By Saswat Pattanayak

Women are the face of the business today. If that’s some claim the West is making to advance capitalism ethos, folks better watch out. The internal contradiction is here to stay: women stay as the face, whereas the men rule as the rest (muscle and the money).

One of the popular and reformatory feminist arguments made against the Third World nations and the former socialist block was that women are relegated to non-existence in matters of decision-making, unlike in the West where women have known to have posed for Playboy and have decided whom to go out with on an evening date.

The cultural contrasts have always been made whenever any other justification has failed. For example, if the religious fanaticism has matched (Islam Afghan, Christian Europe, Hindu India), then the proverbial burden on the white man has shifted towards cultural differences and the normative contrasts in terms of “women development”. Despite being religious, and at times because of the difference in their religions, the women have suffered so much (look at all stories on Iranian women suffering), the mainstream argument has run.

I though of looking at women in capitalism and the myth of women progress, just to see if the world at another hemisphere was indeed such fair to the fifty percent of population in terms of gender. Although there can be no comparison among the countries on basis of economic parity (remember the world is divided in two parts economically: self-proclaimed wealth accumulator group of 8 versus destined to doom group of rest 185), we need to see the attitudes of wealthy societies just to measure the yardstick. US as the citadel of capitalism tops the list, of course.

Only in August last year an assistant warehouse manager filed a class-action (yes classes do exist!!!) suit against Costco Wholesale Corp (that chain of warehouses from which Americans take pride in purchasing bulk after becoming elite members). Costco operates approximately 324 warehouses in the United States employing over less than 1 in 6 women as its senior store managers)! Yet all those faces at the counters in Costco who make us celebrate diversity at workplace are incidentally women, because the corporation employs more than 50% women! Women are 50% cheap labor and only 16% of them work at managerial positions!

Just for information, if that’s the case with United States, how does Costco employ women in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Puerto Rico, where it has businesses?

The worse news is Costco claims proudly that it metes better treatment than its rivals Wal-mart (yes that company whose owners are four of the ten richest billionaires of the planet), Sam’s or BJ’s. So where does the largest retail store in the world, the Wal-Mart, stand? Wal-Mart representing 1.6 million women, is facing the largest class-action sexual discrimination suit in history. The faces of Wal-Mart, its beautiful women, some of whom were picked by Playboy to pose nude recently, comprise more than 70% of its total workforce! That’s the parameter of feminist success, some claim, because what is overlooked is that Wal-Mart hires them for hourly jobs, only less than a third of them being in any store management position! Wal-Mart has more than 3,500 stores in US alone, having sales of more than $250 billion dollars annually!

Sex discrimination cases are also filed against most other giant companies, including Merrill Lynch and Home Depot. Among few cases that have been settled yet, aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. paid off $72.5 million to settle its case. Major investment bank Morgan Stanley paid off $54 million to settle claims that it underpaid and did not promote women.

Of course majority cases never get to see the trial and the systematic patterns of discriminations are never discussed in favor of individual cases.

The issue at hand is the problem. The continuing saga of discrimination that goes on even to the year 2005. If the cracks are evident with the biggest firms that hold the torch of capitalism, then one can only imagine the plights at the numerous sweatshops that have been opened at the behest of free market expansions. The myth has to be revisited, only if it will mean that we will eventually end up condemning the system that perpetuates the gaps and calls for class-actions. The least folks can do is not to get solely fascinated by the neon lights and pretend not to live the heat of oppression that the workers experience while building the lights and the buildings, the roads, the locomotives. It’s not enough to see the pretty women anchors on the television channels in order to assume advancements, its needed for us to see if they call the shots of their visual representations and decision making abilities as news editors.

Capitalism thrives on the show business. Massive consumptions, huge productions, giant media houses, lavish use of glamour, red carpets and the women, profit indexes and billionaires lists, the supermalls and blockbuster movies.

What it leaves out systematically is a narrative about the countless workers who make these take shape, and the systematic oppression they inflict on the working class in terms of wages, treatments and attitudes.

Tags: Saswat, Feminism, USA, Media, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

I don’t have any problem with Manmohan Singh per se. What hurts is the expectation of people to expect any better from him.

Apparently only after the Indian PM shamelessly praised the “good governance” model of the British colonial rule, both the rightist and leftist parties have vehemently stood up against him.

True, Singh insulted the sentiments of all patriotic Indians who still find a reason to live with dignity, only in name of sacrifices of the indomitable freedom fighters who laid down their lives to drive the British out. They find a reason to live with dignity in a country whose prospects are marred by widespread poverty, corruption and unemployment. For nearly six decades now, people have been celebrating their existence in the ravaged land because they could not simply afford to disrespect the lives lost in pursuit for self-governance. Hope prevailed high that Indians shall one day reap the benefits of the freedom struggle, redeem faith in the belief that autonomy from foreign rule held the key.

And this abstract panacea in the form of self-aware third world nationalism for concrete afflictions characterizing the “developing” countries has finally been challenged. The people have been woefully represented by leaderships that have sung the praises of exploiters, homegrown and foreign.

And this time, since he was “emotional”, a capitalist leader has been just accidentally become more direct in his praises.

The centrist or even left of the center party, Congress has nothing to complain. They knew it was coming. Manmohan Singh indeed earlier during his tenure as finance minister had submitted an economic modernization plan that was a joy to the right wing parties. Instead of being rejected wholeheartedly, it was accepted for its reform values. And those reforms as we know served the capitalistic interests of foreign concerns. India was soon converted into the largest sweatshop in the world market. Pretending to be complaining the domestic capitalists (who had earlier funded rightists to power in 1977) easily gained stronghold of economy to vote right wing nationalists to power. They knew for example, any business with McDonald’s was only going to help the franchisee owners in India! They thus furthered the plan of domestic privatizations and indeed sold off more than half of public properties to any business house that could afford, in lieu of kickbacks. They worsened it such that people exercising their Hobson’s choice had to throw them out of power (even if the only difference was their colors as religious fanatics). But the rightist soon made Sonia Gandhi an issue. No way they were to accept that lady or anyone else from Congress, save for one man. And that man was the architect of liberalization in India: Manmohan Singh. Only after Singh was installed the right wingers kept silence. And since then, much to their expectation and merry, the privatization policies continued.

Between the bad and worse, Indians went on paying heavy prices as privatization went murkier. As privatization went on appeasing the foreign concerns and their domestic partner capitalists, Singh appeared everywhere, from Charlie Rose Show to Time Magazine. At one of these points of mutual adulations, Singh thought of expressing his gratitude to the ideology that had raised him to this level of shrewdness. Oxford University.

Singh said,

As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6 per cent in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3 per cent at that time, to as low as 3.8 per cent in 1952. ..Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th Century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income.

