Feb 2012 - RH

THE RADICAL HUMANISTRs. 20 / monthVol. 75 No 11 FEBRUARY 2012

Founder Editor: M.N. Roy

(Since April 1949)

Formerly : Independent India (April 1937- March 1949)

503

IRI President, B.D. Sharma releasing‘Twins of Irrationalism: Selected Quotations’from ‘Reason Romanticism and Revolution’

by M.N. Roy,compiled by Ajit Bhattacharyya

at IRI Study camp held at Murshidabad, West Bengal on 1.1.12

1

THE RADICAL HUMANIST FEBRUARY 2012

The Radical Humanist

Monthly journal of the Indian Renaissance

Institute

Devoted to the development of the Renaissance

Movement; and for promotion of human rights,

scientific-temper, rational thinking and a humanist

view of life.

Founder Editor:

M.N. Roy

Editor:

Dr. Rekha Saraswat

Contributory Editors:

Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. R.M. Pal, Professor

Rama Kundu

Publisher:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Printer:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Send articles to: Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8, Defence

Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India, Ph.

91-121-2620690, 09719333011,

E-mail articles at: [email protected]

Send Subscription / Donation Cheques in favour of

‘The Radical Humanist’to:

Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber Number

111 (Near Post Office), Supreme Court of India, New

Delhi, 110001, India [email protected]

Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836, 09811944600

Please Note: Authors will bear sole accountability

for corroborating the facts that they give in their

write-ups. Neither IRI / the Publisher nor the Editor

of this journal will be responsible for testing the

validity and authenticity of statements &

information cited by the authors. Also, sometimes

some articles published in this journal may carry

opinions not similar to the Radical Humanist

philosophy; but they would be entertained here if the

need is felt to debate and discuss upon them.

—Rekha Saraswat

Vol. 75 Number 11 February 2012

Download and read the journal at

www.theradicalhumanist.com

- Contents -

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

The Ideal of Democracy:

an impractical Proposition?

—Rekha Saraswat 2

2. From the Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism: A case for Atheism 3

Anti Caste Movement in Ancient & Medieval India

—R.M. Pal 7

3. Guests’ Section:

Rise of Think Tanks

and the Decline of Public Intellectuals

—Massimo Pigliucci 9

Hidden Lessons from Cricket for a

Corruption free society

—Rakesh Manchanda 20

4. Current Affairs’ Section:

New Year 2012;

Registration of Hindu Marriage;

Fiasco in Rajya Sabha;

Elections in State Assemblies

—N.K. Acharya 22

5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

PUCL’s History of Struggle

—Mahipal Singh 25

In Gujarat Human Rights and

Law & Order Situation Worsens

—Gautam Thaker 31

6. Teachers’ & Research Scholars’ Section:

A Paradise Lost

—Chhavi Sharma 34

7. Book Review Section:

A Man - A Movement

—Dipavali Sen 35

8. Humanist News Section 37

From The Editor’s Desk:

The Ideal of Democracy an

impractical Proposition?

If we dwell upon its historical past

wherever and whenever democracy

was introduced into a political system it was

never the perfect paradigm of its own definition.

One may seek the examples in any of its forms

of evolution; in the primitive tribal democracies of the

pre-historic times; in the Indian Ganas and sanghas of

the Lichchavis and the Shakyas, in the Mesopotamian

‘councils of elders’ and ‘council of young men’ or in the

Spartan ephors and paella of the proto-democratic

societies; in the Athenien Ecclesia of Solon and

Isonomia of Cleisthennes; in the Roman Assemblies; in

the medieval Collegia, guilds, Althing, Túatha, Veche,

Wiec, Elizate and Iroquois and in the pre-modern

parliamentary systems starting from 17th till 19th

centuries – it was always the privilege of a limited

section of society and could never take the form of a

popular democracy. We may at best call it an elitist

democracy because till the rise of the modern

democracies only some selected few were considered

worthy of being ‘citizens’; most of the other residents

were either slaves, prisoners, women, foreigners etc.

who had no rights of participation in the functioning of

their governments.

It is now claimed that the post World War II has seen the

rise of true democracies in representative parliamentary

governments, formed on the basis of ‘general will’,

received through the votes of all adult citizens

irrespective of their caste, class, sex or origin, expressed

through various political parties contesting elections to

form these governments. It is also claimed that, although

political party system originated in Britain in its Civil

Wars of 1640 and 1650 with the Whigs and Tories, in

favour of and against the Parliamentary system,

respectively, it has gradually come to successfully

channelize peoples’ political sentiments into various

ideological groups in the modern times. But even these

representative parliamentary democracies formed on the

basis of universal suffrage have not been able to allow

their citizens to actually opine and participate in their

functioning.

Roy had foreseen this catastrophe sixty five years ago.

While writing about the defects of the formal

parliamentary system of democracy he had

emphasized upon the need to directly vest

people, in their entirety, with political powers

so that they may themselves take part in the

day to day making and implementation of

those policies of government which influenced

their lives directly or indirectly.

He had shown little confidence in the

representatives of people selected by the party high

commands and then elected by the people in the name

and popularity of the parties they represented.

He was right in his inhibition because as we observe

today this process always puts the cart before the horse.

The elected candidate knows he has been elected

because his political party has been voted to power and

so he begins to represent his party and not his voters in

the parliament or state legislative assembly and

continues to toe its lines till he is in power. It becomes

the collective responsibility of elected members to

remain collectively and individually responsible to their

respective political parties. In this process, the power is

delegated into hands which serve their political parties

and not their voters. They obviously work for the vested

interests of their parties till they wield authority and not

for the victimized voters because they have no doubts

about the source of origin of their power which is the

party and not the voter.

Things have come to such a pass now that a voter least

considers the qualities and capabilities of the candidate

who has been selected to contest the elections for his

constituency. He directly reflects upon the personality

and characteristics of that leader of this candidate’s party

who may become the Chief Minister or Prime Minister if

this candidate wins in his constituency.

Democratic power has become so illusive for the voter

that it is not only in his local constituency where it is lost;

it has gone farther away, into the hands of the national

leadership of particular political parties.

Is then, the ideal of democracy an impractical

proposition? No it is not.

If we go through the twenty two principles of Radical

Humanism we will come to realize that democracy can

really be achieved in its true form only by evolving a

system of participatory democracy.

Well, that in the next month’s editorial!

2


Rekha Saraswat

From The Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism – A casefor Atheism

Translated by —Arundhati Khandkar

[The book Spiritual Materialism – A case for

Atheism, A New Interpretation of the

Philosophy of Materialism written by

Tarkateertha Laxmanshastri Joshi has been

translated by his daughter, Arundhati

Khandkar, who was formerly Professor of

Philosophy at S.I.E.S. College, University of

Mumbai, India. He passed away many decades

ago but his contribution in building up the

philosophical base of Radical Humanism has

been no less. Roy acknowledged it in his life time

and the followers of the philosophy continue to do

so. I had requested Ms. Khandkar to translate her

father’s major works from to Marathi to English

for the benefit of the contemporary readers of RH.

And to our pleasant surprise she informed that

there is already the above mentioned book in

English done by her. It is being serialised in The

Radical Humanist June 2010 onwards. She has

also promised to send us in English, gradually,

more of his Marathi literature.

Laxmanshastri wrote this essay with the title

Materialism or Atheism in 1941. How

meaningful and necessary it is, even now, 70

years later, can be understood by the following

paragraph given on the cover page of the book.

—Rekha Saraswat

Giver of Moral Laws

The sixth proof:

Here we present the evidence for the existence of

god, originating out of ethical considerations. All

men or living beings need in this world, a provider

of the laws and norms of morality and immorality

and of deeds good and bad and of behavior, sacred

and profane. Moreover, we need a ruler who not

only enforces justice but is also a judge, supreme

and infallible. If he were absent, the rationale for all

the ethical values, the sacred and the profane or the

beneficent and the maleficent, will become

untenable.

Human Frailties and Promise from Above

Man errs and prejudges! Unless we submit to an

Almighty with moral authority, flawless and

impartial, the sphere of anarchy and criminality

will spread in this world unchecked. Not having

discovered in this world, a decisive criterion for

moral discrimination, for rationality and for

goodness, there will prevail in this world an

everlasting power, extremely harshed readful and

devoid of any pity. Man, the thinking animal,

however, conducts his life believing that there

exists in this world the highest place for reason and

goodness. A promise has been received in the

human heart from somewhere out there, that truth

alone triumphs in the end and falsehood loses.

Brave Men: Firefighters, Soldiers,

Revolutionaries, & Ordinary People

Many ordinary people or fighters for a cause resist

temptations, cast away riches, and accept hellish

dangers and most life-threatening situations. Death

inflicts endless pain on many in different ways and

destroys lives. These are the people who with

Himalayan steadfastness, unflinching courage and

serenity face adverse circumstances. Such courage

and serenity originate in moral faith. God is the

source of that indestructible faith.

Questions Dear to Heart

Here in this universe, must exist someone, who

brings beautiful rewards for the good deeds and


3

Laxman S. Joshi

penalties to people for their wrongful and evil acts.

There must also exist a conscious power that

decides which is a good act and which is an evil

one. How can man, otherwise, have conviction that

‘I must do good and commit no sin?’ Who is there

to instruct a human being to make a clear

distinction between deeds good and evil?

Supreme Being

Well, there does reside in the heart of every man a

feeling of compulsion to approve good deeds and

reject the evil ones. That resolute feeling is not

under the strict command of man. The emotional

control in a human being is not his own creation.

Someone has placed him, his intellect and his heart

permanently under this control. That someone

alone is god. He has provided man with such a

restraint. God is the kinsman for all men. He is the

creator of ethical relations for all human beings. He

is their nearest relative and also the closest of them

all. This means, he is the father, mother and a

friend. He is the Paramatman, the supreme soul

because he inspires them all from within their soul.

Counter Point: Man Legislator and Judge of Moral

Law

The inferential evidence rooted in morality, for

proving the existence of god is also erroneous.

According to this proof, one is compelled to

postulate god for two reasons. Firstly, for handing

down the moral laws and secondly, giving reward

or punishment according to these moral laws. Both

these reasons do not generate a compelling proof of

god. Moral laws are only decided upon by men. For

the conduct of straight and smooth social behaviour

moral laws or rules of conduct, good or bad, have

been created. Human race continuously gains

experiences such as, how in the absence of laws of

morality, lives of men, personal or social, become

overall unsuccessful or rewardless or end in

unexpected disasters. Men need good light, clean

air, and water and nourishing food. So he has to

understand the nature of these needs. In the same

way, he needs wisdom to discern between good and

bad behaviour. As man understands the causation

of physical phenomena, he also understands

through his intellect and with effort, the causation

of human behaviour.

