB Patnaik, warned industrialists not to sign illegal MoUs. ‘If Congress will come to power, it will review all the MoUs and cancel those that go against the interest of the state and its people. Our government will create extra irrigation facilities for 30 lakh acres of land in Orissa. At the same time arrangements will be made in such a manner that flood and drought would be just matters of the past,” Mr Patnaik said. Earlier during the day, Mr Ajay Maken came down heavily on Mr Naveen Patnaik and the BJD-BJP coalition in the state. “Inefficiency apart, the debt restructuring and other electricity dues related issues of IMFA is another classic example of Naveen Patnaik’s so called clean image,” Mr Maken alleged. He noted that inflow of water to Hirakud has reduced at an alarming rate. While the inflow was 39.3 million acre feet in 1957, it has reached 24 million acre feet now.

The storage capacity of Hirakud is decreasing every year due to siltation. When people are dying for lack of food and children are suffering from malnutrition, the Orissa government is unable to distribute 13. 61 lakh ton of rice given by the Central government, he said. The party endorsed its commitment to the demands of the people of western and southern Orissa for permanent Benches of high court.


Protest by PPSS

JAGATSINGHPUR, Dec. 2: The Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti leader, Mr Abhaya Sahoo, today issued warnings of a retaliatory armed struggle in the proposed Posco area to defend the land rights of the inhabitants.

Talking to reporters of the electronic media, Mr Sahoo said that over two years, villagers were protesting against the project in a peaceful and democratic manner, but over the past few days armed anti-socials had unleashed violent attacks on PPSS activists. Mr Sahoo justified his call for an armed struggle.

Posco should not be set up on proposed site:Left party leaders

Statesman News Service

BHUBANESWAR, Dec. 2: Instead of recreating a situation akin to Nandigram, the chief minister, Mr Naveen Patnaik, should follow the example of his West Bengal counterpart and declare, that in view of the opposition by the locals, the Posco steel plant would not be set up at the disputed site.

The irony is that observations to this effect were made by the Left party leaders–CPI, FB, SUCI, CPI (ML) and the CPM. A team of Left party leaders visited the troubled Dhinkia area of Jagatsinghpur district yesterday, to support the anti-Posco movement spearheaded by the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti.

They warned the government of serious consequences, if it tries to force its way and crush the people’s movement by deploying hired goons and the police. Addressing a press conference here today, the Left party leaders condemned the recent spate of violence at Balitutha and the use of force. The chief minister declared that he wants peaceful industrialisation and that his government will not resort to force, but since 22 November, a heinous design of deploying hired goons has taken place.

In the garb of pro-Posco activists, these goons have assaulted people, hurled bombs and set fire to tents pitched by the PPSS at Balitutha, alleged the Left leaders.

The game plan is to stop peaceful demonstration on Balitutha bridge with the help of goons and then deploy police all over the place. They pointed out that for over 64 days, the PPSS had been staging a blockade on the bridge without indulging in violence of any kind, but they had been attacked.

Now the administration has virtually surrounded Dhinkia village. We were also initially refused entry to the area by the local police yesterday, said Mr Dibakar Nayak, state head of the CPI. Mr Santosh Mitra of FB, Mr Kitish Biswal of CPI, Mr Subash Singh of CPM, Mr Narayan Reddy, CPI MLA, and other SUCI leaders also voiced the same views.

The united Left demanded a probe into human rights violation which had taken place in the area and also into the more than Rs 100 crore already spent by Posco.

Who has benefited from the money?, has it been given to create a private army of goons? or did it go to the pockets of certain local ruling party leaders? were some of the questions asked by these leaders.

They pointed out that the chief minister had committed that project work would start on 1 April, 2008.

He is trying to meet the deadline by using age-old British tactics of dividing the locals, making them fight against each other.

It is a well established fact for over the past two years, that the locals are opposed to the project.

They refuse to part with rich agriculture lands. For two years, the villagers have refused to allow Posco and the government officials to enter the area. So the government should declare that the project would not be set up at the proposed site, they Left front leaders said.

However, reports from the troubled zone, said that after the Left party leaders visited Dhinkia yesterday, the pro-POSCO factions had started holding counter meetings at Nuagaon, Gadakujang and Govindapur villages.

The police have deployed two platoons at Trilochanpur and has virtually surrounded Dhinkia, which happens to be the stronghold of PPSS. They have also erected a barricade at an entry point to Dhinikia to beef up security.

Assam’s grapes of wrath

RAJESH DEV
The Statesman, 3 December

The face of the vulnerable, guiltless Adivasi gaped at the press cameras to clumsily convey his innocence. He began to recount how the picketers were left to fend for themselves by the leaders who brought them to the “Capital” to assert their genuine demands for inclusion as a Scheduled Tribe.

The most mortifying and infuriating was the flagrant violation of the dignity and modesty of women during this nauseating frenzy that the region, and most possibly also the nation, watched on the streets of Guwahati. The dehumanising actions allowed to run riot on the occasion stood as testimony to our increasingly cannibalised selves.

An otherwise peaceful afternoon was defiled when members of the dominant groups giggled and conveyed jubilation at the naked reality of our society where stripped women run for shelter while the marginalised and the reviled go on destroying “symbols” they associate with domination and control. The irony of the situation was made conspicuous when an inadequate police force became totally incompetent.

The cascading effect of that 24 November afternoon will slowly unfold in a predictive fashion in different parts of Assam. The fragile inter-ethnic cohesion of this pluralistic society will be under increasing strain and the beginning of the blame game of who “started it” will not only politicise the event to the advantage of entrepreneurs, but will also result in a dialogic cul-de-sac that inhibits the possibilities of any reconciliation.