And yet unashamedly unruffled and praising the British for this downfall of Indian economy that resulted in profiting the super-rich sycophants of the Raj, and torturing the mass population of downtrodden, Singh philosophized almost to justify everything that had gone wrong. Indians must have been hungry dogs, as Churchill had said. And hence we were never meant to know how to govern good, Singh confessed, as though to speak for himself and absolve himself of his incompetencies:

'Even at the height of our campaign for freedom from colonial rule, we did not entirely reject the British claim to good governance. We merely asserted our natural right to self-governance.'

Singh’s understanding that British had “good governance” and that people of Indian did not reject the British (a bunch of lunatics those freedom fighters at the gallows must have been, considering Singh’s beliefs) in India has to be sympathetically understood. Here is a man firmly committed to the idea of selling the hapless indigenous to the mighty foreign, in lieu of some recognitions (in this case a honorary degree or two). And his entire life has been dedicated to this cause. From Garibi Hatao (Eradicate poverty) to Garibko Hatao (Eradicate the poor), the motto of capitalism is well ingrained in this man. What else did the Center expect from the PM?

As for the Left, they should have nothing to complain either. They are out of wits. Why else would they have ever lent any support to a government led by an avowed pro-market economist? Why are they objecting to Singh as anti-nationalist, when they could not attack him ever for being a staunch capitalist? Moreover, should the Left pledge allegiance to the cause of narrow nationalistic politics or to the international mobilizations against capitalistic expansions?

Finally, amidst the mud, the pigs enjoy the most. The rightist parties are clear winner in this case. Just when Advani and Joshi and the team of vandals were about to face charges for inciting communal violence, nothing would have come as a better relief. Such a ruckus was after all created by their own man. Singh, if anything, is the dream of the right-wingers in India. They needed someone who would be smart enough to fool the masses by slogans of development, sabotage the communists by policies, promote the financiers of right-wing politics by disinvestments, represent the profit interests by privatization, sophisticatedly draft market economy mantras that won’t sound offensive, kill Sonia Gandhi as a leader, represent the rightist interests outside the country, and finally praise the British rule (considering the long standing support of the right wingers towards British rule for which they were infamous during the freedom struggle, and for which they were infamous after they killed Gandhi and were banned for anti-national activities in the newly independent India).

In ways as should not appear surprising at all, Manmohan Singh is the man from the extreme Right of the political spectrum. Under him the private business will flourish, private rules of law will dictate the land (the recent Gurgaon incident where hundreds of workers were brutalized by police force commissioned by Honda), private multinationals will spread their wings and benefit the commercial interests of domestic partners, disinvestments will continue at full pace and the British Raj will be praised.

Those of us who are surprised are fools. For us who are shocked, we must realize that the people deserve the kind of government they elect. Only in a so-called ballot-driven democracies, do politicians like Manmohan Singh stay in power even after all that has been said and done.

And the right-wingers want the system to flourish, so that they can rule the country without the participation of the people (how many consciously vote anyone?), so that they can manufacture consents with use of their media (Advani on Zee TV claiming that millions want Ram Mandir!), and finally can sing the praises of their colonial masters!


For a related article, click here!

Tags: Saswat, India, Capitalism, Colonialism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Often times we are led to believe that the extreme religious fanatics oppose the prevailing administrations. The ruling governments condemn the extreme rightists and call for restrain. And the population is led to believe that the fanatical barbaric causes are espoused by a small minority of believers who have nothing to do with the political parties they are in support of, however right-wing or conservative they may be.

So the media often discuss in detail how former Indian PM Vajpayee used to be a right man in a wrong party, how the BJP (the right wing party) was in principle opposed to the extremist right wing bodies such as World Hindu Council, or RSS –even as the latter were bases which gave birth to the former! This brainwash goes to such an extent that people genuinely start believing that Advani (the alleged instigator of communal riots) now is being opposed by the extreme right-wingers for being soft on Pakistan.

Nearer home, the Bush administration is being criticized for being too liberal by the fellow right wingers. KKK is not yet dead, but we all were told that it was an organization of cowards who never got any administrative support. We were told that KKK were always critical of every government in power too, absolving them of any collaboration. Or that American Nazi Party has nothing to do with the moderate right wing politics at the Center. Or that McCarthy was an aberration, although communism was evil.

But all throughout these apparent oppositions of intra-right wing politics, what transpire are the victories of the right-wing agendas. Then what is portrayed is that with hesitations rife, things get acted out. Like India had a nuclear test done of the Hindu Bomb or America had an unfortunate war on Iraq. The reality is that, the fanatical aims are eventually fulfilled, albeit, amidst a more sophisticated public projection.

Why does it seem that complicated and not this simple? Are the religious fanatics really those wayward minorities that are disliked by the ruling elites? If that be the case, how is it that the administration finds no problem in endorsing much of the demands of the fanatics (on grounds of religious freedom, preaching, commandments at court, the war lobbies, propagating god’s words, incorporating religious practice within health sector, allowing religious parties to contest and lend supports, making issues out of abortion and gay marriage, etc &hellip?

If Martin Scorcese's “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988) was so successfully picketed by the right wingers across the country, a story to tell of it was never devised. Only recently, Ken Tipton’ own story was directed for “The Heart of the Beholder” (2005), a movie that has been dubbed as “the movie Hollywood was afraid to make”.

In no uncertain terms the film captures what no previously made English language film had ever accomplished. The reality of how a sense of freedom is always granted with religious sanctions is well juxtaposed with hesitations of the ruling elites to take up responsibilities for the ruckus. Going beyond that, the true story of Tipton’s reveal how the same elites feigning ignorance and publicly maintaining distance from religious bigots are actually very much hand-in-gloves with the latter! Still going beyond that, Tipton shows how he and his family go ahead to take revenge on the believers than sit tight, shit scared.


If there has been a film that tells the story in Hollywood, this is the one to watch. Made independently, this may not hit your theatres. But if you get read this story, do spread the word! One way or the other, folks need to understand that the religious fanatics have always ruled the world, after devising a God as a justification of their rule and install few political groups who mock-fight with each other in a so-called democracy as their instrument of rule. And we, as believers in Jesus not as a tempted man or Buddha not as an avowed atheist, view the lens as prescribed, according to the terms of fanatics, to differ only in degree, not in types. And we assume that the fanatics cannot be among us, within us, even without questioning our own godly beliefs and levels of intolerances!

Tags: Saswat, Film, Christianity, Atheism

By Saswat Pattanayak

My New York tour this weekend was a well deserved one. The complexities and contradictions that map the country are so defined in this city of countercultures that it’s amazing to notice them visibly, despite the manufactured calmness.