Human Experience of Degradation, Social and

Personal

Human beings with experience can determine the

laws of physical well-being. We do experience the

terrible consequences of conflict and violence, here

in this world. We also regularly experience that we

acquire prosperity through mutual cooperation,

compassion and love. If falsehood and deception

become rampant in all walks of life, we have no

need for god to tell us that all social activities will

start degenerating. What is the necessity of divine

vision, divine faith or divine inspiration for

proclaiming that the safety of life and property of

everybody depends on morality?

Mind: No Clean Slate

One can make a counter point that the convictions

about morality or immorality do not involve the

kind of thinking presented above. Just as eyes see

that, ‘The flower is beautiful!’, so does the

objective mind understand the behaviour, good or

not good. For the purpose of such understanding,

therefore, we need not understand the principle of

causality. One rebuts this counterpoint easily as

follows. The distinction between good and bad is

possible not only because of the cultivation of

human reason from very childhood but also

because of its continuing refinement through the

practical experiences of life. Moral faith has come

to man through a long difficult struggle. The mind,

if it were a clean slate (Tabula Rasa) meaning

devoid of any experience, will not be able to

understand either morality or immorality. Such a

mind, in this world, as Tabula Rasa, is difficult to

acquire. Nevertheless, no one has been yet

discovered to own such a mind.

Mind: Social Slate

Man is born in an environment of social and

religious activities and institutions. He learns a

specific language, acquires ides, likes and dislikes,

and rules of all kinds of behaviour from elders


4

around. He also studies moral values from the same

extended family. In order that these moral rules are

obeyed in proper spirit by every member of a

society and not be transgressed, religious

institutions attempt continuously to drum up the

emotion, that god or a divine ruling power is the

source of moral laws. As a consequence of these

efforts, moral emotion takes a deep root in the

mind. The moral faith then takes such a strong hold,

that men even stop thinking that there exists a

history of that faith which informs us that it is

neither innate nor inherited. As a result we begin to

think that the evidence of the objective mind is not

sufficient enough to distinguish between good and

bad.

Nature of Moral Laws

The real situation, however, is not like that. The

nature and the laws of morality are neither eternal

nor universal. It is so since the nature of moral

science is not the same in everyone. The character

of moral faith is multifarious in different social

environments. Besides, we do find a very large

historical record of the moral values. Moral

concepts at all times and among all kinds of human

groups are not at all the same. Historians tell us that

once upon a time, men thought the custom of

human sacrifice was sacred. If all the human beings

would have had, at all times, in all the countries, the

same moral concepts, it would have been plausible

to say that those have been given to man by god and

also to say that those have not been created by man.

Glimpse of Ancient History of Morality in India

Killing an animal in a sacrificial ritual, the Yadnya,

was considered to be a religious act by the Vedic

Aryans. The same, however, was thought to be

irreligious and immoral by a follower of Charvaka,

a Jainist or a Buddhist. Hindu conformists in India,

feel that it is extremely irreligious and inauspicious

to touch the low caste individuals such as Mang, the

hangman, Mahar, the cobbler, etc. Any business

with them involving close contact is also looked

down upon. The modern reformists, however, think

that the belief in untouchability is in itself, immoral

and sinful.

Glimpse of Recent History of Morality in Europe

The Germans, who followed Hitler, considered it a

virtue to place Jews, Slavs, Hindus, Chinese and

Muslims in permanent slavery and also to plunder,

deceive and defraud the non-German human

communities for the good of the Germans. The

contemporary Russian socialists, however, held

exactly the opposite view. They considered the

German morality as vicious and believed that it is a

moral virtue to struggle for equal freedom for all

the human races and groups. What followers of

Hitler considered as god-inspired was thought to be

unnatural, abhorrent and demonic by the fellow

travellers of Marx and Lenin. The relevant question

here, however, is as follows. How is it possible that

if god would have adjudicated morality or

immorality, moral faith could have differed so

widely? If god alone were to be the inspiration for

the propagation of moral faith, it would not have

differed according to region, time and social

environment!

View of Some Primitives about Moral Reward

Let us examine the moral faith, that ‘if today one

fails to get one’s moral reward, it will certainly

come to him sometime in the future.’ Such a faith is

not found in a similar form among all human

groups. Among the religions of many primitive

communities, the concept of life in the other world

did not exist, not does it still exist. Therefore, the

faith such as ‘Reward for the deeds of life here, in

this birth, must be in store for the next life’ will be

absent in those communities.

Different Beliefs about Life Hereafter

Again, among different religious groups, who

entertain the idea of life in the next world, there is

no conceptual similarity. Christians and Muslims

do not believe in cycles of many births. According

to their religion until the arrival of the final day

after birth, departed souls lie in a state of

suspension, the limbo, until summoned. On the

Day of Judgment, they are transported according to


5

their deeds into heaven or hell. According to the

Hindu religion, living beings from times

immemorial, while travelling from one life to

another and while making innumerable journeys

from heaven to hell, sometime just by sheer luck

they obtain Brahmadnyana meaning the knowledge

of the Supreme Being. Accordingly, on acquiring

such knowledge, a man is freed from the cycle of

rebirth.

They Act with or without Reward

According to both the religions, Christianity and

Islam, the very environment an individual obtains

at birth is not the result of his own doing. It means

we are not responsible for our inherited situation. If

we examine human history of the last three

centuries, we find that innumerable human beings

are truly devoid of the feeling that a person must

obtain for his deeds at least once, a fruit sweet or

bitter. They endure hardships and participate in

revolutionary events. In the fulfilment of goals such

as national independence, democracy and

socialism, unaccountable number of human beings

have suffered and are still suffering immeasurably.

In these efforts, there is no connection observed

with the life hereafter or the faith in the moral

reward described above. Countless individuals in

the past three centuries, struggling unceasingly for

the realization of the above goals, had no such faith

that the reward for their good deeds will be

available only for themselves. The thought such as

‘Morality is a victor!’ or ‘Immorality is a loser for

sure!’ does not figure in the causality calculus of

many. Still they act, following the ethical path and

forsaking the unethical path. In the pursuit of their

objectives, however, they have to possess intense

and powerful desire in the victory of their own good

deeds and in the defeat of the evil. In short, we say

that even if human beings feel certain, that there

exists a moral reward for good deeds, the

conclusion that therefore, there must exist a god,

the distributor of such reward, does not meet the

test of critical reasoning.


6

Anti Caste Movement inAncient and Medieval India

—R.M. Pal

I give below a summary account of the

movement to eradicate caste in ancient and

medieval India. This movement relates to our

non-Sanskritik tradition. I believe that knowledge

of this tradition and contributions made during this

period will inspire our human rights activists and

government planners involved in the task of

uplifting the deprived section of the population. A

mere textbook reading of our constitutional

provisions and UN Charter will not succeed in

developing a human rights culture. During the

Buddhist period, interest in man, man in his own

image (not in God’s image) that is, interest in man’s

affairs on this earth unlike interest in god and

goddesses and good life in heaven after death, this

earth being a vale of tears, became a primary

concern of thoughtful men and women. Buddha

rejected the caste system. Human sufferings made

Prince Gautam restless and he left all luxuries and

comforts of the king’s palace in search of remedies

for all human miseries on this earth. The basic

tenets of Buddhism are non-violence, non-hatred

and friendliness to all. Emperor Ashoka who

became a devoted follower of Buddha took to the

humanitarian and humanist philosophy of

Buddhism. Also, he became a great champion of

freedom and tolerance. One of the most significant

contributions of Buddhism was the introduction

and spread of secular education for all. Organized

universities came to be established under the direct

influence of Buddhism.

There were other non-Vedic sects like the Nath,

Yoga, Siddharcara who too, like the Buddhists

found the key to all religious mysteries in the

human body of itself: the position of the

Nathpanthi, Siddhas and Yogis in the Hindu

society need to be understood. Most of the

Nathpanthi, Siddhas and Yogis belong to the low

castes, opposed caste based inequalities denounced

the religion of monks favoured by the Brahmins

and did not favour image worship. In short they

wanted to demolish the Brahminical religion.

Furthermore, women played an important part in

these sects.

There are other folk religions/sects, which came

into prominence in the medieval period, the

well-known Bhakti movement and

the baulmovement in Bengal. They are remarkable

for their simplicity, directness and for preaching

and practicing tolerance, love and friendliness.

Bhakti, the path of devotion implies and belief in

the supreme person not in a supreme abstraction. It

is therefore a straightforward and unsophisticated

belief. This movement has non-Aryan roots; in fact

according to some scholars it originated in the

Dravid country. It was opposed by the Brahmins

for a long time because of its utter disregard for

caste divisions, religious rituals and ceremonies.

The tradition of Bhakti has played an important part

among the Tamils as mentioned in the works of the

Alvar saints most of whom came from low castes.

In the beginning the movement was restricted to the

lower strata of the society who were opposed by the

Brahmin religion. At a later stage, Vaishnavas of

even higher castes hailed their literature. One Alvar

saint, Andal belonged to a low caste; she was

accepted as a religious leader by the society in

general. This is an indication of the popularity of

the Bhakti movement. The great scholar Ramanuja,

the best known exponent of this movement was

influenced and inspired by the works of the Alvars,

which were collected by the disciples of Ramanuja

at his special request and from which Ramanuja

himself drew much inspiration and food for his

system of thought.

Next a brief look at the advent of Islam in India is

necessary. Islam led to a series of responses. We

can ill afford to ignore them as also the creative

influence of Islam. An analysis of the Muslim

conquest of India is of practical value and will help

Indians both Hindus and Muslims appreciate the

positive results of the Muslim conquest of India.

Among other reasons, for a solution of the

7


communal question which has been one of the

major sources, along with the caste system of

human rights violations. It may be noted in this

context that Europe came out of the shackles of the

dark ages and the Middle Ages and entered the

civilized era by learning from the Muslims. It is

equally true that a large number of Hindu

reformers, largely of the Bhakti movement in

medieval India, who revolted against orthodoxy,

were considerably influenced by the Muslim

conquest and its social effects. The devotional

Bhakti movement and the Islamic Sufi movement

both have much in common. In medieval north

India mysticism was the product of both the Bhakti

movement and the tradition of the Sufis. One

important aspect of this mysticism is its complete

independence from orthodox scriptures. These

teachers practiced and taught tolerance.

The interaction of Bhakti and Islam, especially the

Sufi idea gave rise to a number of progressive

movements with the core philosophy of tolerance.

It should therefore be emphasized in our textbooks

that the relations between Islam and the religions of

the area (South Asia) were marked by mutual

understanding and tolerance. This spirit was to a

large extent by the rise and spread of Sufi and

Bhakti ideas.