The edging of a peaceful picketing into this riotous event symbolises a number of issues that we have deferred resolving for a long time. The brutality with which the picketers were mauled by residents possibly reflects deep-seated resentment against the state and its methods of inclusion. The demand of the Adivasis for ST status was an instant alibi for contest. Yet the viciousness of the retaliation also revealed the perceived sense of superiority that dominant groups bring to bear over minorities in ethnically hierarchical societies. This subliminal aversion stimulated the need to “teach them a lesson” for making political claims to indigenousness in social settings that does not recognise such claims. The consequence is riotous social rage.

Though the Guwahati incidents have their subtle differences with similar other claims in different parts of India, they are not unique, as claims originating in the region are often designated. They express the same need for “recognition” to entrench cultural and political self-preservation that would also moderate the perceived backwardness of a group. Such claims are inevitably amenable to rancorous contest by those who perceptively sense a reduction in the share of their pie.

Yet the events at Guwahati nevertheless again oblige us to more substantive reflection about the processes and mechanisms of our current paradigms of the democratic inclusion of marginalised groups. A politics of social engineering that emphasises the need for “quotas” as an indication of empowerment is only deferring the concerns for social, political and economic equity of marginalised groups.
This adjournment though well serves the purposes of political mobilisation that generate instant electoral advantages for parties, like in the approaching panchayat elections in Assam. It, however, does not ensure empowerment of “scheduled” groups. Numerous instances throughout the country indicate that inclusion in “scheduled” lists is not the most effective method for ensuring social justice and equity. In all these cases, an a priori preference based on “scheduled” status has not proven to be the best method for maximising the power and resources available to a group.

The muted discontent of “rising frustrations” that sees a magic potion in the inclusion of a community in the list of favoured groups continues to fracture not only the region but the entire country. The riotous demands of the Gujjars in Rajasthan, the Paharis in Kashmir, the Koyas and Lingadarikoyas in Andhra Pradesh, the Kuravars in Tamil Nadu, the Adivasis, Tiwas and a host of others in Assam for inclusion in the category of the Scheduled Tribes reflect the new form of “mutinies” that challenge the Indian state and its pluralistic intentions.
These “million mutinies” by marginalised groups who perceive a deep sense of alienation and deprivation will only add to the crises that a gravely immobilised state has to confront in the coming years.

A state that has been indolent, inconsiderate and politically manipulative in executing its responsibilities towards its marginalised people will no longer have the wherewithal to fulfill those tasks. Yet the burgeoning aspirations of these people will continue to seek resolutions in the initiatives and intervention by the state, one of which is being “recognised” as Scheduled Tribes/ Castes. The incendiary mix of democracy with social fractures that magnify when the state adopts inexplicable justifications for recognising a group as “tribe/caste” will only add to future crises. Unless we change the discourse, demands for empowerment will continue to be merely manipulated as political totems rather than ensuring social justice.

(The author is a lecturer in political science at Women’s College, Shillong, the executive secretary of the Advanced Research Group for Understanding Eastern India and can be contacted at rajesh@argueindia.org.)

Meghalaya mortgaged to coal lobby

Patricia Mukhim
The Statesman, 3 December

In 2005, the Meghalaya Adventurers Association headed by national award winner Brian Kharpran filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court challenging the rampant mining of coal and limestone around what is reputed to be one of Asia’s longest cave system. On hearing the case, the apex court directed the Meghalaya government to come up with a policy on mining. This task has proven to be the biggest challenge to the government as mining in Meghalaya is a licentious, laissez faire exercise.

Meghalaya has some of the most extraordinary cave systems which attract speleologists from across the world. Kharpran, himself an avid caver, has mapped several of these, making it easier for adventurers to explore them with lesser casualties. Kharpran is part of several international organisations that look at caves not merely as protected spaces but as crucial repositories of a unique biodiversity.

When the apex court gave its directive, JD Rymbai was chief minister. At that time the then chief secretary constituted a committee comprising officials, coalmine owners and members of the MAA, to work out a fair policy. But Rymbai lost his chair to DD Lapang and the committee was short-circuited. It might sound weird but the portfolio of mining and geology went to none other than an MLA representing the coal belt, who is himself a coal trader. This man had made his millions from coal and contested the elections merely to have a taste of power. He ensured that the committee was buried alive and replaced the bureaucrat who showed enthusiasm to draft the mining policy with one who is known for his acute craftiness to keep politicians happy.

Now, two years down the line Meghalaya is yet to have a mining policy, even as reckless exploitation of coal and limestone has destroyed the entire eco-system of those areas where the minerals occur. Water bodies have been systematically poisoned. Forests are denuded without any qualms despite the existence of a top heavy state forest department and also the presence of the ministry of environment and forests in Shillong. Unregulated quarrying continues anywhere and everywhere, often devastating catchment areas which used to be sources of fresh water. Coal is mined unscientifically through the rat hole method, making it not just a wasteful venture but also very dangerous for miners.

In the absence of a mining policy, abandoned mines have not been reclaimed. They are a holocaust waiting to happen. Should an earthquake hit this place the destruction would be enormous, also because Meghalaya is located in a very vulnerable seismic zone. Lumshnong in the Jaintia Hills is rich in coal and limestone, but the area also houses the amazing Krem Kotsati cave whose entrance is already blocked by debris accruing from limestone and coalmining activities. Exploiting limestone requires blasting. This is extremely dangerous for the caverns as they could be destroyed forever.

Blind followers of the cult of exploitation, such as the coal and limestone lobby, consider caving a voyeuristic hobby of the affluent town-dwellers. Little do they bother to educate themselves that life is not for one generation and one species only. Other creatures have as much right as the greedy coalmine owner to live in an environmentally sustainable atmosphere.

Besides, caves are more than grottos. They house a rich bio-diversity which influences climate to a large extent. Living in the underground world of caves is an astonishing array of creatures. Although all live underground, their ecosystem is linked to the surface above and any changes that humans make here can affect their subterranean habitat, natural heritage and biodiversity. Cave creatures play an essential role in underground ecosystems by decomposing organic matter and recycling nutrients through the food web. Many of them are very rare, and include ancient, primitive forms no longer found on the surface. They provide important information for studies of evolution and ecology. It is crucial therefore to maintain the natural surface vegetation for the survival of cave ecosystems.

