Saturday 24 September 2011

POVERTY, PUBLIC MONEYLOOT, EXPLOITATION:NEED TO CHANGE CONSTITUTION PREAMBLE!

Some thing very serious in my mind and compelling me to express some serious thoughts over what is happening in the country(India) of over 1.20 crores population? I remember Cherukuri Rajkumar, known to his comrades as Azad, a member of the Politburo of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), who had been nominated by his party as its chief nnegotiator for the proposed peace talks with the government of India, and while coming for initiating negotiations was surprisingly and sadly killed on July 02, 2010 in the remote forest of Adilabad by the Andhra Pradesh police. In the process , a Young journalists Hypochondria  Pandey ,who was travelling with Azad, was also killed after his arrest,, perhaps to wipe out evidences of fake killing in the  so called encounter with Azad!
Before his death few months earlier, Azad had replied the eminent journalist B G Verghese, in a piece, probably last before his killing, :"In which part of India is the Constitution prevailing, Mr Verghese? In  Dantewala, Bijapur, Kanker, Narayanpur, Rajnandgaon? In Jharkhand, Orissa? In Lalgarh, Jangalmahal? In the valley of Kashmir?Manipur? Where was your Constitution hiding for 25 long years after thousand of Sikhs were massacred? When thousands of Muslims were decimated? When lakhs of peasants are compelled to commit suicide? When thousands of people are murdered by state-sponsored Salawa Judum gangs? When advasis women  are gang raped?When people are simply abducted by uninformed goons? Your Constitution is a piece of paper that does not even have the value of a toilet paper for the vast majority of the Indian people." Azad  had just replied Verghese following his article in the Outlook, in which he had written, defending the state and big corporations. Verghese had further written , "The Maoists will fade away, democratic India and the CConstitution will prevail despite the time it takes and the pain involved".
Apart from that. there are several aspects of  misdeeds of political class , bureaucrats, capitalists, industrialists, multinationals, taking advantage of new economic liberalisation policy, are rather shaking my conscience to look other hand the sad tales of majority of population of this country.To be precise here, I must refer the report of National Commission for Eenterprises in the unorganised sector, headed by reputed economist late Arjun Sengupta, who had reported that 836 million people people in India live on Rs 20 a day or less. Rrecently the Planning commission of India has filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court in the case of determining poor in  India, detailing that percapita expenditure Rs 20 a day as a viable cut off line for determining poverty in urban India and  in rural India as Rs 15 per day!
On the other hand wealth is being concentrated in the hands of over 20000 capitalists, political class, landlords, company holders, industrialists , corporates and multinationals, operating  in different parts of the country. Sstrange are the ways among political class of all hues. As per recent reports of  Aassociation for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Election Media watch(EMW); politicians of a particular set-up make by and large half million rupees a day while in office and serving the people of India.Number of crorepatis have increased by leaps and bound in almost all legislatures of states in the country and both houses of Parliament. In Maharashtra Legislature alone, they were upto 108 in 2004 to 186 in 2009. Over three-fourth of union council of ministers of Manmohan Singh government is crorepatis. Much of these new wealth had been acquired by them while in office. Senior journalist  P Sainath has rightly remarked that the union cabinet "is getting healthier and wealthier".
Reports have further revealed that one union minister Prafulla Patel, having assets of more than Rs 79 crore, has added on and average, over half a million rupees every day to hs assets in the last 28 months of his minister ship between May 2009 and AAugust 2011-average of Rs five lakh a day! Patel is the richest cabinet minister.
Average assets, worth over a union minister increased from Rs 7.3 crore to Rs 10.6 crore in the last 28 months. Minister of state in Information and Broadcasting ministry S Jagathrakshakan of DMK has taken big jump in accumulating assets while as minister and serving people of India. His assets have grown by 1092 percent in the last 28 months in comparison to Patels growth of assets 53 percent.Patel,s assets grew by  Rs 5.9 crore in 2009 to Rs 70 crore this year.Minister of state for communication Millind Deora has doubled his assets  from Rs 17 crore to Rs 33 crore between 2009 to 2011 adding almost a lakh every day taking into account his election affidavit in 2008 his worth at Rs 8.8 crore. Ssimilarly the union Science and technology minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has added Rs 1.73 crore since 2009. Union minister of state for Parliamentary affairs  Rajeev shukla has added over Rs 22 crore in the last 28 months to his total assets worth over Rs 7 crore in 2009 to over Rs 30 crore this year.