Our students must be reminded over and over again

of what Tagore had said; “The Sakas, the Huns, the

Pathans and the Moghuls – all have been merged

into one body, with a view to combating the

religious frenzy that has been playing havoc in our

country.” We must remind ourselves of the

forgotten fact of history that a distinctive feature of

the thought and life of the peoples of the South

Asian region is their adherence to the tradition of

tolerance, syncretism and coexistence and (in this

context) the coming of Islam was an event of

outstanding significance for the history of this

subcontinent. This syncretic and humanist tradition

in South Asian society and social thought is

remarkably portrayed in the following poem of

Kazi Nazrul Islam:

“I sing the song of equality

Where all barriers crumbled

All differences have failed

And Hindus – Buddhists – Muslims – Christians

Have come together and have urged

I sing the song of equality.”

We must remind ourselves over and over again that

a pluralistic society can flourish only if its basic

value remains tolerance. At the same time we must

not make the mistake of treating tolerance and

pluralism interchangeably. Let us be clear that

these two are not the same thing. Namdev and

Tukaram from Maharashtra, the former a tailor and

the latter a peasant, made the Bhakti movement

popular and acceptable to the people. In Bengal the

well-known Vaishnav poets Jaidev, Vidyapati,

Chandidas and also Chaitanya popularized the

movement. During this period the movement

spread to almost all parts of India.

Though the movement did not succeed in breaking

through caste barriers, the very fact that any of its

leaders belonged to lower castes and also that it

believed in the equality of men must be taken note

of by present day activists and reformers.

In the 14th century Ramanand (1370-1440)

challenged caste divisions, revolted against

preaching in Hindi and not Sanskrit which was the

preserve of the upper caste. His thought is well

reflected in the following words: wherever I go I

see water and stone; but it is you who had filled

them all with your presence, in vain do they seek

you in the Vedas (Gurugranth Sahib). Ramanand

had 12 important disciples. They all belonged to

low castes. One of them, Ravidas, was a cobbler.

The recitation of the Vedic mantras even for many

million of times will not satisfy the pangs of that

longing (to see you), sang Ravidas (Gurugranth

Sahib). The most famous disciple was Sheikh

Kabiruddin. Sufi and bhakti traditions of the

Islamic and Hindu religions blended in his

teachings.

8


Science by Think TankThe Rise of Think Tanks and

the Decline of PublicIntellectuals

—by Massimo Pigliucci

[Prof. Massimo Pigliucci is a Professor of

Philosophy at the City University of New York

and a regular columnist for Skeptical

Inquirer and Philosophy Now. In the areas of

outreach and critical thinking, Pigliucci has

published in Skeptical Inquirer, Philosophy Now,

and The Philosopher’s Magazine, among others.

He has published over a hundred technical

papers and several books. He pens the Rationally

Speaking blog, co-hosts the Rationally

Speaking podcast, and has authored the popular

science book Denying Evolution: Creationism,

Scientism and the Nature of Science. His

forthcoming book is The Intelligent Person’s

Guide to the Meaning of Life (Basic Books). You

may check out his author page on Amazon to see

his other books.]

Are public intellectuals in the 21st century

an endangered species or a thriving new

breed? Before we can sensibly ask whether public

intellectuals are on the ascent, the decline, or

something entirely different, we need to agree on

what exactly, or even approximately, constitutes a

public intellectual. It turns out that this isn’t a

simple task and that the picture one gets from the

literature on intellectualism depends largely on

what sort of people one counts as “public

intellectuals,” or, for that matter, what sort of

activities count as intellectual to begin with.

Nonetheless, some people (usually intellectuals)

have actually spent a good deal of time thinking

about such matters and have come up with some

useful suggestions. For example, in Public

Intellectuals: An Endangered Species? Amitai

Etzioni quotes the Enlightenment figure Marquis

de Condorcet to the effect that intellectuals are

people who devote themselves to “the tracking

down of prejudices in the hiding places where

priests, the schools, the government and all

long-established institutions had gathered and

protected them.”1Or perhaps one could go with the

view of influential intellectual Edward Said, who

said that intellectuals should “question patriotic

nationalism, corporate thinking, and a sense of

class, racial or gender privilege.”2 Should one feel

less romantic (even a bit cynical, perhaps) about the

whole idea, one might prefer instead Paul Johnson,

who said that “a dozen people picked at random on

the street are at least as likely to offer sensible

views on moral and political matters as a

cross-section of the intelligentsia.”3Or go with

David Carter, who wrote in the Australian

Humanities Review that “public intellectuals might

be defined as those who see a crisis where others

see an event.”4

Regardless of how critical one is of the very idea of

public intellectualism, everyone seems to agree that

there are a few people out there who embody— for

better or worse—what a public intellectual is

supposed to be. By far the most often cited example

is the controversial linguist and political activist

Noam Chomsky. Indeed, his classic article “The

Responsibility of Intellectuals,” written in 1963 for

the New York Review of Books, is a must-read by

anyone interested in the topic, despite its specific

focus on the Vietnam War (then again, some

sections could have been written during the much

more recent second Iraq War, almost without

changing a word).5

For Chomsky the basic idea is relatively clear:

“Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of

governments, to analyze actions according to their

causes and motives and often hidden intentions….

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the

truth and to expose lies.”6 Yet one could argue that

it is the responsibility of any citizen in an open

society to do just the sort of things that Chomsky

says intellectuals ought to do, and indeed I doubt

9


Chomsky would disagree. But he claims that

intellectuals are in a special position to do what he

suggests. How so? It is not that Chomsky is

claiming that only genetically distinct subspecies

of human beings possess special reasoning powers

allowing them to be particularly incisive critics of

social and political issues. Rather, it is that

intellectuals—at their best—are more insightful in

social criticism because they can afford to devote a

lot of time to reading and discussing

ideas—something that most people trying to make

a living simply do not have the time or energy to do.

Moreover, intellectuals have a duty to be so

engaged with society because often their vantage

point is the result of a privileged position granted

them by society, most obviously in the case of

academic intellectuals (but also journalists, some

artists, and assorted others), who are somewhat

shielded from most direct political influence or

financial constraints, and whose professional ethos

requires intellectual honesty and rigor. Of course,

none of this guarantees that public intellectuals

always get it right, or that they always further the

welfare of society. The classic counter- example,

mentioned by Chomsky himself, is the philosopher

Martin Heidegger.

Heidegger is a controversial figure, to say the least,

both academically and politically (not unlike

Chomsky himself, though the similarity ends

there). Some commentators consider him one of the

greatest of modern philosophers; others think that

his writings are full of obfuscatory language and

sheer nonsense. He was the mentor of Leo

Strauss—who in turn inspired the modern

neoconservative movement—as well as the father

of several movements that feature prominently in

the “culture wars,” such as deconstructionism and

postmodernism. At any rate, Heidegger was elected

rector of the University of Freiburg in Germany in

1933, under the auspices of the Hitler regime. The

inaugural address he delivered is in fact a good

example of convoluted nonsense, and it just as

clearly represents the exact antithesis of what a

public intellectual should be.

After having waxed poetic about spiritual missions

and the “essence” of German universities,

Heidegger went on to say that “German students

are on the march. And whom they are seeking are

those leaders through whom they want to elevate

their own purpose so that it becomes a grounded,

knowing truth,” a rather ominous presage of things

to come for the German youth. And he kept going:

“Out of the resoluteness of the German students to

stand their ground while German destiny is in its

most extreme distress comes a will to the essence of

the university…. The much-lauded ‘academic

freedom’ will be expelled from the German

university.”7 Heidegger’s connection with the

Nazis will forever taint his legacy, making him a

permanent warning to aspiring public intellectuals

about what route not to follow.

Chomsky, on the other hand—in a prose infinitely

clearer and more compelling than Heidegger’s

—raises the question of what the duty of an

intellectual ought to be, and answers that she has to

be concerned with the creation and analysis of

ideologies, including those endorsed or produced

by intellectuals themselves. Since the public

intellectual, according to Chomsky, has to insist on

truth, she also has to see things in their historical

perspective, truly to learn from history rather than

be bound to repeat the same mistakes over and

over. Of course, the whole concept of “truth,” and

by implication the efficacy of both science and of

intellectual discourse, has been questioned by those

academic heirs of Heidegger known as

postmodernists. Setting that aside for a moment,

however, there are in fact other ways of being

skeptical of the whole idea of public

intellectualism, for example in the analysis of

Richard Posner, author of Public Intellectuals: A

Study in Decline.8

Posner was a professor at the University of Chicago

Law School and later became a judge on the U.S.

Court of Appeals (Seventh Circuit), to which he

was nominated by President Reagan. By all

accounts, Posner is considered a major and

influential legal theorist. Despite being a highly

10


regarded intellectual, his analysis of intellectuals as

a breed is anything but sympathetic, although he

makes several interesting points that we need to

consider while attempting to put together a general

picture of intellectualism and how it relates to

public understanding of science. Posner, by his

own account, wrote his book as a result of what he

perceived as the low quality of public intellectuals’

commentaries in two high-profile cases in which he

was involved: the impeachment hearings of

President Clinton and the antitrust case against

Microsoft. Posner’s thesis is that there has indeed

been a decline of intellectuals in the United States,

but that this isn’t a matter of fewer of them being

around. On the contrary, the “market” for

intellectualism has allegedly increased

dramatically in recent years, but the quality of the

individuals populating such a market has decreased

sharply.

Posner accounts for this double trend (increase in

quantity and decrease in quality) with an ingenious,

if certainly debatable, analysis of some of the

forces shaping both the supply of and the demand

for public intellectuals. On the supply side,

intellectuals are now almost exclusively an

academic phenomenon. Gone are the days of Zola

and (Anatole) France, when it was the independent

artist or writer who was more likely to be outspoken

about social matters. Instead, the rise of universities

(in terms of both numbers and financial resources)

after World War II has catalyzed a shift toward

academic-type intellectuals. Academics are better

positioned than independents to play a role in

public discourse because they are more readily

perceived as credentialed individuals, and they can

afford to stick their neck out about controversial

matters in the relative safety of a tenured position.

Not that all is good and well for academics who

wish to venture in the public arena. As Posner

points out, there are pros and cons that need to be

carefully evaluated. On the side of incentives there

is the possibility of monetary reward (academic

salaries aren’t what they used to be), though it is

fairly rare that an academic actually lands a major

book contract or is in sufficient demand to

command significant honoraria for speaking

engagements.

On the side of disincentives, there are several, some

potentially career-crippling. To begin with, the

more time an academic devotes to speaking and

writing for the public, the less time she has to

engage in scholarship and research—and it is the

latter that gets you tenure and promotions, which

helps explain why most public academics are

middle aged, post-tenure, and possibly past their

intellectual prime. Moreover, the myth of the ivory

tower is anything but a myth: despite occasional

protestations to the contrary, most academics

themselves see engaging the public as a somewhat

inferior activity, sought after by people who are

vain, in search of money, not particularly brilliant

scholars, or all of the above. According to Amitai

Etzioni, after his death astronomer and science

writer Carl Sagan was referred to as a “cunning

careerist” and a “compulsive popularizer”—not

exactly encouraging words for other scientists

considering following in his footsteps.9

Posner also turns his analysis to the other side of the

coin, looking into what sort of demand there might

be for public intellectuals. He suggests that there

are at least three “goods” that public intellectuals

may be “selling,” and that therefore influence the

level of “demand” for intellectuals themselves.