Meghalaya is perhaps the only mineral rich State without a mining policy. Coalmine-owners will do their best to thwart the policy because they prefer to operate in opacity. Since this powerful coal lobby financed the installation of the present government, naturally it has to protect their interests. So if the government which is elected to represent public interest is controlled by the coal lobby, then are we not all mortgaged and enslaved? Why talk of multinational funding agencies as sharks that threaten our economic and political freedom? In Meghalaya we have already sold our collective freedom to the coal mafia.

Since the eco-system in mining areas is completely defiled, drinking water is dwindling. What is available is water coated with sulphuric acid. The affluent coal dealers have already shifted base to Shillong, turning their backs on the ecological destruction they have caused. But the disempowered, with no voice to defend their rights, have to live and die in that ravaged environment.

Elections are just round the corner and this time more rich coal traders are in the fray It makes you wonder if one day the entire legislative assembly will be converted into a coal lobby’s stock market.

As a community, the tribals pride themselves on being the upholders of a noble philosophy that reveres mother earth. Today that philosophy stands on its head. Money has replaced all the noble ideals and the cultural capital bequeathed by our ancestors. Culture is not about things external. It represents the more durable intrinsic values. Culture encompasses the traditional value systems that have stood the test of time. When a society loses its cultural values it is reduced to an empty crust which will disintegrate rapidly. Today money is the destroyer of everything we hold dear to our hearts. If the environment dies, we die with it. What is the use of money then?

(The author is a Shillong-based columnist and activist, and can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com.)

Debate on nuke deal shows polity’s division

RC Rajamani
The Statesman, 3 December

The high spot of parliament sittings last week was the discussion on the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, an issue that paralysed proceedings for a good part of the monsoon session in July-August. After prolonged deliberations among different political parties it was finally agreed to have a short duration discussion that did not entail voting. This was much to the chagrin of the main Opposition BJP, which found in the issue an opportunity to attack the Congress and also embarrass its Left supporters. Had there been a discussion under a different rule entailing voting the Left would have found itself in a quandary. The Left, of course, would not like to be seen together with the saffron outfit, vote against the deal. The BJP would have then taunted the Left for its apparent Janus face on the issue.

The discussion held in the Lok Sabha went on clear party lines. The BJP-led NDA, AIADMK and the Left opposed the deal in its “present form” fearing “surrender” of India’s independent foreign policy to the United States. Seeking to clear the apparent smoke-screen over the country’s right to conduct nuclear tests in future, the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, asserted that the deal did not bar India from carrying out nuclear tests in future.

Provoked by certain remarks by the leader of the opposition, Mr LK Advani, he said all that the government had done was only to reiterate what the BJP-led NDA government had done by committing itself to a unilateral moratorium on conducting nuclear tests. Mr Advani had expressed the fear that the terms of the 123 agreement with the USA would tie the hands of the government from conducting a nuclear test in future. He also made bold to say if the NDA got a fresh mandate then it would renegotiate the deal with the US and get the harmful provisions deleted. If it were not possible the deal would be rejected, he added. The Rajya Sabha will discuss the issue this week.

Mr Advani said the discussion should have been under Rule 184 to censure the government. He reminded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had stated that a consensus in Parliament was a pre-condition in concluding the Nuclear Agreement. He criticised that the Left parties were playing a ‘flip-flop’ in opposing the deal because they wanted to avoid a fresh Parliamentary election.

Members, especially from Tamil Nadu, were agitated over reports of alleged harassment of ethnic Indians in Malaysia. The issue led to a brief, abrupt adjournment in the Lok Sabha. Being a diplomatic issue, government, however, responded with circumspection. Making a statement in both houses, external affairs minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee Said: “Government remains deeply solicitous for the welfare of people of Indian origin living abroad. As Members are aware, there is a large community of people of Indian origin in Malaysia who are citizens of that country. We have friendly relations with Malaysia and we are in touch with the Malaysian authorities in the related matter.”

The issue of the controversial Bangladesh writer Taslima Nasreen also caused frequent flutter in both houses as rival members sought to turn into a political battle. The BJP demanded a full-fledged discussion on the issue. Making another statement, Mr Mukherjee said that the writer would continue to get shelter in India but advised her to “refrain from activities that may hurt sentiments of the people” in India.

“Throughout history, India has never refused shelter to those who have come and sought our protection.” At the same time, he pointed out that those who have been granted shelter here have “always undertaken to eschew political activities in India or any action which may harm India’s relations with friendly countries.”

FIVE BLACK HOLES OF BENGAL - Episodes of shame from the past

RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE
The Telegraph, 2 December

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear too much reality
— T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton’’

People have episodes in their history that they try to forget but cannot. These episodes are ineradicably etched in historical memory. Bengal too has such episodes. I am not going back in time to rake up Mir Jafar’s treachery at Plassey or other such incidents. I am looking at more recent history and trying to list a few incidents that have brought collective shame and disgrace to those who live in Bengal.

There are three happenings which I want to put out of the way because they were too big and too momentous to bear any retelling. I also think there will be very little difference of opinion about the choice of these three events and their terrible significance.

First, the great famine of 1943: the horror of which remains as a permanent trauma in the consciousness of all Bengalis. The fact that it was manmade only adds to the horror. It was perhaps the first time that Bengal’s modern intelligentsia saw the reality of poverty and death move from the villages of Bengal into Calcutta. The second one came three years later and has come to be called the great Calcutta killing: the Hindu-Muslim riots that began in Calcutta on August 16, 1946. An outcome of the Direct Action Day called by the Muslim League, the riots, lasting for nearly a week, saw an orgy of violence on the streets of Calcutta. Suddenly, the people of the city saw the face of collective communal violence. The third is the most recent: the violence in Nandigram. By this I do not refer to only the violence in November, but to the sequence of events that began in early 2007 and made the area into a war zone while the government of West Bengal, by design or otherwise, passively stood by. Even the CPI(M) and its supporters, while they will differ with their critics about the responsibility of the violence, will agree that Nandigram was not an episode of which West Bengal can be proud.