Political class out of power are also not lagging behind in accumulating huge assets during their office in the state legislatures and Parliament the rebel congress leader and MP Y S Jagmohan Reddy of andhra Pradesh has added Rs 357 crore to his just Rs 72 crore in 2009. Strangely, the former  Andhra Pradesh chief minister  Chandrababu Naidu , who was considered one of the richest politicians in the country, has strangely  grown poor. He is not even  worth Rs 40 lakh, thanks to fuzzing the figures. Thus Jagan of Andhra is on rise and Naidu is on decline. Surprisingly the Jubilee hill house of Naidu, which was worth Rs nine crore in 2009 in his affidavit in 2009, has not  been declared as per present market value of that houses and other wealth, acquired by him in the last several years in his political life.
These are the stories in nut and shells  of wealth being acquired by a section of political class. The government is yet to declare assets of crores of rupees of capitalists, industrialists, company holders, corporates, multinationals operating etc in the country . It is said authenticated by facts that over 90 percent of wealth are concentrated in their hands!
Atrocity on poor and tribal population by state terror and feudal forces and so called system in the government are increasing by rapid scales and Maoists are only forces in the country are fighting for their interests and for this they are called  anti-nationals!The sale of tribal lands  to non-tribal in the Schedule five are  prohibited in states. However transfers of land continued in during post-liberalisation period rampantly. Besides tribal are being forced in Jharkhand, Orrisa, MP. Chhatishgrah, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar to vacate the forest lands, violating laws of the lands for making rooms for multinationals  and corporates for installing industrial units in mineral -rich areas. Not only that even in plan areas of the country, farmers are forced to part away their fertile lands for public purposes only to develop the lands by private entrepreneurs for constructing malls, shopping complexes, and developing the areas for earning huge amounts in different parts of the country. Here I think necesasary to quote Saheed Bhagat Singh, who  had in last  petition to the Punjab Governor, before he was hanged by the British Raj government in 1931, the celebrated revolutionary-and Marxist- had said, "' let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exists so long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. They may  be purely British capitalists or mixed British and Indian or even purely Indian-----all these things make no difference."
All these  murky affairs in India reminds me a story and version of Che  Guevara over half a century ago before he died. Che wrote, " when the oppressive forces come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken." Strangely after Azad was killed , several media commentators tried to " paper over the crime by shamelessly inverting what he had said, accusing him of calling Indian Constitution a piece of toilet paper, " remarked eminent writer Arundhati Roy and added that " if government won't respect the Constitution perhaps we should push for an amendment to the preamble of the Constitution, " we , the People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist secular democratic Republic**********, could be substituted with, " we the upper caste and classes of India, having secretly resolved to constitute India into a Corporate, Hindu, satellite state******"Such situation has arisen in India only because " the Government of India's only answer has been repression, deviousness and the kind of opacity that can only come from pathological disrespect for ordinary people. Arundhati further said.
Time is not so far off if the situation continues the union government would "enact a model  so called Act on the pattern of  the Uunlawful Activities (prevention) Act(UAPA) and Chhatishgarh Special Public Security Act, which criminalise every kind of dissent-by word, deed and even intent". The UAPA is enforced in Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and Assam depriving the people of their civil rights while the  dreaded Chhatishgarh act is  enforced in that state to create terror among poor , particularly tribal in Forest areas in the name of checkmating naxal activities by forming Salwa judum , which had been declared invalid by the Supreme Court recently as well as silence the voices of advasis against forest land acquisition of for installing industrial units by uprooting them from their houses and lands in forest areas. War of nerves and supremacy of naxalites and state power will continue to grow in time to come as long as poor and tribals are continued to be exploited and gap between rich and poor in India  continue  to create disparity in the society!

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