The hungry and homeless in Manhattan scrounging for leftovers in trash, the piles of human defecation and unattended garbage in New York Central Park, and the street beggars singing different tunes have always characterized the city of the Trumps and Rockefellers.

Ground Zero, my cab driver laughed at us when we could not figure what to say about the venue my friend Biren Mohanty from Orissa wanted to check out. Obviously the driver was either a Muslim or a victim of post 9/11 racial outbursts. Or both. He did not even talk to us properly after we showed how much interested we were in visiting the site. “Do we have any other noteworthy place close by?” Silence.

The other cab driver, from Punjab, India, clearly took us to one Indian restaurant over another. “That’s great food, but too much money,” he pointed out to Jewel of India, “I will take you to Curry”. Off we went to the working class restaurant. The rich Indians and the Whites go to Jewel.

Apart from religion and class, the race equations were interesting as well. The cheapest bus tours are conducted by Chinese between DC and NY. And unfortunately this time, the bus had a mechanical problem for a couple of minutes. Three co-passengers who were African Americans burst out with all racial slurs they could in those 10 minutes of silent midnight to crack jokes. One passenger while excusing himself out was shouting “excuse me in English and every other language I don’t know so that you know.. hehe”. I was wondering if all of them were conscious of Ghettopoly vs Tsunami or it was just commonplace.

The crash moments of new york bare themselves everytime we have headed there. Yet that’s the best city of the country. The multiculturalism has not been normalized. The city sees the differences, understands the differences, even celebrates them, albeit some lacunae here and there. When in a Chinese restaurant I asked what curry was best for the dinner, the man answered, “Spicy Chicken Curry in Indian style”. That’s New York.

Two co-passengers were impressed by my invitation to them to share our cab in the wee hours of morning. I said if we all could share our stuffs, we would have a better community. Off the couple came up with a flyer to ask us to join them in protesting against Chinese govt for cracking down on individual liberties. Missing the whole point, that’s New York too.

The American political turmoils lend themselves to the awful representations that they manifest in. Amidst the billboards at Times square where companies smoke out billions of dollars every year just for exhibitions, do we need the poor trenchantly going hungry? With hundreds of skyscrapers inside the city, do the homeless need any place else to look for (incidentally they close down all the public toilets at 7pm)? Are these people who have tolerated the administrative indifferences thus far to let the world note NY as the biggest city ever devised, not the ones who have worked helluva lot to uphold the torch of human liberty for the humankind? In their silence lies the global presence of NY. The mute statue might just be symbolic!

Tags: Saswat, USA, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

It’s only fair that the ironies played out once again.

The Guantanamo Bay is just one of the contradictions. The “land of the free” after 200 years of systematic discriminations and unjust warfare that continues even to this day, has shined at the Bay.

Over 9,500 US troops are stationed in this sole U.S. base on a Communist soil. And the detainees are not told whether they are to be treated as prisoners of war, or common criminals.

Cuban President Castro has refused to view the American lease on Cuban land as legitimate. Yet, the prisoners (some of whom were handed over by Afghan tribesmen in exchange of cash) from Camp X-Ray, Camp Delta and Camp Echo are dumped on this land for confinement. The tortures of the prisoners would have never come to light unless some European detainees were to speak! Hence, when three British prisoners released in 2004 without charge deliberated on the atrocities committed by US troops in forms of torture, sexual acts, forced drugging and religious persecution it got some coverage, however scant. They also accused the British authorities of turning blind eye to the situation of which they were well aware. The 115 page dossier has been subsequently supported by French, Swedish and Australian prisoners too.

In this round of irony, although the sovereignty of Guantanamo Bay resides with Cuba eventually, the exclusive control over it rests with US. And naturally enough the prisoners who have no access to press conferences are forever struggling with their fates.

A 1903 declaration between The Republic of Cuba and US stated that the land, among others, was to be leased to US “for the time required for the purposes of coaling and naval stations, the areas of land and water situated in the Island of Cuba.” Many things have of course changed over the course of time, including the revolution led by Castro. But the terms still apply as it is and unilateral disagreement is not proving fruitful. And the area is being used for the purpose of detaining political prisoners.

In the meantime the tortures continue as though it were normal. In the most recent incident, the official report reads that 52 detainees are on hunger strike against the treatments they are being meted out with.

And the story could be framed by the media only after two weeks of their hunger strikes! The reality is that the strike started even before that. And the number was well over 100. One hundred people have been protesting non-violently with hunger strikes against the continued torture of an oppressive government, and its subjects who vote the leaders to power, do not even come to know of it until long after. Not mentioning the series of tortures over the years which have by far created protests of no significant nature.

What have the media roles been reduced to? Janet Jackson’s left breast, I am sure. In the era of the model human rights western democracy, the leaders cause illegal tortures not just inside but also outside their territories. Out of 562 prisoners, four have been charged of anything. Rest of them languish with web of tortures for no counts. This is called the Rule of Law!

Tags: Saswat, Cuba, USA, Terrorism

There is a novel way to travel the Earth. Download and install this free software here.

I was pretty amazed at the way the landscape of the earth changed when the mouse tilted the buttons. And of course secondly because I could also find out where my village Tigiria was situated on the world map!

Tags: Saswat

By Saswat Pattanayak

Robert A Dahl cites the table of Arend Lijphart’s “Pattern of Democracy” in his book “How democratic is the American Constitution” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

Dahl says there are 22 countries in the world that have steadily remained political democracies since at least 1950: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States.

Of course the glaring omission is India, whose political leaders proudly claim it to be the largest democracy (and hence they logically deduce it should be a natural ally to the US), as recent trip of PM Manmohan Singh would testify.

Dahl admits that too and he says it has been done for two reasons: one, India had its system disruptions for two years 1975-77, when Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency, and two, India is too poor.

I have a couple of observations here: One, that “at least 1950” was deliberately a yardstick so that countries like Germany and Italy could be included. After all what difference would it have made had the cut-off year been 1940? Quite a lot. Indian emergency would have then looked like a joke in face of 1940’s Europe. Clearly the elites needed to stick together even if they had to do so just in order to exclude other countries.

Two, clearly economy plays a part. Why else would Dahl infer that a poor country had no right to call itself a democracy? But then he is right on target. Democracy has been associated so far with all these 22 countries, and all of them have been economically advantaged.

Thirdly, what becomes clear to me is that politically democracy is not a popular choice in the world, after all. Out of 193 countries in the world, only 22 have embraced democracy. Not only is the idea such unpopular, but ironically the wealth of the world is being owned by only these unpopular elites.