I want to move on now to five more events that are not so much written about, but will continue to rankle in the conscience of the people of West Bengal.

First, May 1, 1968: the foundation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). There was nothing wrong, of course, with the announcement of the formation of a new political party. It was what it signified and what it brought in its train that brings to mind those haunting lines of Yeats, “A terrible beauty is born.” It inaugurated the rule of terror in West Bengal and completely transformed public life in Calcutta and the districts. By rule of terror I refer, of course, to the killings carried out by the Naxalites and to the counter-insurgency measures that followed. The terror produced brutal killings on both sides, the Naxalites and the police. It also saw, in Baranagar and elsewhere, armed political cadre belonging to the Congress carrying out mass murders while the police looked the other way.

Second, at the end of January 1979, there took place a massacre of refugees from Bangladesh in an island in the Sunderbans called Marichjhampi. The Left Front had been about two years in power then, and it wanted to reclaim the island on which refugees had been settled. When the settlers resisted, the place was surrounded by the police, no food and drinking water were allowed to enter it, and then many of the refugees were shot as they tried to escape. The number of deaths is still unknown.

Third, on April 30, 1982 in broad daylight in Ballygunge about 18 Ananda Margis were burnt to death. What precipitated this act of brutality and who precipitated it remain a mystery even today. Reports at that time said that there had been rumours in the area about the kidnapping of small boys and the people of the locality suspected the Ananda Margis, who became victims of “popular anger”. The Ananda Margis were steadfast in their allegation that the CPI(M) was responsible for the act of savagery.

Fourth, the bewildering death of Rizwanur Rahman on September 21, 2007 and all that led to it. It might appear to be only the death of an unknown and ordinary young man, but the connivance of some police officers in the attempt to break up the marriage of two adults, the police officers’ defiance of the Constitution, the suspicion that money may have played a part in all this and the prolonged passivity of the government on the issue made it a cause célèbre.

Fifth, the hasty and undercover departure of Taslima Nasreen from Calcutta in the aftermath of the violence on November 21, 2007 and the CPI(M)’s shoddy complicity in her exit raised a big question mark about West Bengal’s commitment to secularism and freedom of speech. There was near-unanimity that it was a moment of disgrace for West Bengal.

Having made this list of five, let me now try and distinguish between the events and their impact. The Naxalite movement and its suppression produced a two-fold response. One was the outright condemnation of the police terror — the disregard for the rule of law, the faked encounter deaths and the not-so-tacit sanction given to Congress goons to kill. The other was a kind of romanticization of the Naxalites — in poetry, in plays, in films and other forms of art. An entire cult grew up around the Naxalites, and this cult ignored the terror the Naxalites had spread through their butchery, their destruction of libraries and laboratories in educational institutions, and the complete waste of a generation that the movement represented. It is now clear that despite the participation of many bright young men and women, the intellectual basis of the movement was shallow, if not non-existent. Beyond violence it had nothing. This celebration of violence by large sections of the Left intelligentsia is difficult to believe, coming as it does from a people that prides itself on its civilization and its learning. This is why the event is a big black blot on Bengal’s history.

The massacre at Marichjhampi and the burning of the Ananda Margis fall into a separate category. Not only did they represent an inconceivable brutality, but they were also remarkable for the muted response that they evoked from the society at large. There was no major hue and cry. No one went on a hunger strike. No major demonstrations took place. The intelligentsia that is crying genocide over Nandigram was not vocal in its condemnation of a Left government that killed refugees, and an administration that stood by to watch people being burnt in broad daylight. The two events have also made a quiet exit from public memory. Even members of the intelligentsia who walked in protest against Nandigram on November 14 did not dredge up the events of Marichjhampi despite some obvious parallels.

The responses to the death of Rizwanur Rahman, the departure of Taslima and, of course, Nandigram stand in sharp contrast to the situation described in the previous paragraph. In these three cases, the people of Calcutta — in Rizwanur’s case the ordinary city folk and in the other two the intelligentsia — raised their voice in protest to preserve West Bengal’s commitment to tolerance, secularism and democratic rights.

The contrast is significant because it points to an undertow of change occurring in Bengali urban society. Sections of it are being forced to drop its Left blinkers. Scholars writing on the 19th century have noted how the goal of social engineering eluded men like Vidyasagar because of the inadequacy of the civic-social forces of the time. That inadequacy has continued to haunt the history of Bengal. Are we seeing, at last, the emergence of a civil society that is conscious, self-reflective, responsible and open, a civil society not willing anymore to turn its face away from reality, even its own follies?

History’s dark patches perhaps hide sunlight. In the words of a contemporary writer, “We stand in darkness surrounded by light.”

Chidambaram for subsidy re-look

Press Trust of India, 2 December

New Delhi, Dec. 1: With government saddled with a huge subsidy burden, finance minister Mr P Chidambaram today favoured re-visiting the sops once in three to five years to weed out relief to non-deserving sectors.

“We must re-visit subsidies once in three years or five years to remove non-merit sectors and focus on only deserving sectors,” he said replying to a debate in the Rajya Sabha on the Bills seeking supplementary grants for a total of Rs 33,290 crore.

However, Mr Chidambaram insisted that subsidy on food, fertilisers and some fuels would continue. “It is nobody’s case that all subsidy will go. We are not reducing subsidy for PDS. The budgeted provision was higher than the previous year and we have not increased the issue price of PDS (ration),” he said.

Addressing the full Planning Commission meeting last month, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had expressed concern over the mounting subsidy bill exceeding Rs one lakh crore on food, fertilisers and petroleum.After Mr Chidambaram’s reply, the House returned the Appropriation Bills on supplementary grants already passed by the Lok Sabha.