Besides the obvious one, that is, presumably

authoritative opinions on current issues of general

relevance, there are what Posner calls

“entertainment” and “solidarity” values.

There is little question that we live in a society in

which entertainment, broadly defined, reigns

supreme. The nightly news, not to mention the 24-

hour news channels, are increasingly less about

serious journalism and more about sensationalism

or soft news, so much so that one can make a not

entirely preposterous argument that The Daily

Show with Jon Stewart is actually significantly

more informative than the real news shows that it is

meant to spoof. As biologist Richard Dawkins

11


lamented,10 we think that our kids need to have

“fun, fun, fun” rather than, say, experience wonder

or interest (they are not the same thing) when going

to school or a museum. It is therefore no surprise

that even intellectuals have to possess an

entertainment value of sorts, although it is of course

difficult to quantify it and its effect, if any, on the

demand for public intellectuals. Such effect will

also depend greatly on the specific media outlet:

while there are plenty of TV channels and

newspapers for which the entertainment value is

probably close to the top of priorities, there are still

serious media outlets out there (BBC radio and TV,

National Public Radio, Public Television, the New

York Times, the Washington Post, The

Guardian, The Economist,Slate.com,

and Salon.com come to mind, among many others)

where the relevance and insight of what the

intellectual has to say are paramount.

We come next to the concept of “solidarity value”

proposed by Posner. This is often underestimated,

but I suspect it does play an increasingly important

(and, unfortunately, negative) role in public

discourse. The idea is that many, perhaps most,

people don’t actually want to be informed, and

even less so challenged in their beliefs and

worldview. Rather, they want to see a champion

defending their preconceived view of the world, a

sort of ideological knight in shining armor.

Blatantly partisan outlets such as Fox News (on the

right), Air America (on the left), and the countless

number of Evangelical Christian radio stations are

obvious examples of this phenomenon, but perhaps

the most subtle and pernicious incarnations of it are

all over the Internet. The characteristics of that

medium are such that it is exceedingly easy to

customize your access so that you will only read

what people “on your side” are saying, never to be

exposed to a single dissenting viewpoint. While

blogs, for example, are indubitably a revolutionary

and potentially very powerful way to expand social

discourse, it is also very easy to bookmark or

subscribe by feed to a subset selected in order to

further entrench, rather than challenge, your

opinions.

All things considered, Posner’s arguments point

toward a level of supply and demand for public

intellectuals that translate into a larger number of

them than probably at any time in history. But, of

course, quantity is rarely an indication of quality,

which brings us to Posner’s contention that the

decline of the intellectual is a matter of lowered

quality. There are fundamentally three reasons for

this conclusion, all of which are circumstantial, as it

is very hard to assess the quality of public

intellectual discourse in any objective and

statistically quantifiable way. We have already

seen the first reason: since intellectuals are sought

after at least in part for their entertainment and

solidarity values, and given that neither of these is

presumably related at all to the degree of insight

offered by the opinions being delivered, quality is

liable to suffer.

The second reason advanced by Posner is the

inevitable march of academia toward increased

specialization of its scholars. Remember that most

modern intellectuals are academics, and they are

successful within academia because they specialize

in incredibly narrow fields of scholarship and

research— since most of the broad ones have

already been covered exhaustively by their

predecessors. For example, the joke used to be that

philosophers are people who know nothing about

everything (they are intellectual generalists), while

scientists know everything about nothing (they are

intellectual specialists). But in today’s universities,

even philosophers are converging toward the

stereotype of the scientist: I know colleagues in

philosophy departments who spend a lifetime

publishing analyses of the work of just one (usually

long-dead) philosopher, and often not a major one

at that. Similarly, some of my colleagues in science

think it absolutely crucial to invest many hundreds

of thousands of dollars and countless

graduate-student years to figure out whether an

obscure species of mushroom is by any chance

found also in Antarctica. This is the way it must

work if one wishes to contribute something truly

12


novel to one’s field.

Finally, there is the failure of the so-called

marketplace of ideas, which Posner is one of the

few to keenly recognize. The phrase originated

with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote the

dissenting opinion in the infamous Abrams v.

United States case argued in 1919 in front of the

Supreme Court that was a test of a law passed the

year before that made criticism of the U.S.

government a criminal offense. The law was

upheld, and the statute not invalidated

until Brandenburg v. Ohio, during the Vietnam

War. Holmes wrote passionately about the

safeguard for freedom of speech enshrined in the

American Constitution, arguing that “the ultimate

good desired is better reached by free trade in

ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the

thought to get itself accepted in the competition of

the market, and that truth is the only ground upon

which [men’s] wishes safely can be carried out.

That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution.”

Holmes was correct in suggesting that a necessary

condition for maximizing our chances to find the

truth about whatever subject matter or for reaching

a consensus on moral and social issues is to allow

ideas to “compete” for people’s minds and hearts.

Posner’s point is that this is by no means a

sufficient condition. There is need of a second

factor in addition to the free marketplace of ideas,

and this is that for the best ideas to win the

competition the judges must be, well, competent.

But the judges here aren’t indisputable facts that

can be verified by anyone; they are the opinions of a

generally badly informed and undereducated (with

respect to the relevant issues) public. This is a

public that has little time for the sort of in-depth

analyses and research that would allow it to

actually assess the contributions of intellectuals on

their merit. Ironically, this is precisely why

Chomsky says that it is up to intellectuals, not the

public, to do the hard work of research and

documentation. The problem, Posner suggests, is

that the public tends to go by much less reliable

proxies of quality, such as credentials (but, really, it

isn’t that difficult to get a Ph.D., even from a

reputable university) and the rhetorical abilities of

the intellectuals themselves.

There is much to be commended in Posner’s

analysis of the decline of the modern intellectual,

and yet one cannot help thinking that it is somewhat

self-destructive for intellectuals such as Posner to

be so critical of their own role in society. A good

reality check is a positive and necessary part of

public as well as academic discourse, but an

exceedingly negative attitude soon breeds

contempt for intellectual discourse itself and a

nihilistic dismissal of it.

A more positive approach to the analysis of

contemporary intellectualism is perhaps provided

by Frank Furedi in his Where Have All the

Intellectuals Gone? which starts out not with

self-criticism, but with ridiculing politicians in

charge of public education, namely, the then

Labour secretary of state for education in the UK,

Charles Clarke. Clarke characterized the idea of

education for its own sake—the very foundation of

the so-called liberal educational approach common

in modern universities—as “dodgy,” which can be

interpreted to mean anything from dishonest and

unreliable to potentially dangerous. Clarke’s

opinion is that the government should not support

“the medieval concept of a community of scholars

seeking truth.”11 Along similar lines, former U.S.

President Ronald Reagan infamously said during

his campaign for governor of California in the late

1960s that universities should not subsidize

intellectual curiosity.

Of course Furedi is fully cognizant of the fact that a

liberal education, just like the idea of a fearless

public intellectual, is an ideal and has never

corresponded to a historical reality at any point in

the past. But it makes a big difference in terms of

attitudes and motivations whether we consider an

ideal a goal to strive for or we dismiss it as

irrelevant, outdated, or even positively dangerous.

While Furedi devotes some space to blaming

postmodernism for the decline of intellectualism, a


13

more intriguing observation is that intellectualism

is on the retreat just at the time we keep hearing of a

“knowledge economy” and when bookstores, book

clubs, poetry readings, museums, and galleries are

doing increasingly well, to the point of having a

single TV show in the United States (The Oprah

Winfrey Show) determining which book will

become the next overnight bestseller. Yet this

apparent paradox is actually explainable by the

same distinction that Posner made about

intellectuals themselves: quantity does not

necessarily translate into quality. While bookstores

are increasingly popular, there are basically only

two or three major chains left in most parts of the

United States (and at least one of them is rumored

to be close to bankruptcy), which means that a

small number of individuals wields a huge amount

of decision power when it comes to which books to

promote and which to relegate to the back shelves

or even keep out of the store (and, largely, off the

market). Winfrey, to her credit, has almost

singlehandedly made the rather esoteric and

somewhat snobbish idea of a book club one of the

most popular activities engaged in by scores of

Americans. Then again, some of her picks have

been embarrassing, as in the infamous case of

James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces), who

turned out to have made up large parts of his

allegedly autobiographical story (Winfrey

eventually challenged him on her show, but her

initial response was that he may have been telling a

subjective truth—a perfect postmodernist and

nonsensical way of saving face).

Furedi identifies another culprit in the ongoing

quest for the disappearance of the public

intellectual: the assault on meritocracy. Americans

in particular have always had a rather bipolar

attitude toward meritocracy: on the one hand, the

United States was established by people whose

very creed included the idea that it is merit, not

birthright that ought to determine one’s fortunes.

American bookstores abound with large sections of

books written by successful people telling others

how to become successful, and American CEOs

and sports figures are lionized because of their

merits, not because of their family trees. Then

again, one of the reasons Al Gore lost the 2000

presidential election against George W. Bush is

because Gore was seen as an “egg-headed

intellectual,” obviously an insult, not a

compliment.

Furedi’s take is that over the past several decades

the very conception of meritocracy has shifted from

a powerful incentive paving the way to a fairer

society to an intrinsically anti-egalitarian and

undemocratic tool of oppression. The reasons for

this are many and complex, and they include the

rise of new philosophies of teaching within

education departments at colleges throughout the

nation, as well as the recognition of the sociological

fact that certain minorities tend to be at a

disadvantage in our meritocratic system as

presently constituted (this is not, obviously, a point

in favor of biological racism, but a concession to

the real difficulties in overcoming cultural

conditions and in creating a true level playing

field).

Furedi proposes the bold thesis that the currently

entrenched rejection of meritocracy is based on two

mistaken ideas: first, that a large section of the

population is somehow intrinsically incapable of

achieving high academic standards; and second,

that this failure leads to mental distress, and

therefore it is appropriate to substitute “feeling

good” for actual results. This is a recipe for disaster,

because, as Furedi puts it, “Rewarding merit

implies treating people as adults, whereas

magicking away the sense of failure is motivated by

the desire to treat them as children.”

Think-Tankery: From Intellectualism to

Spindoctorism?

Think tanks are now pervasive worldwide:

according to Diane Stone, as of the year 2000 there

were 4,000 think tanks active in nations across the

globe,12 and that number—very likely a gross

underestimation— has certainly gone up since.

Despite their number and prominent daily presence

14


in the news, there aren’t that many sociological

studies of think tanks, and even fewer critical

analyses of their role in shaping public opinion.

Indeed, there is not much agreement on what,

exactly, defines a think tank to begin with.