Having said that, let’s look at the Lijphart’s table to see what can justify for the elitisms of the 22 countries. A model democracy case study would be the United States. In terms of performance, it ranks one of the lowest (18th) in terms of women’s parliamentary representation, 19th lowest in energy efficiency, 17th lowest in welfare state index, 17th lowest in social expenditure, 19th lowest in foreign aid, 21st lowest in voter turnout. Not only that, the US has the 4th greatest rich-poor divide ratio (the economic gaps between have and have-not classes) and the highest rank in terms of incarceration rate (the biggest prison-industrial complex in the world).

With all these “worst performances”, where all rest of the countries (100% of them) do better in foreign aid or in incarceration rate, in what respect does the US shine? Only in one field: Economic growth, where it is among the top three rank.

As I view it, more imprisonments are then directly proportional to higher economic growth. And as corroborated by history, this has been the one of the ways (imprisoning, and mass murdering) using which the European expansions have continued to this date. Earlier it was just territory they were after. Now it includes the culture and economy.

The second repugnant truth is that economic growth of a country has nothing to do with socio-economic conditions in which its people live. In case of the US, it’s evident that with greater economic growth, there is greater rich-poor divide. Hence there is an economic growth, but one that helps the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

And is it not ironical that the same US economic model is now in place with more than 90% of the world since late 1980’s? Police states pretending to be democracies and abject poverty and homelessness owing to irresponsible capitalism. That’s the future of our planet earth?

Tags: Saswat, Economics, India, Academic

By Saswat Pattanayak

Raj Kumar Santoshi’s film on Bhagat Singh was powerful, to say the least. It most appropriately showcased the hero and his missions. Among five films on Bhagat Singh released that year (2002), Santoshi’s movie topped. It was the only worthwhile cinematic experience one can have about the freedom fighter. And so far, the only film ever made on him that’s notable, anyway.

Bhagat Singh, for the uninitiated, was one of the radical faces of Indian freedom struggle. In a country dominated by centrist politics since post-British times, the sacred texts of Indian history never duly acknowledged the peasants’ movements in India to oust the feudal and foreign rules. Hence any film on Bhagat Singh was to be a welcoming scenario.

Yet it was not meant to be. At least it did not turn out so for me. Even as the movie addressed Bhagat Singh’s legacy, it induced what my adjacent movie-goers felt. Amidst several scenes in the film, members of the audience were exclaiming “shut up, bastard” when it came to any scene showing Gandhi. People watching the movie were almost up in arms against Gandhi who, according to them, was the reason behind Bhagat Singh’s death!

Gandhi was being called names. Which is not unlikely in a society which has grown egalitarian over the time to understand several nuances of Gandhi so as to study him dispassionately than merely hero-worship. At the same time, this sentiment has been played up both by the opportunistic Dalit movement and the fanatic Hindu organizations which have disgraced Gandhi in deeds and words for political ends. Hence, it was definitely another matter altogether to call him the enemy of the people, the killer of Bhagat Singh.

In a review which resounds few of my sentiments too, the author opines that Santoshi lacks some fairness. “He should have known that if a film were to be made on Gandhi, Bhagat Singh would have been regarded as a villain, not as a national hero,” the reviewer comments.

There lies my precise objection. Why does this instinct of posing one against the other in a hero-villain paradigm take shape? Why should Bhagat Singh, and not the then British rulers, be considered villain in a film about Gandhi? Whose interests do such theories serve? Any freedom struggle is not an individual prerogative: it necessarily ingrains within many different voices, different ideologies and ideologues. Speaking of the unique situation as India’s freedom struggle, it was neither aimed at overthrowing the empire, nor at securing civil rights, but at ensuring that the rulers needed to leave the colony alone. In this manner, it was unlike the evolutions in America, nor the revolution in Russia, nor the shift of power at South Africa. India’s freedom struggle was the kind where people of all walks of life participated (if not before the time Gandhi arrived, when it was limited to the armed forces, native rulers and some elites). And they participated not to make a compromise of legal adjustments, or royal massacres, but to secure back their own lands and throw the perpetrators out of the country. And they succeeded (for all those theorists who point out the exhaustion of the British following second world war, one needs only to look at the colonialism in the 1950’s and onwards in whole of Africa and parts of Asia to rationalize that there was no such haste for the British to leave India unless under compulsion!)

It’s important to remember that Bhagat Singh was not a wayward violent activist as he is often portrayed. Certainly he began as one. But soon he organized himself in relation to the people, in much a Gandhian way of providing leadership, for which he has always credited Gandhi. Although starting off as an anarchist, he later on embraced broad people-based struggle. He recognized the source of aura that Gandhi had in India and he understood that without mass scale organized efforts at uniting people, no revolution was going to be a reality.

Gandhi, obviously aware of the genuine efforts of the radicals was opposed only in spirit, since his stance of non-violence was in direct conflict. But for someone famously in support of gun over cowardice, Gandhi never cut off his relationship with members of the nationalist party who publicly supported the extremists, namely Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, Motilal Nehru (who used to finance revolutionary Chandra Sekhar Azad), Maulana Shaukat Ali and Krishna Kant Malviya etc. Gandhi, the relentless worker among the poorest of the poor, was only too aware of the class conflicts that existed. For his brand of movement though, he needed mass mobilization, even if it meant that he extracted money from the domestic capitalists whom he treated as friends.

Hence, whereas the end was the same, the means were vehemently different. But this difference was not one that was meant to disrupt each other’s paths, let alone posing as challenges. The current intelligentsia assuming that Gandhi and Bhagat Singh and ilk were contradictory is misplaced. Contrary, they might have been at the best. In fact Bhagat Singh categorically refuted the claims that he was a terrorist or preacher of violence. “I am not a terrorist and I never was, except perhaps in the beginning of my revolutionary career. And I am convinced that we cannot gain anything through these methods. One can easily judge it from the history of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. All our activities were directed towards an aim, i.e., identifying ourselves with the great movement as its military wing. If anybody has misunderstood me, let him amend his ideas. I do not mean that bombs and pistols are useless, rather the contrary. But I mean to say that mere bomb throwing is not only useless but sometimes harmful. The military department of the party should always keep ready all the war-material it can command for any emergency. It should back the political work of the party. It cannot and should not work independently.” (ed. Shiv Verma, Selected Writings of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, New Delhi, 1986)

Even when he threw the bomb in the Assembly, it was not kill anyone, but to emphatically make the British realize that there was a voice they could no longer ignore. Bhagat Singh cried freedom at the Lahore Conspiracy case –January 21, 1930—in front of the magistrate in the court (lines which never appeared in any of the films ever made): “Long Live Socialist Revolution', 'Long Live the Communist International', 'Long live the people', 'Lenin's name will never die', and 'Down with Imperialism.' He subsequently went on to read the text of the following telegram in the court and asked the Magistrate to transmit it to the Third International:

'On Lenin Day we send hearty greetings to all who are doing something for carrying forward the ideas of the great Lenin, we wish success to the great experiment Russia is carrying out. We join our voice to that of the International working class movement. The proletariat will win. Capitalism will be defeated. Death to Imperialism'.