Squarely blaming state governments for “corruption” in distribution of foodgrains through PDS, Mr Chidambaram said an expert committee had found that only 36.38 per cent of allocated foodgrains reached the poor and a chunk got lost in leakages through “ghost” ration cards.

“It is an extremely alarming record and it is shameful”, he said. Asserting there was no fault in the supply of foodgrains by the Centre, he said state governments were “solely” responsible for distribution of foodgrains.

The finance minister expected that the agriculture growth would be close to four per cent this year and said without improvement in the farm sector, it would not be possible to address the fundamental issue of rural poverty and rural income.
“If growth (in agriculture) remains between two and three per cent, disparity will become wider,” he said. Mr Chidambaram said the government had set a target of achieving four per cent agriculture growth in the eleventh plan for which a number of initiatives have been launched. Responding to members' concern over the benefits of growth not reaching the poor, he said the government aims to achieve the double digit growth by the eleventh plan period.

He said it was only through accelerated growth that the government has been able increase its revenue and allot more resources to states.

The dual danger

Sanjeeb Pandey
The Statesman, 2 December

I was in Kolkata on 14 February 2007, to attend a meeting of the Anti-Nuclear Forum organised against the proposed nuclear power plant at Haripur in East Midnapore. Not as much in the news as Singur and Nandigram, Haripur had also thrown up a challenge to the Left Front government. Officials from the Atomic Energy Commission were not allowed to visit the area for inspection by the local people.

Shyamali Mitra, an artist, who spoke at the meeting in Kolkata talked about the state having become fascist in West Bengal. It was a jolt to me. I could not visualise a Left party or government as fascist. So far, I had associated the idea of fascism only with Right-wing politics. But people in Kolkata were talking about a government with fascist tendencies. We were told that the proceedings of every citizens’ meeting was reported to the government. Punitive action was taken by the CPI-M cadres against anybody seen as acting against the interest of the party.

Trinamul Congress activists were facing oppression at the hands of CPI-M cadres. I returned from Kolkata with a feeling that my state UP or probably Bihar too, even with their highly publicised state of lawlessness, provide more democratic space for dissent than West Bengal. Not too long ago, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s police also lathicharged the farmers whose land was being taken away for a SEZ in Dadri where Reliance was supposed to set up a power plant. When Mulayam Singh faced bitter criticism for his anti-farmer stance, he decided to put things in cold storage. But the overconfident West Bengal government persisted with their project in Nandigram.

We saw a face of Left fascism as we had never expected to see. Even though only 14 people were killed on 14 March and about 30 went missing, which is much smaller compared to the figures of Gujarat after the Narendra Modi patronised violence in 2002, one cannot but help compare the two unfortunate incidents. Whereas in Gujarat the police turned a blind eye while the Hindutva brigade went on the rampage, killing and raping Muslim citizens, in West Bengal the police was directly used to fire upon people and CPI-M cadres were reportedly wearing police uniform and firing alongside. A CBI investigation had revealed some police helmets along with the CPI-M flag and literature at one place. Did we hear of any RSS or BJP worker wearing a police uniform and killing a Muslim in Gujarat?

The idea of fascism is associated with a group which has a sectarian thinking and doesn’t believe in democracy. It thinks of itself as superior to others. The Right-wing Hindutva group clearly fits the definition. It is unfortunate that they have used the freedom and flexibility offered by Indian democracy to capture political power through the backdoor.

Kalyan Singh, reneging on his promise given to the nation just before the Babari Masjid demolition, has also demonstrated that they have scant regard for the Constitution. Ideally, no party or group believing in sectarian ideology (catering to only one segment of the population at the cost of other) should be allowed to operate in a democracy. However, for the time being the Hindutva brigade gets to use emotional, nationalist and religious issues, which are potentially explosive, to further its politics.

The CPI-M, also by its actions, has increasingly begun to fit the description of a fascist force. They have come to believe in the infallibility of their ideology, so much so that they do not care about any other viewpoint. They did not feel the need to undertake a democratic consultative process with the people either in Singur or in Nandigram before deciding on the projects which were proposed there.

It remains mysterious why, going against the proposed National Rehabilitation Policy which suggests that developmental projects should be initiated at places which will either cause no displacement or minimum possible displacement, projects were conceived in Singur and Nandigram which are agriculturally very fertile lands and would have resulted in very painful and large scale displacements. Although the Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has accepted the mistake of his government in Nandigram, we are still waiting for an apology from him, just like we are waiting for an apology from the US government for using nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and from the BJP for what it did in Gujarat. Only Sonia Gandhi has apologised for the Operation Bluestar.

Moreover, in Kerala, we saw how blatantly disregarding the opinion of their Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, the CPI-M party decided to get the cabinet approval by ‘consensus’ for an ADB loan. The party seems to be losing its tolerance for democracy. This is why it is now betraying fascist tendencies.

The people of India now face the dual danger of fascism ~ one from the Right and another from the Left and they’ll have to confront both.

On 22 March Medha Patkar and 61 other activists belonging to Action-2007 ~ a forum against the anti-people policies of the government ~ went to the Planning Commission and were lathicharged and arrested. The Deputy Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, has sent a message to those who protested against the arrest of Medha Patkar, saying that these activists had arrived unannounced without a prior appointment and had forced their way into the Yojana Bhawan. They were first politely requested to disperse but they continued to create disturbance. The security personnel informed the local police and the police took action as they thought fit.

If Montek Singh Ahluwalia were to put himself in the position of people of Singur, Nandigram, Dadri or any of the places where development projects or SEZs are being imposed unannounced, he would face the same set of grievances against the government as he has expressed against Medha Patkar and the activists. And this is when the Yojana Bhawan is not even his permanent home and the activists were not taking away his land or causing a threat to his job.

The cold logic of development combined with the fascist attitude of governments is resulting in insensitivity towards the people, in whose name exist the political parties as well as the Planning Commission.