For the purposes of this discussion, I will use the

term “think tank” to refer to a specific kind of

organization, namely, a private group, usually but

not always privately funded, producing arguments

and data aimed at influencing specific sectors of

public policy. This definition, therefore, does not

apply to most advisory groups established by a

given government, nor to university institutes or

centers, nor to groups set up to resolve specific

problems within the normal operation of a

corporation. Although I am generally skeptical of

think tanks as a concept, and very critical of the

operation of specific ones, I do not mean to imply

that all think tanks are useless or pernicious, nor

that the general idea cannot in principle be pursued

in an honest and constructive fashion. But I am

struck by how little critical evaluation of the

phenomenon there seems to be, both in the

literature on think tanks and more importantly by

the media and politicians who are the primary

direct consumers of think tanks’ output.

Donald Abelson gives a useful historical

perspective on think tanks.13 According to Abelson,

the concept went through four relatively distinct

phases since its inception about a century ago. The

first generation of think tanks appeared in the early

1900s and was the product of the preoccupation of a

small number of rich entrepreneurs concerned with

the necessity of providing sound, rational advice to

the government at a time of increasing complexity

of both domestic and foreign policy problems.

Thus, people like Carnegie and Rockefeller

provided large permanent endowments to these

groups, which made them essentially independent

from government support (and, therefore,

influence) as well as freed them from the necessity

of continuously raising private money (again

emancipating them from possible leverage by their

donors).

That is how groups like the Brookings Institution

and the Russell Sage Foundation came about. They

operated according to a model of a “university

without students,” attracting scholars from across

the political spectrum, sharing the ideal (if not

necessarily the practice) that reason reaches across

ideologies. The results of these efforts were

significant in shaping American society during

most of the 20th Century, for example, producing a

national budget system as well as studies on the

causes of warfare.

The second phase of think tank history began after

World War II, when the government realized the

importance of supporting scientific research

because of its obvious relevance to all things

military. The National Science Foundation (not a

think tank) was established then, and so were think

tanks like the RAND (Research and Analysis)

Corporation. This is the first worrisome

development in the evolution of think-tankery,

since it obviously created a direct link between the

funding source (in this case the government) and

the recipient of research outcomes and policy

advice (also the government), thus violating the

intentions of the people who established the first

think tanks earlier in the century.

Be that as it may, a few decades later we witness

another change in concept, with the appearance in

the 1970s and 1980s of what Abelson calls

“advocacy think tanks.” These are groups like the

progressive Institute for Policy Studies and the

Center for American Progress, the libertarian Cato

Institute, and the conservative Heritage

Foundation. These think tanks tend to be

significantly smaller than their predecessors, are

dependent on continuous support by a large number

of relatively small donors, and, more importantly,

they often (though not always) blatantly blur the

lines between research and advocacy. It is hard to

read a “report” from some of these outlets and not

think that their “conclusions” were actually the

premises from which the whole exercise started, a

definite departure from the model of a

university—with or without students.

15


This is apparently an open secret, as the director of

a major policy institute told Abelson: “[Think

tanks] are tax-exempt cowboys defying the sheriff

with their political manipulations. They don’t want

to stimulate public dialogue; they’re out to impose

their own monologue.”14 Or as Leila Hudson put it:

“These institutions have substituted strategy for

discipline, ideological litmus tests for peer review,

tactics and technology for cultures and history,

policy for research and pedagogy, and hypothetical

for empiricals.”15 Another problem intrinsic to the

modus operandi of think tanks was best

summarized by an anonymous official quoted in an

article entitled “On Mediators: Intellectuals and the

Ideas Trade in the Knowledge Society,” by Thomas

Osborne: “One of the dilemmas of think tankery is

that you can either say something sensible,

practical and useful and have six civil servants and

their dog read it, or you can say something

spectacularly silly and have the media cover

it.”16 None of these quotes sounds exactly like

ringing endorsements of the idea of think tanks.

The last development in think tank evolution is

what Abelson calls “vanity think tanks.” These are

even smaller and more ephemeral operations, often

set up by individuals in pursuit of short-term

political goals, like Ross Perot’s United We Stand

or Newt Gingrich’s Progress and Freedom

Foundation. I will not examine these any further

because they are only marginally relevant to

science, if at all, although they have demonstrated

their ability to affect the outcome of elections, and

therefore— indirectly—to influence science

funding and education.

What has this to do with science? It is think tanks

like the American Enterprise Institute that have the

gall to bribe scientists so that they speak critically

of reports about global warming, and it is the

anti-evolution Discovery Institute, a think tank out

of Seattle, that is guided by a mandate founded on

“a belief in God-given reason and the permanency

of human nature,” rather than on the serious

examination of scientific theories such as

evolution.

Alina Gildiner goes into some detail about how

think-tankery concerning science dovetails into

spindoctoring rather than rigorous analysis of the

problem at hand.17 Gildiner quotes Laura Jones,

whose edited book on risk management has been

published by a think tank, the Fraser Institute, as

stating—without any data to back the claim up—

that “zealous anti-risk activists have heightened our

intolerance for small risks,” such as the number of

deaths resulting from wheels detaching from

transport trucks that were poorly maintained (in

Canada, government regulation lowered that

number from 215 in 1997 to 86 in 2000, and of

course the statistics do not include people who got

injured, sometimes seriously, from collisions with

the errant wheels). Another “exaggerated risk”

discussed by Jones’s authors is the connection

between secondhand smoking and cancer. Indeed,

the spindoctoring goes so far as taking a judge’s

decision to rescind the Environmental Protection

Agency’s rule that acknowledged secondhand

smoke as a carcinogen— a legalistic decision based

on procedural matters— as “evidence” that the

claim is scientifically unfounded.

While commenting on another book, written by

authors Robert Lichter (president of the think tank

Center for Media and Public Affairs and a paid

consultant for Fox News) and Stanley Rothman

(director of yet another think tank, the Center for

the Study of Social and Political Change), Gildiner

comments that one would look in vain for nuanced

discussions about what should influence public

policy. Rather, “what is to be found is a rhetorical,

agenda-narrowing usage of scientific language and

methods.”18 For example, Lichter and Rothman

comment with an authoritative tone on the link

between cancer and air and water pollutants,

despite the fact that neither of them is a scientist and

that their sources were almost 20 years out of date.

Science progresses; ideologies tend to linger

unchanged (and often unquestioned).

One doesn’t really need to read technical articles

about think tanks to get a good idea of what many

(again, not all) of them are about. Take a look at the

16


Web site of, for example, the Cato Institute

(cato.org) and examine their timeline of actions and

publications; it speaks for itself. In 1992 they

published Sound and Fury: The Science and

Politics of Global Warming, in which they state

that “there is neither theoretical nor empirical

evidence for a catastrophic greenhouse effect and

thus no case for what Vice President Al Gore calls a

‘wrenching transformation’ of the American

economy.” The following year, they produced

Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological

Apocalypse and Apocalypse Not: Science,

Economics, and Environmentalism. Jump to 2000

and you will find The Satanic Gases: Clearing the

Air about Global Warming. Is there a common

thread here?

Or visit the even more obviously slanted site of

the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which

the Wall Street Journal named (without a trace of

irony) “the best environmental think tank in the

country.” One of their “scholars,” Robert J. Smith,

proudly proposed the rather questionable concept

of “free-market environmentalism,” and

accordingly CEI was among the first organizations

to criticize, back in 1990, the Clean Air Act

amendments because they would “impose a new

regulatory burden that would lead to higher energy

prices” (perhaps, but would they make our air

cleaner and our quality of life better?). There is

more: CEI in 1992 “advised” the Food and Drug

Administration to approve recombinant bovine

somatotropin, which is a bioengineered growth

hormone. Now surely such a recommendation

would be accompanied by the further suggestion of

labeling the resulting products so that consumer

choice—that ultimate driver of market forces—

could be openly exercised? Think again: the CEI

argued that mandatory labeling of dairy products is

“inappropriate” because it violates the First

Amendment (which includes the right to free

speech—of the cows?).

In 1996 the CEI folks outdid themselves, launching

their Communications Project “with the aim of

showing how ‘values-based’ communications

strategies can help claim the moral high-ground for

our side, by making the case that capitalism is not

only efficient, but also fair and moral.”19 If this isn’t

a frank admission that the CEI isn’t at all in the

business of research but squarely in that of

advocacy, it’s hard to imagine what is. Moreover,

in 1999 CEI published a monograph arguing that

the dumping (not their term) of trash in low-income

rural communities in Virginia is actually good for

those communities’ economies. One wonders how

many fellows of the Competitive Enterprise

Institute live in such communities. As recently as

2001 CEI helped persuade the Bush administration

(which surely did not need much convincing on this

issue) not to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant,

despite the fact that the gas is universally

recognized by scientists as the major contributor to

the greenhouse effect. In 2002, CEI won a lawsuit

against the FDA in federal court, invalidating the

1998 Pediatric Rule requiring drug companies to

test some drugs on children, instead of

automatically approving them for use on children if

they had passed tests on adults only. To CEI’s

evident chagrin, Congress wrote the Pediatric Rule

into law.

In this age of global economies, the actions of think

tanks of this sort go well beyond national

boundaries: in 2003 a CEI fellow sent a letter to the

Philippine president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo,

advising her government to “disregard

environmental alarmists and to continue allowing

Filipino farmers to grow bioengineered corn.”

Arroyo followed the suggestion, with apparently no

input from her electorate and with predictable

financial gains by the bioengineering firms that

support CEI’s operations.

Back on national turf, in 2004 CEI exploited the

usually high-quality television program Bullshit!

with Penn and Teller, normally devoted to

debunking the paranormal. The target? Mandatory

recycling programs. In the same year, CEI

associates argued that living on a McDonald’s diet

is good for your cholesterol and that there really is

no reason to panic if one finds high levels of lead in

17


one’s water supply (as recently happened in

Washington DC).

In 2005 the Competitive Enterprise Institute

pushed for opening the Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge to oil and gas exploration, which could

cause a major environmental disaster with likely

little impact on the economics of oil supply, a

discussion that once again took front stage during

the 2008 American presidential elections. In the

same year, CEI filed a challenge to the

constitutionality of the 1998 multistate tobacco

settlement, while the following year they patted the

back of the EPA for allowing human volunteers to

be used in studies on the effects of pesticides.

Finally, again in a spectacular admission that this

think tank is simply not interested in serious

research and scholarship, the CEI defended the

right of op-ed columnists to be paid by interested

parties for the spin they give to their pieces: “An

opinion piece—whether an individual op-ed or a

column—exists to promote a point of view by

argument. It does not seek to establish a fact, but to

win people over to a particular viewpoint or

opinion.” Indeed, but the reader usually

assumes—wrongly, as it turns out—that it is the

author’s opinion that one is reading, not that of a

government agency or of a private corporation that

surreptitiously paid for what superficially looks to

the reader like an independent assessment. Caveat

emptor!

