Bharat and India ceasing to be two different people

When the casual way the farmers are treated by the political establishment, the government and corrupt financial institutions is over and the farmers are given the same respect which any other labouring class receives.

Where dynastic politics which breeds corruption, generation after generation, has no space.

Where truth reigns and lies are shown up for what they are, whether uttered by an individual or by a journalist or by a politician or within a family. Where justice is not on sale and the unjust get the punishment they deserve. Where the curse of caste system has been ostracised and the whole nation works together to raise India to its heights in the spirit of Vasudeva Kutumbakam (the whole world is one family).

If I am not mistaken, it was the then leader of the farmers, Sharad Joshi, who divided India into two parts. Bharat, being the other part. In this divide, India was the land of the haves and Bharat, the land of the poor. The rich landlords were a part of India along with industrialists, while the small farmers and workers were Bharat.

The ‘Reforms’, whatever they may mean, have not bridged this divide. If anything, the ‘Reforms’ have widened the divide, with the poor becoming poorer and the rich growing richer by the day at the expense of the poor. It is not that the Reforming Indians were not aware what was waiting for the poor of Bharat. But it was not their concern. Their eyes were riveted to the manna that was about to drop for them from heaven.

After all, it was Jesus who said, ‘‘To those who have, more will be given, and those who have little, even whatever they have, will be taken away from them.’’

It was under the leadership of the United States, whose white population believes that theirs is God’s own land, that the ‘Reforms revolution’ started. Indians, who benefited from the largesse they received from the US, joined its bandwagon. Thereafter, many natives joined in. To cut a long story short, Bharat is going down as India is shining.

When Charu Mazumdar started his Revolution in Naxalbari in West Bengal in 1967, it was a few months since I had entered Parliament after defeating S K Patil in South Mumbai constituency. Dr Ram Manohar Lohia called me over to his residence and asked me to proceed immediately to Bengal and meet Charu Mazumdar. The brief he gave me was to see if we could establish a political relationship with him.

Though Naxalbari had made a deep impression on me, the violence built into it was not something I could appreciate. I mentioned this to Dr Lohia. He told me to discuss it with Charu Mazumdar and his associates and said nothing remains static in politics, a version of it I had an occasion to hear from British Prime Minister Harold Wilson: ‘‘Seven days is a long time in politics.’’

The Naxal movement began among the farm labour whose exploitation by the landlords was crying to the high heavens but the Congress government of the day had shut its ears to their cries, so rooted were their interests with the landlords. The tea labour in West Bengal’s huge tea gardens had labour which was mostly indentured and included as many women as men, with the women’s population often being more than that of men.

Working conditions in these tea estates were so miserable that more often than not, the sick were allowed to die rather than provided medication, a situation that prevails even now in the Assam tea gardens.

Whatever may be the state of the Naxal movement at the moment, it cannot be denied that it is only through their work among the most deprived among the country that they have established control over vast areas from the north to the south and the east to the west. All efforts of every government to deal with the Naxal movement have failed for the simple reason that every government could not relate itself to the poor and the dispossessed.

The empowerment of India, that is Bharat in this case, must start from the lowest rung of the ladder of our society. If it does not, talk of empowerment is bound not to take us anywhere. India may have to go through what Latin American countries had to go through. To avoid this, India will finally have to extricate itself from the rigid grip of corrupt, vested interests and continuation of the British Raj that goes on under different colours. All else will be mere tinkering.