Unfortunately, much blood has flowed in Nandigram this year accompanied by rape and humiliation of many women. Members of families are separated, not knowing whether the separated ones are alive or dead.

At the last count ten to twelve thousand families are scattered, mostly living with their relatives, after the CPI-M activists armed to the teeth stormed Nandigram, accompanied by wanted criminals like Tapan Ghosh, Sukur Ali and Salim Laskar.

This time they did not even feel the need for taking the police along with them. The CPI-M) has regressed into a more fascist force and has displayed political arrogance not seen since the time when Indira Gandhi imposed the emergency. Important party functionaries do not like the interference of the High Court or the Governor in their attempts to terrorise the society into subjugation.

Muscle power

It was expected that after the decision to withdraw the SEZ, the Chief Minister would apologise for the March action. However, as it turns out now, he allowed his cadres to gain muscle power to retaliate with a vengeance. That he had lost both political and administrative control over Nandigram was something which had become a matter of prestige for his government and the party. But we must remember that Midnapore, along with Ballia in UP and Satara in Maharashtra, had responded to the call of ‘Quit India’ given in 1942 by the Congress convention in Mumbai. It had liberated itself from British rule. The British recaptured the three areas later.

As the CPM-led Left Front government had lost its credibility in the area and did not have the face to carry out a negotiated settlement of the dispute, it had to engineer a recapture in much the same way as the British would have done by bringing in an army.

But let us accept the fact that the CPI-M cadres who were forced to leave the area were the ones who had been threatening people to agree to give up their land for the proposed SEZ and were involved in beating, killing and raping the people of Nandigram.

Rather than trying to resolve the dispute by bringing the culprits to book, the Chief Minister supported the policy of paying back the ordinary villagers ‘in the same coin.’ It has been alleged that Maoists had infiltrated the area. And as proof, some arms and Maoist literature published in Telugu was shown to be confiscated.

The common sense question that comes to mind is: What relevance can Telugu literature, believed to have been published 20 years ago, have in West Bengal? There is no other proof of Maoist presence in the area. But the Chief Minister’s statement implies that violence was used in response to violence. Can a democratically-elected CM justify the use of violence by a non-state actor?

The fact of the matter is that violence was used on both occasions, March and November, by the CPI-M cadres. The violence unleashed by the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee, the organisation formed by villagers to resist the land takeover by the government, was in self defence. The CPI-M cadres had the backing of the government whereas the villagers associated with BUPC had to fend for themselves.

The police is believed to have looked the other way while the CPI-M cadres accompanied by the hooligans went on the rampage, in a manner reminiscent of Gujarat 2002.

The targeting of women by the CPI-M cadres is simply beyond comprehension. It is not clear what ‘coin was being paid back’ when women, some of them pregnant, were raped. Unofficial figures put the number of rape cases at more than 100. Even after the CRPF has entered the area, news about one or two rapes everyday continues to filter in.

Brinda Karat says that no rape has taken place in Nandigram. Either she is completely unaware of the ground realities or her transformation into an opportunist politician is complete. In a culturally more advanced state like West Bengal the indulgence of the CPI-M cadres, who are supposed to be sensitive, ideologically groomed and prepared to fight all manner of injustice, crimes against women has come as the most shocking aspect of the Nandigram violence. The All India Democratic Women’s Association, the women’s organisation associated with the party, will now fund it difficult to raise its voice against injustice to women.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should resign taking moral responsibility for the manner in which women have been made victims by his party cadres. But that is not going to happen. Neither will the UPA government dismiss him.

Unholy alliance

The turn of the events has resulted in a very unholy alliance between the UPA and Left Front. The Congress has decided to ignore the incidents in Nandigram in exchange for the much sought after support of the CPI-M and its allies on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.

Immediately after the Nandigram recapture the Left Front gave its approval to the UPA government to proceed with its negotiations with the IAEA. Thus the two political groups, for their respective vested interests, are completely jeopardising the people’s interest.

The West Bengal government has given rise to a constitutional crisis by subverting the democratic functioning of the state and virtually handing over of the state to its party cadres. It has also created a political crisis for the people of this country.

Post-Nandigram, the Left parties have been bracketed with parties that rely on criminalisation of politics to win elections and are fascist in their thinking. With the essential character of all parties, from the political spectrum of the Right to the Left, having become anti-people and anti-democratic what choice do the people have in this democracy? Is it the end of democracy as we know it? Or is the civil society’s protest in West Bengal, backed by large number of common people, intellectuals, artists, writers and social activists going to provide a solution?

Taslima and the Bengali literati

Bikas Basu
The Statesman, 2 December

It’s not difficult to see that West Bengal’s present Left Front government considers Taslima Nasreen’s hasty exit from Kolkata “a good riddance”. The government’s role in the affair, both overt and covert, though not unexpected, is worth analysing. To sum it up in one word, the reason why she had to go was ~ vote. It is a truth, acknowledged across the country, that to stay in power here one cannot ignore the minority votebank (27 per cent of the total electorate).

Another unpleasant but more or less uncontested truth is that the votebank in question is not as a whole as it used to be after Nandigram and the murky events surrounding the death of Rizwanur Rehman. So, the question of giving asylum to a writer who was a foreigner (so what if her humanism and secular stance are exemplary?) at the cost of losing precious votes does not arise.

There is nothing much to discuss on the issue of Nasreen vis-a-vis the state government. We are aware of the government’s political compulsions. It was because of these constraints that the state government was forced to ban Dwikhandito (Split), a volume of her autobiography. The ban had been set aside after a court ruling. As a minor writer who lives and works in this state, I feel for Nasreen.

After Nasreen was packed off to Rajasthan following mob outrage demanding her ouster and given temporary asylum, courtesy the Rajasthan government, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Bengal’s celebrity litterateur, told a TV channel: “Taslima is helpless”. How safe and naïve a comment to make in response to a development that signifies an existential crisis for writers! I would like to ask if the writers and intellectuals of this state have taken any effective step that would end the state of helplessness that an honest and intrepid writer like Nasreen is in.