While there is clear and rather disturbing evidence

of an increasing shift from research to advocacy in

the sociopolitical phenomenon of think-tankery,

how much influence do think tanks really have, and

how do they exercise it? Abelson and other

researchers have repeatedly pointed out that it is

difficult to measure such an elusive property as

political and social influence. Attempts have been

made to compare one think tank to another based on

quantifiable parameters such as the number of press

releases they put out that are picked up by major

news outlets; the number of media appearances,

especially on television, of the think tank’s fellows;

and even the number of cabinet-level positions

filled by people associated with a given think tank.

Of course this scratches only the surface, because

political influence can go undetected when it

manifests itself as indirectly shaping the views and

policies of representatives and senators at both the

state and federal levels. When social commentators

such as Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly relate

“facts” that they gleaned from think tank press

releases, millions of listeners or viewers will not

know or remember the source, only the facts, which

may or may not be true. How does one measure that

type of think-tank influence?

Obviously, much more research on and critical

evaluation of the entire think-tankery phenomenon

is needed; meanwhile, the public needs to be wary

of the opinions proffered by allegedly unbiased

“experts” whose affiliation to think tanks is barely

acknowledged by media outlets.

We have analyzed jointly the alleged decline of

public intellectualism and the rise of think tanks not

because the two are necessarily directly related

(though to some extent they may be), but because

they both affect the teaching and understanding of

science in the public arena, and they both are at the

very least symptoms of the kind of transformation

of modern society that has had commentators from

Postman to Chomsky worried for a long time.

Scientists and people genuinely interested in

science should be worried too.

References

1.In Etzioni A. and A. Bowditch, eds. 2006. Public

Intellectuals: an Endangered Species? New York:

Rowman & Littlefield, 2.

2.Ibid.

3.Ibid., 3.

4.Car ter, David. 2001. “Public Intellectuals, Book

Culture and Civil Society.”Australian Humanities

Review, December.

5.Chomsky, Noam. 1963. “The Responsibility of

Intellectuals.” New York Review of Books, 23

February.

6.Ibid.

18


7.Etzioni and Bowditch, Public Intellectuals, 12.

8.Posner, Richard. 2003. Public Intellectuals: A

Study in Decline. Cambridge: Harvard University

Press.

9.Etzioni and Bowditch, Public Intellectuals, 12.

10.Dawkins, Richard. 1998. Unweaving the

Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for

Wonder. New York: Mariner Books.

11.Furedi, Frank. 2004. Where Have All the

Intellectuals Gone? New York: Continuum, 2.

12.Stone, D. 2004. “Think Tanks, Policy Advice

and Governance,” in Think Tank Traditions: Policy

Research and the Politics of Ideas, ed. D. Stone and

A. Denham. Machester University Press.

13.Abelson, Donald. 2004. “The Business of Ideas:

The Think Tank Industry in the USA,” in Think

Tank Traditions, 215–29.

14.Abelson, “Business of Ideas,” 220.

15.Hudson, Leila. 2005. “The New Ivory Towers:

Think Tanks, Strategic Studies and

‘Counterrealism’.” Middle East Policy, Winter.

16.Osborne, Thomas. 2004. “On Mediators:

Intellectuals and the Ideas Trade in the Knowledge

Society.” Economy and Society, 4 November.

17.Gildiner, Alina. 2004. “Politics Dressed as

Science: Two Think Tanks on Environmental

Regulation and Health.” Journal of Health,

Politics, and Law, April.

18.Ibid., 317.

19.“About CEI,” at cei.org.

19


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Hidden Lessons from Cricketfor a Corruption free society

—by Rakesh Manchanda

[Mr. Rakesh Manchanda, has written and worked

in educational films; TV Films along with

renowned Bollywood Director Sh. Mahesh Bhatt

covering latest life saving techniques. He has

organised, co-ordinated and worked in Street

Theatre for community awareness. This article

was published on 10th.Jan-2011 in Governance

Now and few other websites in a different title:

Hidden lessons from cricket for a corruption-free

society. It has been written in Public Interest on

behalf of Alliance for Safe Food, Delhi, IAC &

Human Integrity Trust. He lives at B-5,Gharonda

Apartments, Shrestha Vihar, Delhi-92,

Phone:011-22145369,00919560630404,

[email protected]]

A review of Bollywood blockbuster

‘Laagan’ released in June-2001 can

unfold several hidden lessons. Prayers to rain Gods

failed. Harvest was poor & peasants protested.

People wanted to change their destiny and get the

tax waved off. Hindu king who was controlled by

British Law expressed his helplessness. The movie

shows how an unwise colonial Tax System brings

99% indigenous farmers together. A small village

of Champaner in North India in 1890s decides to

fight for its honour and self respect. Stakes are high.

Deal is finalized. If village team beats the British

team in a game of cricket their taxes for three years

would be cancelled. If they lose farmers shall pay

three times land tax in the form of crops. With no

aids like proper batting pads & no training the

barefooted ‘desi’ team of Aamir Khan got ready to

face the challenge.

Army Cricket team lost the match. Defeat of the

English team forced a change in Army.

Cantonment was disbanded. Captain Russell was

forced to pay the taxes for the whole province as his

cricket deal was declared unauthorized. He was

further punished & transferred to Central Africa.

If we take an example from this movie independent

India still fights for justice and cries for effective

laws. Unlike bloody wars games demonstrate a

country’s united readiness and courage. All rich

and poor stakeholders in Cricket enjoy ball by ball

in micro details. Careful audit on each and every

run scored and saved shows how important

transparency is for maximizing the fun and

happiness of the game. Recovery called paisa vasul

is celebrated. No one can steal or hide the profit of

the runs scored & saved. Lost matches with

weakness and dropped catches are analyzed. The

show goes on. Can we not apply Cricket

regulations & its transparency with peoples/

participation & Citizens Charter to our daily

Governance?

India today is crying to get free from corruption.

People work hard but team rewards in shape of

profits & security get stolen. In ancient India kings

would hide profits in temples in the shape of gold.

Today corporate houses pay extra to CEOs who

help them to hide money produced as profit in a

Swarg called Tax Heavens. Corporate houses fix

leaders to get their favours passed but keep the rest

of the workers insecure. CEOs help investors to

steal money from the ‘wheel of production’ and

pump it in the ‘wheel of speculation’ or ‘wheel of

gamble’ called share baazar. Share Baazar

promises faster but unproductive, false & jobless

growth. Government-Corporate-Bankers nexus in

actual controls share markets. This collaboration

steals away the hard earned money of the majority

i.e. of the 99%. Stealing & hiding the profit unlike

in Cricket format is made possible with clever

audit. No transparency & with no participation of

real producers also helps the 1%. Profit monitoring

team and production team is kept disconnected.

In Cricket rich and poor love to keep the minute by

minute statistics of runs produced with ‘profit &

loss’ in shape of possibility to win & lose. My

game, my nation, my joy, my information, my

20


sharing with all concerned is excelled & shaped.

Sticking points remain collective ownership &

holistic participation in this religion. Imagine a

cricket match with ‘no rules’, ‘no wide balls’, ‘no

limited overs’ and no cheering & no hooting

crowds. Connect the dots and we see a boring game

with no rewards and with no punishments. Carry it

forward we see the pitch of Indian Ministry &

Business work culture in India. Disconnected

lobbies of excellence as small islands in a business

team are essential. Disconnection is designed in the

system & is not a default. This keeps the system

weak and unsafe. Result? Ask the home ministry to

produce a list of 50 Pakistan trained terrorists as

happened in the recent past and you shall find a

goof up.

Right to recall the non performing player in a game

is possible. Same rule cannot be applied in

competitive business of law making in the

Parliament. Right to vote is only after 5 years.

During last FIFA in South Africa, we learned as to

why a player is replaced if football gets stuck with

his foot for more then 20-30 seconds. Fast sharing

of football in the team is essential. Audience can

build a pressure and force a change via selectors.

Stakeholders in the shape of audience and investors

hoot and shout when the ball is lost in the crowd

even for few seconds. Politicians shout and delay

for all wrong reasons to block a bill in the

Parliament. The recent victims are Lokpal Bill &

Women Reservation Bill.

What goes wrong with the luck of a team?

The space called ‘luck’ is reduced by practice,

calibrations of skills and shooting of goals. The

speed and demand to deliver every minute every

second is so high that there is no time to fall back on

business direction and services of experts during

the real match. When democracy is strong &

stakeholders are alert as watchdogs the luck is

replaced by honest match winning skills. There is

no twisting of rules and laws for personal gains.

Fair wealth distribution based on skills can increase

the income of 99% & the markets can survive.

Information in a business pitch is blocked by match

fixing. Profit transformed in shape of dirty money

or black money parked in tax heavens refuses to get

recovered. Excuses are designed. Any country’s

finance ministry knows how many notes were

printed by the Reserve Bank & how much is parked

outside. Chances of corrupt match fixing is there

but is very less or can be reduced. Pressure of ‘rich

and poor’ stakeholders with modern technology

helps build a simple system which controls and

checks the transparency. Referee as a ‘human

control’ can also make errors which people and

player understand.

Politics and daily running of governance under

ministry shall always remain boring if rules to

control corruption are not fixed. From stadium to

Parliament people need to collectively apply

simple systems for a corruption-free governance. If

egg is broken by outside force, life ends and if

broken by inside force, life begins. Let us act before

it is too late.

21


PLEASE DO NOT SEND ARTICLES BEYOND 1500-2000 WORDS.

Dear Friends, Also, inform me whether they have been published elsewhere.

And, please try to email them at [email protected] instead of sending them by post.

You may post them (only if email is not possible) at C-8 Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India.

Do also email your passport size photographs as separate attachments (in JPG format) as well as your

small introduction, if you are contributing for the first time. Please feel free to contact me at

91-9719333011 for any other querry. —Rekha Saraswat

[Sri N.K. Acharya is an

advocate, columnist and author

of several books on law. He was

formerly Secretary of Indian

Rationalist Association and had

edited the Indian Rationalist,

then published from Hyderabad

on behalf of the Association prior

to its transfer to Madras.]

I) New Year – 2012: The year 2011 which stepped

into past is a year of intense public debates on

corruption in public authorities. It all began with

the corruption in Commonwealth Games. It

breached the credibility because the principle

allegation is that the authorities concerned

deliberately delayed taking up the projects with a

view to enrich themselves by last minute sanctions.

Then followed the 2G Spectrum scandal. Hereto,

the principle allegation is that the authorities

concerned have taken up the action in a way which

caused the Government of India what is called

“presumptive losses”. The licenses here were

granted as and when the related licenses have

acquired the necessary qualification that too at old

rates. In Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, mining

licensees were exposed to the scandal of excess

mining and several political leaders were alleged to

possess excess assets. The persons concerned in

latter category were Telugu Desam party President,

Chandrababu Naidu and YSR Congress Leader, Y.