This historic event is never mentioned in the popular media for obvious reasons. And 2002 was testament to that sentiment. In a ridiculous attempt to recreate a myth of Bhagat Singh as a nationalistic leader who would be best suited to the emotions of the detached youths of today, the right-wingers have declared Bhagat Singh as their hero!

One, because of their hand in assassination of Gandhi, they badly needed a hero who would have categorically challenged Gandhi. And two, as though to kill two birds with one stone, the hero would then be declared a domestic one who gave up life for India, and not for some leftist ideology. Of course his death would not have come had Gandhi intervened—hence Gandhi was decidedly the cause behind Bhagat Singh’s death, the arguments of the reactionaries go.

Bhagat Singh, hence stripped of his international commitment to wipe out imperialism, has over time been depicted as a sad hero who could not be saved, and the blame has always been put on Gandhi for his inaction. The truth, however is quite the contrary. In a letter that he wrote to his father (which I will later publish on the blog soon), Bhagat Singh was so defiant that one will find it incredible. In a world full of heroes who pleaded for their cases, Bhagat Singh called his own father a traitor and one who stabbed him on his back, for having considered a defense lawyer for him while he was on trial! He said it will be a tragedy if he defended himself, since the cause was not for him to survive, it was for the revolution to win the order of the day and it was required that he died for the cause!

For those who fantasized that Bhagat Singh would have been salvaged had Gandhi pleaded to the British, they only stand to insult the revolutionary’s ideals. For those who are bent upon making Bhagat a national hero instead of an international agitator of social justice, they are only murdering the values for which he gave up his life, with a smile and lots of hope.

Alas, it’s a different world now. And what a shame the world is.

Tags: Saswat, History, India, Colonialism, Bollywood, Film

By Saswat Pattanayak

Gandhi was never out of the limelight. But since a couple of years now, he has been in it for all the wrong reasons.

The pan-African movement recognizes him as a crude Indian nationalist by citing that he never stood up for the then South African Black people as much he did for the Indian population. The Indian rightists ruling class abhor Gandhi for his alleged anti-nationalist stance when it came to his professed compassion for the Muslims. The bourgeois intellectual film directors Raj Kumar Santoshi and Shyam Benegal have portrayed Gandhi in ways to suit their standpoints: movies have been made to celebrate Bhagat Singh and Subhas Bose only so that their characters can clash with Gandhi. The pacifists have used Gandhi to show that we don’t need any violence at all, as though that were the lessons Gandhi demonstrated. The conservatives have utilized Gandhi to prove that religious fundamentalism is the path to God and hence prayers should be made compulsory in schools. Dalits think Gandhi was their worst enemy. Brahmins think Gandhi was their worst enemy.


Gandhi is back in limelight. I shall allow myself to swim in the bundle of contradictions and take a retake on my own view of the first para: maybe he has been in it for all the right reasons.

So that we be forced to rethink. Not to rethink Gandhi per se, which is the act, several interest groups are hard-pressing for the people to do. For I don’t think Gandhi being right or wrong is all that important (since no person can logically be right all the time—where will that leave the relativity of judgments leading to the mindless wars we have witnessed—the need is not to be right all the time, but to be right for the just causes). To me, what’s crucial is our motives for evaluating him the way we have done...

Tags: Saswat, History, India, Colonialism, Bollywood, Film

By Saswat Pattanayak

Let’s revisit Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, the man who did the Capitalism proud. The only person whose accounts in form of two books, are the sacred texts so far to have been used by the West to attack the Soviet history.

He was a Cossack intellectual, meaning a Cossack elite.

Who is a Cossack? In the 15th century, the Cossack society was a loose federation of independent military units, entirely separate and sovereign.

The two states they represented, Cossacks of Zaporizhia and Don Cossack State had a unique warrior culture, whose main source of income was the pillaging their neighbors although they didn't shy from plundering other neighbors. They were famous also for their raids against the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Empire, led by a Sultan was one of the mightiest empires in Europe, whose fight against the Russia in Crimean War was notable.

The Russians initially had used their advanced defense mechanisms and out-maneuvered the Ottomans using their Armenian allies within the empire. They of course subsequently persecuted the Armenians in a genocidal fashion. It was not until the Communist revolution in Russia that the Russian forces retreated, leading to Ottoman victory on this front.

Not only was he a Cossack intellectual who supported the interests of the elite section of the ruling regimes in the pre-revolution period, but his prerogative was in highlighting the glories of Tsarist period! In presenting alternatives to the Soviet regime, Solzhenitsyn tended to reject Western emphases on democracy and individual freedom and instead favored the formation of a benevolent authoritarian regime that would draw upon the resources of Russia's traditional Christian values.

Authoritarian traditional Christian rule!

In other words he represented the counter-revolutionary ethos that wanted Tsar regime back. For whom the communists were infidels. The primary resistance to the Holocaust is well known silence of the Vatican since Hitler was fighting Stalin and the Church wanted the ouster of Communism at any cost, even if it would mean the Jewish extermination. Solzhenitsyn of course was not in any way opposition to the Vatican’s silence. Far from it, at first notice, America’s silence over Jewish question was welcomed by him, a country he would make home for 20 years.

On the contrary, what had been provided in the USSR then? Lenin (and please…not Stalin) had while categorically espousing the interests of the revolutionary class of peasants and workers, had clearly stated, “confiscation of all properties”. Majority of people who were in spirits with the movement of course did allow for the confiscation to take place. Several countries in the world indeed went ahead for wealth distribution. Mythically Robin Hood still continues to do so.

But what was happening was contrary to everything Solzhenitsyn believed in. A purged Christianity was unacceptable to the largest groups of believers in the world. Solzhenitsyn became their voice. He helped them compare the Gulags with the Nazi Holocaust. Of course the plights of the Armenians, Africans-Americans, Japanese-Americans of those days also were excused. For the plights of the Jews in Germany, a supremacist country whom Soviet Union contributed the most in defeating, there were none among the Allies who would stand up. Solzhenitsyn remained blind to the reality out of his desire to overthrow the Communism and replace it with traditional Christian values. Apparently after he wrote a letter to Stalin, he was sent to the camp, which formed the base for two of his books: Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. These books apparently rocked the world!

It led the media to focus on the new victims: the Gulago. Nazis were called even subtler than the Soviets! Of course contextualizing it, it will seem natural that they felt it the same way all along. One side Hitler supported by the Christians (yes the Catholics), whose common enemy of course was Communism. And on the other Stalin and the non-believers. And of course the Red Army famously defeating the White Army of the imperial Russia and nullifying every White Order.