The spontaneous participation of writers and intellectuals in the mahamichhil to protest against the massacre and rampage at Nandigram made an impact. At least, it made the rulers realise that lawlessness cannot prevail at all times and that justice will catch up. If the men who run this state were not so shameless, we would have a more civil administration by now.

The mockery of democracy in Nandigram warranted a protest rally as huge as it got. It’s a grave issue. One can, at least, hope that the crisis at Nandigram will, eventually, be resolved. The fundamentalist rage and attack on Nasreen is being sustained over the years. It is free speech that is under threat here, it has been made a victim of orthodox beliefs and prejudice. It’s a trend that has surfaced time and again, in different forms. A more sustained campaign against such misdirected fundamentalist anger was perhaps the need of the hour. But most of the intellectuals in West Bengal seem to have done their bit by giving television bytes. Does the well-thought-out silence and inaction on the part of her fellow writers surprise Nasreen? Probably not. When her book Dwikhandito banned, after the chief minister had supposedly talked it over with 40 intellectuals who endorsed the decision, Nasreen had probably sensed a class difference between herself and her fellow writers on this side of the border. She did not really belong to the charmed circle. (Immediately after she chose to set up home in Kolkata, I wrote to her that her dreams may soon come to nought. Dwikhandito was banned in the state soon afterwards.)

Not too many writers on this side of the border have the kind of honesty and courage that Nasreen has shown. A novel like Fera (The Return) ought to have been written by a writer who had experience of migrating from East Bengal to West. But, apparently, few of them have the honesty, courage and respect for truth, that Nasreen has. A lot of writing by present-day writers has been translated from Bengali to English and other European languages, but none had an impact across the world as big as Nasreen’s.

The reason was because these writers did not write with the kind of conviction that Nasreen did. I do not know of any writer in Bengali who has written anything as incisive and brilliant as Salman Rushdie’s The Prophet’s Hair. A super blend of fantasy and satire, the story is an artistic critique of religious bias and blind faith that unfolds in the few days between the imaginary disappearance and return of the Prophet’s lock from the Hazratbal shrine. It takes a gutsy writer to attempt the unsparing and powerful criticism of Islamic fundamentalism of Nasreen or Rushdie. No present-day writer in the Bengali language has dared so far.

The Bengali intelligentsia is practically rather insensitive when it comes to freedom of expression. In the span of a few years, Cuba was twice the focal theme country at the Kolkata Book Fair, the same country where books have to be approved by the government to be published. It didn’t seem to bother any of the litterateurs here. No one said a word. It’s a bit foolhardy to expect these writers to now stand by the exiled writer and make sure that she is brought back with appropriate security arrangements.

They seem content with paying lip service to her. Nasreen was perhaps mistaken here. She thought she was safe in a land where people spoke her own language. But this is a different Bengal, miles away from what Rabindranath Tagore called, “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.” Nasreen’s literary “friends” would rather follow what the poet Sankha Ghosh once mockingly called, “Line-ei chhilam Baba. (I am toeing your line, Boss.)”

Let me share an example. The last time Nasreen was physically attacked by the Islamic fundamentalists in Hyderabad, the poet Subodh Sarkar told a TV channel, “Taslima is free to live in India. But let her be shanto (calm) while she is here.” In other words, be a good girl while you are in India. Nasreen is determined not to give up being bad. She will keep writing what she believes is true. Let Sarkar continue to be “good”, “proper” and “politically correct” when he is writing, Nasreen is incapable of such correctness. The secular establishment, comprising secular snobs of West Bengal, are at a loss when it comes to Nasreen.
While the author, a relentless crusader of human rights, cutting across race and religion, feels a free discussion of Islam is warranted, even indispensable, her fellow intellectuals on this side of the border see it as taboo, or, as they would put it, “sensitive matter”. Their support towards Nasreen is not unconditional or at the cost of offending the Islamists.

During the time Nasreen had found asylum in Europe, she would often touch down on Kolkata just to breathe and feel the Bengali language. This was compensation for not being able to visit her home in Bangladesh. Like her Hindu heroine in Fera, there was no way she could set foot on her homeland. That’s when a heavyweight intellectual from West Bengal cautioned her, “Don’t come here so often.” Is the West Bengal government so weak that it cannot protect a writer from Islamic fundamentalists?

Immediately after Nasreen was hounded out of her country following the controversial Lajja (Shame), Annadashankar Roy, the revered thinker and writer, had told her, “Keep writing about women’s emancipation; that’s not against Islam”.

While she is writing on women’s issues, if Nasreen is constrained by not being able to say a word against Islam, who is she up against, after all? She has been vocal in running down the Hindu fundamentalist practices that warranted criticism but why must she draw back while critiquing Islamic fundamentalism?

It looks like Nasreen’s time in India is running out. And that undesirable eventuality ~ a whole-hearted humanist’s exit from a land which she wanted to adopt as her own ~ will be a matter of shame for us, Indians. Nobody except the politicians and intellectuals who want to play it safe are keen to see her go. Her harassment in this country is reprehensible. We should have honoured this brave and sensitive writer with a Deshikottama award, not shut the door on her face.

Evidently, the minds of Bengali intellectuals are not without fear any more, as Rabindranath Tagore had envisaged. Will they be able to hold their heads high ever again?

(The author is a writer of cultural essays and fiction.)

CPM’s parallel governance

D Bandhyopadhyay
The Statesman, 2 December

On 22 November, noted Bengali writer Taslima Nasreen was clandestinely and forcibly whisked away from her Rowdon Street residence by a possé of plainclothes policemen.
She was made to board a flight bound for Ahmedabad and Jaipur, reportedly under a false name. She was taken to Jaipur where she was not welcome by the Rajasthan government and had to be moved to a secret location in the National Capital Region. The mystery about her whereabouts deepened when the Rajasthan government said in a Press release that it was "left with no alternative but to have Nasreen as a guest of government of Rajasthan till such time the (Union) ministry of home affairs takes a final view of her stay and security". The Press release said that the West Bengal government “simply refused to countenance the idea” of having her back.