Jagan Mohan Reddy. In all these cases the Court

ordered intelligence enquiry. Anna Hazare’s

demonstrations reached widespread escalation in

2011. They are likely to taper off with the matters

stranded in Lok Sabha. The other subjects which

attracted public concern were the Land Acquisition

issues in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh which

resulted in the Central Government undertaking a

new legislation on Land Acquisition including the

rehabilitation and resettlement as its integral parts.

The atomic plant at Kandakulam and Irrigation

Project at Mallaperiyar also came up for wider

debates. According to the Government,

Kandakulam Project is constructed with all safety

measures in mind and there is no scope for any

accident. And as regards Mallaperiyar Dam (it is

located in one State and mainly beneficial to

another State) which is unique in the sense that the

river waters here are diverted to flow upstream in a

reverse direction contrary to gravity, needed

repairs. The controversy here is, centered around its

safety notwithstanding the repairs. Periyar River is

not an interstate river but the project which is more

than 120 years old, serves two states. The

controversy is technical but the public in both the

states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are agitated. The

Supreme Court appointed a technical committee. It

is expected that the Court may give appropriate

orders in conformity with the technical opinion and

advise both the parties to negotiate for an

appropriate solution including a proposal to

construct a new dam adjacent to the existing dam.

West Bengal elections held in 2011 put an end to

over 30 years rule of C.P.M. They found a

substitute in Mamata Banerji, the leader of

Trinamul Congress forming ministry. But, she

became a trouble shooter for the Congress. The role

it played in Lok Sabha on Lokpal Bill is going to be

disastrous for the latter. If the Trinamul objection

that Lokpal Bill entrenches the constitutional

principal of Federalism is upheld, the prospects of

the Bill being postponed forever are certain. The

suggestion of U.P. Chief Minister, Mayavati on

division of U.P. into three States was reminiscent of

the late Pandit G.B. Pant’s suggestion to merge

Bihar with West Bengal to counter the demand for

bifurcation of Madras State into Madras and

Andhra during early 1950s. Such dramatic

suggestions were mere political counter blasts to

get over some current embarrassing political

demands. Thus, the year 2011 was very vocal year

just as it has been the same with widespread

demonstrations in the middle-east demanding

democracy and displacing dictatorships.

II) Registration of Hindu Marriage: Compulsory

Registration of Marriages is a subject of

controversy in all communities in India. Every

community in India has a form of registration of

22


N.K. Acharya

marriages which is voluntary. It is available in

Muslims, Christians, Parsees and Jewish

Communities. They are officially celebrated by

priests of respective communities who are

appointed as marriage officers by the Government.

Such marriages are entered in the marriage records.

The certificates given by them are treated as valid

documents to prove the marriage. Under Sec.8 of

the Hindu Marriage Act it provides that the State

Governments may provide for registration of

Hindu marriages. As per the rules made by some

the states, a Hindu couple married anywhere in

India can get the marriage registered by the

Registrar’s Office where the marriage takes place

or at the place where one of the couple resides for

more than six months. Hindu couples married

abroad may get their marriage registered at the

Indian Consulate Office maintained abroad. Hindu

marriage can be registered within one month after

the marriage is celebrated. Registration in all the

above cases remains optional. There is no law in

India which makes registration of marriages

compulsory i.e. failure to do so will not be an

offence attracting prosecution and punishment.

The need to make registration of marriage

compulsory in all communities is necessary for

proving a marriage which is otherwise very

difficult to prove if one of the parties denies it. It is

also necessary for the purposes of rendering second

marriage among Hindus invalid. For prosecutions

arising out of Dowry Prohibition Act and offences

connected with sexual assault on women and for

prosecution of persons charged with offences

connected with domestic violence and civil actions

arising out of guardianship and maintenance of

spouses and children legal proof of marriage is

mandatory. But, to give an example of the apathy

towards it can be seen in the enactment in this

regard made by Andhra Pradesh Legislature in

2004 which is not yet brought into force.

III) Fiasco in Rajya Sabha:In Lok Sabha, the

Speaker played a clever game. She declared the

Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill as passed by voice vote.

None of the participating parties or Members has

demanded the division. The ruling United

Progressive Front was saved a serious

embarrassment. In Rajya Sabha, however, a

different scene was enacted. When it found that all

the vocal parties in one voice seem to oppose the

Bill in one way or the other i.e., some parties

opposing the Bill on the question of reserving some

seats in the composition of Lokpal and Lokayukta

in favour of Muslims and some others demanding

reservation in favour of SCs, STs and OBCs, the

remaining objecting to the Bill on grounds such as

encroachment of the Centre over the powers of the

state and on the ground that the inclusion of C and

B Officers will oppress the Lokpal and the

Lokayukta, and a few others questioning that the

autonomy of Central Vigilance Bureau shall not be

diluted. Since, as many as 66 Amendments are

proposed, the Ruling Front found it convenient to

call for postponement of the discussion to

budget-session on the ground that it needed some

time to study the Amendments in detail. Thus,

whatever be the reason, the discussion of the

Lokpal Bill in Rajya Sabha ended in a fiasco,

possibly postponed indefinitely. Lokpal Bill now

will be taken up only as and when the Government

intends its further discussion and adoption by the

Rajya Sabha. It appears as though Lokpal Bill is

facing the same fate as Women’s Bill.

IV) Elections to State Assemblies: Election to

elect Members of State Legislatures in U.P.,

Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur are

scheduled to take place shortly in 2012. Elections

to Parliament are scheduled to 2014. Times were

when elections to all State Assemblies and

parliament were taking place at the same time. But,

during the emergency, the life of parliament was

extended by nearly two years that disturbed the

synchronization of parliamentary elections with

elections to State Assemblies. To this aberration, is

added, the proclamation of President’s rule in

states. Till now, the President’s rule has been

introduced in states nearly 100 times for different

purposes, ostensibly on the ground that no Chief

Minister can be appointed. When the emergency

23


was declared in January 1970, the then Central

Government replaced all the State Governments

where opposition parties were in power.

Immediately after the emergency ended, the Janata

Government which came into power displaced all

the State Governments where Congress was in

power. There were also instances where President’s

Rule was imposed to unable the Ruling Party to

muster adequate strength to form the ministry.

There were also cases where President’s Rule was

extended up to two years as in the case of Punjab.

There was also an incident in Andhra Pradesh

where the state elections were conducted only in a

part of the state on the ground the other part had

elections recently. Another important development

which arose out of timing of elections to Parliament

and State Assemblies differently was the

emergence of coalition Governments and of the

Governments established by regional political

parties replacing the national parties. Mayavati’s

party (Bahujan Samaj Party) is a regional party. It

however deals with All India problems of Dalits. It

has been indulging in dramatic events. Mayavati

has a habit of working out coalitions with allies

irrespective their politics and of discarding them as

and when she deviates from alliances. Mayavati

was the author of the policy of alliances for a fixed

period. She developed the scheme of sharing power

with the allies not till they agree to work together

but till a period after which one party has to

surrender the leadership to another. Mayavati is

also noted for attempting publicity by erecting

statues of her leader. She then began a programme

of erecting statues of herself. Recently, she

completed the programme of erecting statues of

elephants (her party symbol). The Election

Commission now found it as an act of corrupt

practice and directed that all the statues of

elephants should be covered. Mayavati began

covering elephants with plastic sheets bearing the

colour of her party. Mayavati is presently Chief

Minister of the biggest state in the country. She

suddenly proposed trifurcation of the state which

embarrassed the Centre which is already grappling

with serious problems for autonomy in different

areas and in different forms within the state.

Kashmir of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghurkas of West

Bengal, Bodos of Assam and people of backward

areas in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh

and people of Manipur have their own grievances.

V) Ajit Singh/ Jagan Mohan Reddy: Ajit Singh is

the son of a famous politician, same as Jagan

Mohan Reddy of Andhra Pradesh. Their main

claim for power is their fathers’ reputation. Ajit

Singh is the son of Late Choudhury Charan Singh

who held the charge of Prime Minister for a brief

time till election was held and a new leader of the

Parliament was appointed. Ajit Singh separated

himself from the Congress and began following his

own pursuit as a leader of Jats. In the case of Jagan

Mohan Reddy, he laid his claim to be made Chief

Minister to fill up the place created by the sudden

death of his father in a helicopter crash. He,

being very new, found in the beginning, 30 MLAs

in his support the number is now reduced to 17.

Jagan Mohan Reddy founded a new political party

called “YSR Congress” with his mother as its first

President. He has undertaken what

he called “Odarpu Yatra” (consolation visits) by

visiting every District and meeting the dependants

of the persons alleged to have died on hearing the

news of his father’s death. According to some

sources, the number of people who died is about 60

and that Jagan Mohan Reddy is distributing to the

dependants money to the extent of 1 lakh to each

family. He completed his Yatra in all Andhra

Districts and is now scheduled to tour Telangana

Districts under a new programme of meeting ryots

(tenant farmers) in distress. In as much as he has not

declared his opinion on the formation of

Telangana State, he is being pampered by all the

parties. In view of the fact that all the

political parties in Andhra Pradesh except CPI are

divided, the parties themselves are hesitating to

declare their party’s view on the bifurcation of the

state. The status quo is likely to continue

indefinitely and Jagan Mohan Reddy may not

venture to cross the line of indecision.

24


IRI/IRHA Members’ Section:

[Mr. Mahi Pal Singh is the President of Indian

Radical Humanist Association (IRHA) of the

Delhi Unit and National Secretary of Peoples’

Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), C-105, D.D.A.

Flats, Sindhora kalan, Delhi-110052.

[email protected]]

Continued from the previous issue......................

PUCL on Abolition of the Death Penalty: The

civilized world looks at the award of the Death

Penalty from the perspective of civil and human

rights. The National Conference Against Death

Penalty, held on 22nd and 23rd of July 2000 at New

Delhi, which was presided over by Justice V.R.

Krishna Iyer and consisted of Justice P.N.

Bhagwati, Justice Rajindar Sachar, Justice H.

Suresh, Justice N. S. Rau and scholars and activists

like Kulip Nayar, Asgar Ali Engineer, dr. R.M. Pal,

Prof. Iqbal Ansari, K. Balgopal and Baba Amte,

was against the award of capital punishment.

Gandhiji, the father of the Nation, also did not

favour death as a penalty when he said,

“Destruction of individuals can never be a virtuous

act. The evildoer cannot be done to death. Today,

attempts are being made to convert prisons into

hospitals as if they are persons suffering from a

disease.” And what else was Veerappan if not a

mentally sick person? We also have the opinion of

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the principal architect of the

Indian Constitution, who observed, “This country

by and large believes in the principle of

non-violence. It has been its ancient tradition, and

although people may not be following it in actual

practice, they certainly adhere to the principle of

non-violence as a moral mandate which they ought

to observe as far as they possibly can and I think

that, having regard to this fact, the proper thing for

this country to do is to abolish the death sentence

altogether.” (Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar – Writings

and Speeches, Vol. 13, page 639, Govt. of

Maharashtra Publication). Jaiprakash Narayan, the

founder of the PUCL, had observed in 1977 in a

message to the Delhi Conference on Death Penalty:

“A more humane and constructive remedy is to

remove the culprit concerned from the normal

milieu and treat him as a mental case. I am sure a

large proportion of the murderers could be weaned

away from their path and their mental condition

sufficiently improved to become useful citizens.”