Solzhenitsyn, unfazed by the divided ideologies, and possibly because of it, authored a fiction “One Day in the Life…”which was widely targeted for the American audience. Naturally! And the other book “Gulag ..” whose most compelling chapter was claimed to have been a recollection of incidents by fellow prisoner Georgi Tenno, who was invited by Solzhenitsyn to be the co-author. Tenno refused the offer.

And what happened to Solzhenitsyn at the labor camp which has been used by the western critics of communism to be of even more gruesome than the Nazi camps?

He was political prisoner after war years for 8 years, for his criticism of Soviet policies, and holding talks with religious forces. 8 years? Yes.

After that, the same draconic system produced a fine mathematics teacher of him and he began to write. Leading Soviet literary periodical Novy Mir ("New World") also published his short novel “One Day in the Life..” Soon after he could publish his works abroad thanks to the interests generated by this novel. In 1960’s he had several foreign publications of ambitious works including V kruge pervom (The First Circle). Rakovy korpus (1968; Cancer Ward) talked about his hospitalization and successful treatment for terminally diagnosed cancer during his forced exile in Kazakstan during the mid-1950s.

Something interesting happened in 1970. He was awarded Nobel Prize, but he did not go to receive it claiming that he shall not be allowed to re-enter the country. But at the same time, he was quite conveniently publishing his works abroad. He went on to publish a celebration of German military in Avgust 1914 (1971; August 1914), a historical novel treating Germany's crushing victory over Russia during World War I, the Battle of Tannenburg!

In December 1973 he published first part of Arkhipelag Gulag (The Gulag Archipelago) in Paris! The news circulated that he was arrested and was being tried for treason. According to his logic, the punishment should have been death! Like previously under Stalin, people believed millions were killed in the camps he was at. Only he was saved to tell the story?...like previously it was believed that he would be killed in exile in hospital. Cancer and he was cured? So that he will tell the story? And now what happens? On Feb. 12, 1974, he is charged. And the next day, on Feb 13, 1974, he is exiled? Where to and how long? Still unharmed by the most evil empire?

Sounds incredible? Well, in December he goes and gleefully received his Nobel Prize! In 1975, he produces another novel Lenin v Tsyurikhe: glavy (Lenin in Zurich: Chapters). He settles in the Unites States, especially aware that he was, of America’s role in the Holocaust. Of course he mentions nothing about America and Holocaust.

Then on, he surges forward. Two more series of Gulag comes up. He refuses to call it his landmark book. Instead says history of Russia as he was working on was. And safely returns to his country of dreams, the Christian Russia in 1994.

So much ado about Gulag!

Two things emerge in this discourse. History as we all have studied thus far, can be a very twisted text, and sometimes sacred at that. Leading us not to question the upfront issues. First, comparing Gulag with Nazi camps is horrendous. That’s missing the whole point, actually. The people who kept silent during Nazi extermination were among the people who were sent to the camp in Soviet Union. No logic of passivity can work if one advocates pacifism by claiming that we could allow the Hitler to go on mass murdering people on gas chambers by calling Jews, Negroes and Communists did not deserve to live. To such claims many world leaders did not openly oppose and the Vatican too remained stoic. All aided this process only because they were scared of the spectre of Communism.

We live today to reflect much of bogus that have been taught to us as sacred. We were told Columbus discovered America! That Native Americans were Christians. And that the religious leaders all pray for peace. That the greatest democracy was greatest democracy even when its presidents owned slaves. That color of the skin could determine the intelligence of human beings. That intelligence was to be measured by a Binet Scale. That Communists were out to destroy the world. And what if the Russians Came?

Secondly, what was Gulag? And why were people so shocked by it? And who were the people at the Gulag? Do people even talk if there are 100,000 people at the Gulags now, in 2005? What were they traditionally doing? What do they continue to do? Is the Church against the Gulags now? Or as they as stoic as they were in case of Jews? Are these people in Gulags not Jews now? Or are they the converts? One can read about them now and imagine, what a fateful twist in history is this.

Tags: Saswat, History, USSR, Cold War, Communism, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

There is no news in the items being circulated by the media about Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s connection with the Underworld. Instead the news that should be worth a credential follow-up now is: Why is Salman in the news now?

First, the conversations that are making news now were published by Hindustan Times way back in August 2001. Salman has since denied that the alleged voice was his. And there were absolute silence over the issue since then. Obviously because first, it violates the right to privacy that two consenting adults have in talking to each other on any topic and hence making it legally inadmissible in court of law, and two because since four years the police has failed to establish if it was genuinely Salman's voice.

Secondly, to contextualize the times, let’s look at what’s new happening in India leading the news media to suddenly revisit Salman (his acting career has not ceased and in fact his latest film was released only last week. Even his last film Lucky made good earnings.)

On the downside, the powerful Aishwarya Rai very famously and bitterly has decided to break off. Incidentally her arch-rival Sushmita Sen not only co-stars with Salman, but is pleading for the new movie not to be banned. The people keen on banning the film are the right wing brigade which have gone on rampage to ransack cinema halls across the country. Their leader, the Hindu leader Advani has been recently charged for his anti-national activities at Ayodhya. Hence, the focus of the media has successfully shifted from Advani to Salman now.

Amidst all these, the media houses are very hard pressed to “break” this news of underworld connection with cinema stars. Almost none of the journalists point out the obvious (bound as they are not to kill the suspense), that even the most patriotic of Indian movies are made by underworld money. World’s largest film industry has historically been financed by the underworld money and in this sense, Dubai’s contribution to promoting Indian cultural integrity (Hindi films and the Indian religion of Cricket) need not be dismissed as abrasively.

Without the involvement of the underworld, India-Pakistan series would never have been a success, making Cricket a South Asian extravaganza than a colonial classicism played by Aussies and Brits. Likewise most of the superstars, producers, actors and film fraternity today would never have risen as high without active financing of the laundered money. To get surprised at an Indian actor talking to the underworld is childish. The public memory may be proverbially short, but we all know the extent to which the filmdom celebrates its existence at the parties hosted by Dubai financiers. Money rules and indeed without a governmental support to filmdom as an “industry” there have been ways to legitimize allegiances.

Of course the domestic patriots could not allow such allegiances and they suddenly turned their ire. Resultingly for many years now filmdom has turned homeward to the other underworld (the Hindu Sainiks in Bombay after driving the Muslim gangsters down to Dubai), only this one rules upfront. Not only does this domestic mafia dictate whether it will allow certain entertainers (Pakistani artistes have been banned from coming to India, although Indian audience are known to be big fans of the artistes), and allow certain games (Pakistani cricket is widely watched in India), it also has enforced its dictates in such crude way that many film posters say on their cover “With blessings of the Balasaheb”. Now we all know that Balasaheb, the Hindu supremacist, used to be a good cartoonist, but we hardly knew him as a champion of films. Now imagine if some posters would come up with a slogan like “With blessings of the D-company”.