Mr Prasad Ranjan Ray, state home secretary, said: "Taslima Nasreen is a free person and as such won't come and go according to our dictates. It was only from the television channels that I came to know that she had left the city... We did not ask her to move out."

Apparently, the clandestine operation was conducted without his knowledge and sanction. It is clear that some nefarious actions were being done by some home department officials behind his back, without any legal sanction. This is an ominous sign. The state home secretary's statement stands negated not only by the Rajasthan government’s Press release but also the bill of Rs 10,000 preferred by the management of Hotel Shikha of Jaipur for the occupation of their five rooms by Nasreen (one room), besides police and security persons (four rooms) who flew with her from Kolkata to Jaipur or later joined the group at Jaipur. The policemen left the hotel with the writer without settling the bill, true to their tradition of enjoying "free lunch" anywhere and everywhere.

What is this "dirty tricks department" of the West Bengal government? Is it a government within the government, without any accountability to anybody? From whom do the operatives of this shady organisation take their orders? To whom are they accountable? Do they take their directives for their activities from any political caucus outside the formal set-up of a government established by law? Is the government of West Bengal being run by gangsters in plainclothes? Is the West Bengal government following the technique of involuntary disappearance perfected by General Pinochet after toppling and killing President Salvador Allende in Chile?

These are some of the issues arising out of the Taslima Nasreen episode which the chief minister (also police minister) has to answer. All issues of good governance have been flouted with contempt by the party and its chief minister. Unless this nefarious organisation is exposed publicly and dismantled totally, life, liberty and property of every person in this state would be unsafe. We are living here in perilous times. Everyone has to understand this and lodge a protest against it individually and collectively. After all, this organisation is being run with taxpayers' money. We have a right to know what is going on and why?

The CPI-M as a party has been losing its grip on the traditional minority votebank. In all cases of mass murder and civil strife sponsored by the party beginning with Nanoor, through Chhoto Angaria, Keshpur, Garbeta and Nandigram to Rizwanur Rahman, many victims have been from the minority community. CPI-M’s fragile veneer of "secularism" has been shattered by its anti-minority actions and statements. In the Sachar Committee report, West Bengal has the honour of standing second from the bottom in regard to the state's effort regarding the welfare and wellbeing of Muslims after their 30 years' glorious rule. In the Rizwanur case, in the chief minister's first statement, he mentioned "a communal angle" where there was none.

Communalism was sought to be injected in a private love affair of two educated and civilised young people from different communities. People of Kolkata ~ Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis and others ~ stood shoulder to shoulder and exposed the communalism of the chief minister and his party.

The CPI-M had been wooing fundamentalist groups among Muslims for a long time. The West Bengal government had proscribed Nasreen's book Dwikhandito on the grounds that it offended the sentiments of some Muslims. It was done on a public demand of some maulanas and on the basis of a report of an assistant commissioner of police of questionable literary competence. After a full hearing, Calcutta High Court set aside the order. But the party and its government did not show any remorse.

They started a fresh move to harass, tease and torment Nasreen to make her leave the country out of disgust. The Dainik Statesman reported on 23 November that several months before this episode, the then police commissioner of Calcutta, Mr Prasun Mukherjee, intimated the writer that she should leave the country. He stated that he was conveying the chief minister’s desire. Nasreen was told that she was a security risk for West Bengal and India. It was reported that Nasreen refused to leave as she was determined to pursue her literary career from Kolkata.

On 21 November, Kolkata witnessed an ugly outburst of frenzy on the issue of driving out Nasreen. The incident reminded people of my generation of the wild behaviour of the mob during the Great Calcutta killings of 16 August, 1946. In the recent flare-up, had the chief minister given firm orders, his own police force could have controlled the situation easily. But he would not allow his forces to soil their hands, lest his fundamentalist friends accused him of highhandedness. By calling the Army, he used a sledge hammer to crack a hazelnut. Mr Biman Bose's immediate reaction was that Nasreen be moved out if her continued stay in the state disturbed peace. More ominous was the statement of Mr HA Halim, Speaker, that Nasreen's stay in the city had created problems.

He advised that the West Bengal government send a report to the Central government. The Speaker had no business making such a statement. His untold intention was that since she was the cause of disturbance, her visa be renewed by the Centre. It is evident that the incident of 21 November was a move to endear the party to fundamentalist elements among Muslims and through their good offices, regain lost ground among them.
As for the legality of West Bengal government's action, regarding forcibly moving out Nasreen from Kolkata to Jaipur, the Criminal Procedure Code does not provide for any extradition. Some states have local goonda Acts that provide for such a procedure for undesirable persons. West Bengal does not have any such law. So legally, Nasreen could not have been moved out of her Kolkata residence to Jaipur and Delhi.

Had the continued presence of Nasreen caused any cognizable offence, she could have been arrested under Section 151, CrPC, to prevent occurrence of such offences. In that case, she had to be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of her arrest. But the party and its government do not believe in the rule of law.

Section 362 of IPC defines abduction as: "Whoever by force compels, or by any deceitful means induces, any person to go from any place, is said to abduct that person." There are two ingredients of this offence: (i) Forceful compulsion or inducement by deceitful means, and (2) the object of such compulsion or inducement must be the going of a person from any place. In Nasreen's case, both the ingredients have been fulfilled. It is a case of abduction simpliciter.
Those who have abducted her have also committed, in addition, the offence of wrongful restraint by keeping her confined in the Rajasthan Guest House, Delhi.

Wrongful restraint is a continuing offence. Each additional day of restraint enhances the gravity of the offence. Since all these offenders have committed the offence at the behest of some state organ, the police in West Bengal would not take cognizance of these offences.

(The author is a former Revenue Secretary, Govt of India.)