Looking back to Mumbai riots and Ayodhya clashes and the prevailing environment of suspicion among religious communities in India, one fails to find any difference among the preachers who want to ban the new Salman movie and the dead horses of Dubai who have nurtured the Bollywood so far.

Money (and what else does one expect in a commercial cinema industry? Aesthetics?) is obviously the guiding principle behind allegiance. Why do the media not get it and get over with it. And if the judiciary thinks a drunk actor’s bragging four years ago about his connections with underworld to a girlfriend he fought with is a matter of big concern, then it also must address the issues of cultural policing being done by a bunch of hoodlums on the street wearing saffron and threatening to censor a fun comedy people want to watch. For all the direct vandalisms inside the land, these right wing fanatics first must be booked before we witness another riot. Unless of course they consider Salman’s film as significant as Lord Ram’s birthplace to be made an issue of. In either case it would be a tragedy.

Tags: Saswat, Bollywood, India, Film, Hinduism

By Saswat Pattanayak

In 1992-1993, more than 2000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed following the demolition of the Ayodhya mosque in India. Not only was destruction of this monument illegally conducted by Hindu fanatics, but they also went ahead to cause communal violence all over India. Not only the Hindu fanatics were the factors behind the violence, but the majority loss of human lives and properties were experienced by the Muslim community.

Deed of a devotee or Face of a fanatic!

After 10 years, the drama was reenacted. A train attack/accident left 58 dead. Hindu fanatics went on a rampage claiming that it was targeted at Hindus in the train. And in a state ruled by the rightists, around 2000, mostly Muslims, were murdered in broad daylight and robbed off their businesses.

Of course the perpetrators were never brought to book. Some of them very prominently became the rulers of India. One of them became deputy prime minister and evaded all charges. No arrests were made worthy of note.

Today, we hear two people, sorry militants, have been arrested. No, not for causing systematic communal violence. But for allegedly having helped attack the disputed mosque area earlier this month which caused no deaths except those of five other 'militants'. The case was solved with arrests done within two weeks! The fastest ever delivery of justice!

“It appears that the conspiracy to attack the temple was hatched by militants in Indian administered Kashmir”, police official SP Vaid said BBC.

The arrests basing on mere suspicion of an attack that led to no loss of lives, were done in record time. Within a month!

And its 13 years since justice is awaited in the case of Babri Masjid demolition. Who will be held responsible for death of thousands of people on baseless grounds. Baseless because if Rama was indeed born in Ayodhya, then he was not a Lord. If he is a Lord, he could never have been born.

Tags: Saswat, Islam, Hinduism, India

By Saswat Pattanayak

Part of fighting terrorism, the British realize, is refusing to change a way of life, writes Andrew Sullivan, and he calls it the “Quiet Power of the Stoic” in the Time Magazine this week.

Well, one will wonder why I stoop to quote Sullivan on the same page where I quote Neruda. Not quite unreasonable considering that today’s media provide the sort of inspirations like Sullivan’s pieces, for a scribe like me to think as deep as Neruda to ruminate over problems which have only proliferated since. Hence instead of the painstaking love ballads, I have to create the apt rebuttal for the reactionary stoicisms.

How do I react to the reactionaries? To the politically correct? To the timely interventionists? To the anti-terrorism conscience keepers? To the crusaders against illegal aliens? To the wise interpreters of Islam?

To begin with, one of the most popular bloggers of all time, Sullivan sure knows the vulnerabilities of the print media like Time. First, in times of crises like the London Blasts, its easier to express popular sentiments, and two, in places like Time, he cannot expect immediate responses. Its another matter that with all the trumpets being blown by bloggers about the grassroots media being one where there is a scope for the readers to correct the blogger via comments, Sullivan is out of comments on his site!

In any case who expects contrary comments when the bomb blasts in London is the only political incident today in the world and standing by the aggrieved is the only politically correct thing to do. So Sullivan writes:

The English, as Orwell once observed, celebrate their freedom in small ways: gardening, sports, pets, pubs, stamps, crossword puzzles. Part of this is now patriotic mythology. But part is also the enculturated national DNA to see these things not as trivial but as integral to the life of a free people. These things didn't stop, even during the Blitz, when thousands lived through night after night with the prospect of being incinerated by bombs from the sky. Part of fighting the war, the Brits realized, was military. But part was also a refusal to change a way of life, however small its detail, however petty its peeves.

---

As long as some maniac wants to kill himself and others in a subway or supermarket, we will not be able to stop him. And so stoicism matters. Getting on with our lives matters. Spelling bees, college football, celebrity gossip, high school proms: the simple continuance of these things is integral to the meaning of freedom.

Or so the British have long proved. Their small-c conservatism can lead to errors of complacency--like appeasing Hitler in the 1930s. But it is also a deep strength, as self-effacing as it is unmovable.

I am rendered speechless and I do not know where to post comments. But here is what I thought Sullivan said and half meant.

Basically, do anything. Support Hitler. Gossip celebrity. Prom high schools. Invade Iraq. Stay conservatives. Let Tony Blair comment on how some Muslims got Islam wrong. Allow him to pass a stricter law now so that illegals can be filtered out. Call people maniacs, systems perfect and the celebrate indifference. Don’t reflect on actions, don’t contextualize. Just get going with life, as usual. Stay stoic. Don’t change yourself.

What Orwell forgot to mention was that the English celebrated their freedom in other small ways too: invaded the natives, raped their women, killed their ables, subjugated their economies, dried their resources, came back home peacefully without any damage, when they needed cheap workforce they got the natives to work as cobblers and slaves, treated them as dogs disallowing them to enter into restaurants, promoted racism, and when the natives forgot their language and became Englicised, refused them equal pay. After keeping them illiterate in their own cultures, got the natives to pay tuitions to study in English traditions, and when the students applied for jobs, asked them to go back home with a debt, and when few natives played by their rules and ran their industries and wrote their stories, they got them knighted so that they became to be known as English, not natives anymore.

If these are not exercise of unbridled freedom on part of the English, then I do not know what these are. And now what again so conveniently was forgotten by Sullivan was that alongwith the college football, the Brit ruling class has been perfectly innocently content about their sense of superior freedom when it comes to the debt trap they lead Africa into (some countries there have paid thrice the original debt only to suffer for the rest of the civilization trying to pay the guilt-ridden interests), about their realization of peace at inflicting deaths by the hundreds to the civilians in the middle east, over the Palestine crisis and the Iraq fiasco. When British personnel were exposed for prison torture, the English were at peace with themselves over such “small issues” too.

Who can afford to stay stoic? I cannot. I am enraged at the bombings. I am enraged at the bombings, yes prime minister, over the same bombings which killed Muslims too. I am enraged at the stoic take on the heinous bombings that killed ordinary lives, the British working class lives which never agreed with the Queen’s stance on Diana and Blair’s stance on Iraq. I am enraged at this whole thing about “Pakistani descent”, when all of the alleged bombers were British citizens. I am enraged at the whole lectures of the PM about Islamic extremism when it is partly a case of British security failure. I am enraged about the way its being dismissed as individual acts of terrorism, whereas the main bomb makers are largely amiss, their motives overtly unknown. Instead of looking at it as a social byproduct of modern capitalism, I am enraged at the way the narrative speaks only of the religious bigotry (itself a product of modern capitalism). I am enraged about the way distinction is being done among people of faiths basing on this incident which has to do more than religious sentiment.
Clearly no religion preaches violence. Why should the Muslims be singled out? When a Christian lobbyist cheats the Congress, does one blame Christianity and tries to dig its textual interpretations? Or when Mandela suffered for 27 years in the islands, was Christianity revisited?

Stoicism, my dear Andrew, is the opium of the British. And the ruling class of Britain wants it to stay. So that they can now tighten the immigrations a little more and claim to have solved the case with four dead men as providing evidence. And in the process the bigger questions will be purged: Who harbored the criminal intents? Who encouraged the situation? Whose education called for social distrust among promising youths? Who were they born and brought up amidst the British neighborhoods?

From nationalists in the 1850s, to being called patriots in the 1920s, to announced radicals in the 1960s, to call terrorists in the Bush era, individuals have been branded. Sullivan dismisses them as maniac individuals this time. The issues have changed, the enemies have changed, the causes have been reversed. Yet the violence persists. When the state machineries have gone violent, we have called them war, when individuals have chosen violence they are now suicide bombers. We do not know why these people have behaved this cowardly as they did now. One thing for sure, we know that many people all over the world have been converted into suicide bombers since at least three decades now. To dismiss their acts as manic acts of random nature would be to stay stoic and fail to bridge the gaps that exist between us humans. For one, going by the massive protests at all the meetings of world leaders (and we do not see many Muslims at all, remember!), we know that the rulers are not very much welcome by the ruled and their principles or lack of them are being vehemently opposed. What we need is a deep appreciation of contrary interests and constructive dialogues to understand the oppositional chords rather than being violent (which is easy for a police state anywhere to cause and generate), being stoic (which is easy for the i-pod generations and Disney theme park visitors in the developed world to enjoy and mock with), being dismissive and accusatory (which is easy considering the might and the wealth of the developed economies which never hears of the bombs in the quarrelling poor nations but goes deafeningly reactionary when any singular incident takes place and attributes religious and international tones to it to vitiate the atmosphere further).

With time, we shall know what circumstances we have created in a world we no more love, which have led many youths astray—from being socially productive, and individually progressive, to emerge as self-obsessed reflections of a warring imperialistic individualistic world divided by flags, religions and countries.

Between the mad people and the scared people (and scared people don’t remain stoic, remember), the situation may not be managed well. But by taking pride in a stoic citizenry instead of encouraging them to become alert international human beings, we are taking steps backwards.

Tags: Saswat, Media, Terrorism, War, Christianity, Philosophy

What were Left at the G8?

These pictures telling the sentiments of the majority of the world. (Taken from various Indymedia sites):

Tags: Saswat, Activism, Capitalism, G-8

By Saswat Pattanayak



“He is a Communist since he is loved by women”, says the postman Mario Ruoppolo (late Massimo Troisi). “No, no, he is loved by the people,” corrects the telegrapher friend (Renato Scarpa).

Loved, he was throughout, as the movie “Postino Il” so flawlessly depicted. It just could not have been otherwise, when it came to the peoples’ poet Pablo Neruda. Not just the greatest living poet of the 20th century in any language, as the great novelist Gabriel García Márquez called him, but also one of the most outspoken Communists of the age, Neruda represented the unsung, unheard and unwept. Leftwing activism to free love, surreal philosophy to existential angst of the atheist, Neruda symbolized the brilliance as far as brilliance could be.

Today he would have turned 101. And perhaps a bit sadder at the way world events have changed. After succeeding in actively supporting the first democratically elected Socialist government of the world in Chile, Neruda denounced in no uncertain terms the US-supported military coup to destabilize the region (as vocal as he was during Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam War). When his house was ransacked, he remarked “Look around — there's only one thing of danger for you here — poetry”.

Salutes, Comrade Neruda.

And here are four of my picks from the legendary words. When Mario used Neruda’s poems to impress upon his love, Neruda said he could not help the rebuff since they were his words, not Mario’s anyway. Mario quipped: “Poetry doesn't belong to those who write it; it belongs to those who need it.” Neruda fully agreed with his new friend.

When the postman asked of the metaphors, Neruda could not explain well, “when you explain poetry, it becomes banal. Better than any explanation is the experience of feelings that poetry can reveal to a nature open enough to understand it.” And our postman finally got the most beautiful woman in the town, by singing to her that her smile spread like a butterfly and her laugh was a sudden silvery spoon. His inspiration: Pablo Neruda. Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Literature, Communism, Film

By Saswat Pattanayak

Air Supply performed in Cuba for two days!

Nothing surprising to Havana. Cubans were enthralled, floored and they very warmly welcomed Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell.

It was yet another surprising event for the Western mainstream media to digest. Of course, no one covered it live or even secondarily. Mostly, they got the news off the Associated Press brief. And even at that, they said they were astonished. (Remember, the narrative of how some sort of freedom is limited to the proverbial land of the free!)

The media were also astonished when Audioslave performed in Cuba in May. The astonishments appear to be not so original discoveries after all. On a closer glance, both the Canadian Press and the Associated Press said the same thing! And now we are astonished! Yes, the western media propaganda machine runs overnight so well that they even copy the exact languages! Check out the following two stories:

This one is from the Canadian Press

And this one is from Associated Press

Also check this one from the Washington Post. Story bylined. From AP.

Using precisely the SAME words to express surprise over how much the Western press were shocked at Air Supply being invited, one wonders if the ghost writers are the one and the same? And does it not violate copyright or whatever they call it. Who cheats from whom? Or are they the same!

What more does it tell? Well, the same mill produces stories of how perverse Cuba has become, it’s investing on tourism, it’s a place where women are publicly dancing and wearing jeans and smoking pot. So the theory which is almost written on stone of the mainstream press is that, with the rock groups and the lowly women, its goodbye communism!

To such frivolous arguments, I have no rejoinders. But its so hilariously degrading bunch of logic that