In an article on the abolition of the death penalty

Justice Rajindar Sachar recently observed: “Over

the years, multi-nation forums have adopted four

international treaties providing for its abolition: the

Second Optional Protocol to the International

Covenant on Civil and Political Right, aiming at the

abolition of the death penalty, adopted by the UN

General Assembly in 1989; Protocols No. 6 and

No. 13 to the Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

(European Convention on Human Rights), adopted

by the Council of Europe in 1982 and 2002

respectively; and the Protocol to the American

Convention of Human Rights to Abolish the Death

Penalty, adopted by the General Assembly of the

Organisation of American States in 1990. “So far,

133 countries have abolished the death penalty in

law or in practice. Only 25 countries carried out

executions in 2006. There were 1,591 recorded

executions that year compared to 2,105 in 2005.”

The PUCL has always maintained that the death

penalty should be abolished from the statute book

and it has campaigned for it though there is no

shortage of people who still favour it. It was a

foregone conclusion that the lone survivor

responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack

Ajmal Amir Kasab would get the maximum

25


Mahi Pal Singh

penalty of death from the trial court. It was also

obvious that with the conclusion of the case the

evidence presented before the court by the Public

Prosecutor would become known and the

Government of India would be under tremendous

public pressure to demand action by the Pakistani

Government against the masterminds of the attack

sitting across the border in Pakistan whose names

figure in the evidence. It was also clear that

discussion in the media on these issues would

occupy a lot of time during the next few days.

However, discussion on these issues did not last

long. It is discussion on the death penalty, which

was started by a TV channel that has got prolonged

and stirred the question of hanging of Mohd. Afzal

convicted for the 2002 Parliament attack case

whose mercy appeal is pending before the

President of India. Bharatiya Janata Party, the main

opposition party in Parliament utilized this

opportunity to attack the ruling UPA Government

for not expediting action in the matter and keeping

the hanging of Afzal in indefinite abeyance. One

wonders whether the leaders of the BJP would be

equally vociferous in demanding hanging of

Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt. Colonel Srikant Purohit,

Ram Narain Singh, Dayanand Pandey, Devendra

Gupta and Chandrashekhar, belonging to the

Hindutva outfits like the Hindu Jagaran Manch and

Abhinav Bharat, accused of the Malegaon and

Ajmer Dargah blasts and the Mecca Masjid terror

attack in case they are also convicted and awarded

the maximum penalty of death by the judiciary?

From their reaction of defending Sadhvi Pragya

Singh Thakur and the other accused so far, it seems

most unlikely. The media chose the most

inappropriate time, only a day before the quantum

of punishment was to be announced for Kasab, to

discuss the very serious issue of the death penalty.

It was clear that almost all the panellists would

demand death for him. The man on the street and

the victims or the family members of the 26/11

attacks were all bound to demand the same. The

lawyers who appeared in the discussion and were

asked to give their opinion on the basis of the law of

the land, were also bound to pronounce the

maximum penalty of ‘death’ in the case as it was

certainly covered under the ‘rarest of rare’ cases,

the yardstick prescribed by the Supreme Court for

the award of the capital punishment. So long as the

provision of the capital punishment is present on

the statute book, the courts are certain to award

death in such ‘rarest of rare’ cases and the largest

number of people is bound to demand it when any

such case is under discussion. The question

becomes case specific and the circumstances of the

case, the barbarity, the cruelty, the horror and the

bloodshed all visit the mind of the person asked to

give his opinion, combined with his own anger at

the outrage (and the sense of patriotism and

nationality in the cases of acts of terror by Pakistani

nationals) force him to pronounce ‘death’ as the

only punishment. They demand it because that is

the maximum punishment available under the law

for such heinous crimes. What needs to be

understood is that they would demand ‘life

imprisonment’ for the same crimes if that were the

maximum punishment available. Such crimes

happen in those countries also, which have

abolished the death penalty and the people in these

countries demand, and the courts award, the

maximum punishment of life imprisonment for

them. It is high time that we hear the call of the UN

High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navnitham

Pillay, and abolish the death penalty from our

statute book when she says: “I hold this position for

a number of reasons: these include the fundamental

nature of the right to life; the unacceptable risk of

executing innocent people by mistake; the absence

of proof that the death penalty serves as a deterrent;

and what is, to my mind, the inappropriately

vengeful character of the sentence.” For a country,

which gave to the world the greatest apostle of

non-violence in M.K. Gandhi, this is the only

rational option. But such a decision cannot be

reached on the basis of the opinion of the man on

the street, that too with reference to a case like that

of Ajmal Amir Kasab.

PUCL on Criminal Justice Administration

26


System: India has a democratic Constitution and

Fundamental Rights of the people enshrined in it

form an integral part of it. They contain the Human

Rights of individuals as well as of groups of people,

known as religious and cultural rights, in

conformity with the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights (UDHR) made by the United

Nations on December 10, 1948 and the two

Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and the

other on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

passed by the UN and signed and ratified by most of

the member States. The Supreme Court of India is

the custodian of the rights granted under the

Constitution. Thus, as per the Constitutional

scheme, India is a country where people enjoy all

kinds of rights and civil liberties and the country is

governed by the rule of law, meaning thereby that

an individual’s liberties cannot be abridged except

in accordance with the procedure established by

law. This presents a golden picture of the human

rights scenario in the country but, unfortunately,

only thus far. When it comes to the ground reality,

the situation turns ugly. And we are not as yet

talking of the Economic and Social Rights as

enshrined in Part IV of the Constitution under the

title ‘Directive Principles of the State Policy’,

which were not made enforceable through the

Courts by the founding fathers of the Constitution,

and their implementation was left at the mercy of

the State, though they are supposed to be

fundamental in the governance of the country.

Some time ago a man named Om Prakash was

released from the Mainpuri jail in U.P. after the

intervention of the court after 37 years of

imprisonment without any trial. He was arrested on

charges of murder. His father, in order to save his

young son from the arrest (Om Prakash was less

than 20 years old at the time of his arrest), took

upon himself the responsibility of the crime and

confessed to having committed the murder. But

both were arrested and the father died in the jail

after a few years. Had the trial taken place and Om

Prakash even proved guilty of murder and awarded

the maximum punishment of life imprisonment, he

would have come out of jail a quarter of a century

ago. But during the 37 years he was in jail the trial

did not even begin. The trial could not take place

because the police could not trace the papers of the

case. And for this serious lapse on the part of the

police, no action was taken against any police

official. However, Om Prakash languished in jail

without trial for 37 long years and came out of jail

as an insane person because his long confinement

had turned him insane long ago, and at the time of

his release he did not know who he was. Of course,

there is no question of his recognizing his 80 years

old mother, who was still happy to receive back her

son in whatever condition he was at that time, a

victim of gross state negligence pure and

simple. Raja Ram, aged 70, who spent 35 years in

Faizabad jail and Varanasi mental hospital without

being proved guilty was freed earlier on a personal

bond. But his freedom was short-lived, as he could

not trace his home in Torabganj in Gonda district.

The SI of the Torabganj police station said that his

village did not exist. His village was not on the map

of the area. The Police Inspector said that Raja Ram

could not locate his house. How could he, after 35

years’ absence from his house and that too coming

back in an insane state of mind? One can be

reasonably sure that even Raja Ram did not know

why he was sent to jail? What crime had he

committed? He told a newspaperman, “I am not a

thief. The real thief ran away and the police arrested

me,” as reported in a newspaper. In yet another case

reported in the same newspaper – 70-year-old

Jagjivan Ram languished in prison without trial for

36 years because his records were missing and in

the absence of necessary records his trial could not

begin. These few instances indicate that if there

were thorough investigation across the country in

different jails, there would be many more

under-trial prisoners languishing in jails without

being convicted. In a different case pertaining to

foreigners, 17 Pakistanis, who were found guilty of

various crimes by the Courts, including that of

entering the country without valid documents, were

sentenced to imprisonment for various terms. They

27


were in jail during the trial period because they

could not be granted bail for obvious reasons. So

far so good! But after the completion of their jail

terms they should have been deported to Pakistan

within a reasonable time. However, there were

some who were awarded only six months of

imprisonment by the Court, and yet they were kept

in the Restricted Foreigners’ Detention Camp,

Lampur, Delhi without the sanction of the law and

in gross violation of their human rights for periods

ranging from one year to more than four years even

after they had completed the awarded jail term. The

plea of the Central Government in such cases that

‘these prisoners could be released only in return for

an equal number of Indian prisoners languishing in

Pakistani jails’ was rejected by a bench of the

Supreme Court of India, consisting of Justices

Markandey Katju and R.M. Lodha on March 9,

2010, and they were ordered to be deported within

two months. 14 of the 17 Pakistanis detained in the

Camp were deported to Pakistan on 25th March

2010. But nobody was held responsible for their

grossly illegal over-detention in the country and of

course there is no provision for compensation in

such cases. There were still 12 Africans detained at

the Lampur Camp and Nari Niketan, Hari Nagar,

Delhi who were caught on various charges and had

spent between 4 to 8 years in jail during the trial

period, and were ultimately declared ‘not guilty’ by

the Courts. However, instead of being deported to

their respective countries, they were also dumped

in the Detention Camp. Their freedom could be

secured only after the intervention of the People’s

Union for Civil Liberties, Delhi which highlighted

their illegal detention through the newspapers and

the orders of the Delhi High Court, which followed.

It is nobody’s case that the police should abdicate

its duty to catch and prosecute law-breakers and

criminals. It has, however, been noticed that even

in cases of abduction and extra judicial killings the

guilty police officers go scot-free and even the most

innocent victims suffer for the acts of omission and

commission of the police. There should be proper,

accurate and scientific investigation and gathering

of actual evidence, not concocted one, to sustain the

case before the trial Court. However, what is most

essential to make justice administration system

transparent and corruption free is to devise a system

of accountability wherein the prosecuting officers

should be held responsible for causing unnecessary

and illegal detention of the accused, and punished,

and the detainees should be adequately

compensated for the physical, emotional and social

loss caused to them and their families, including the

cost of litigation which is also exorbitant and

pushes access to the courts of justice out of the

reach of most of our poverty stricken population,

though no compensation can really compensate for

the loss of their liberty and separation from their

families and the resultant suffering caused to them.

Mere cosmetic police and judicial reforms cannot

cure our decayed justice administration system. It is

high time that our legislators and the Courts, which

are the guardians of the Fundamental Rights

granted by our Constitution, considered these

issues and took decisive and drastic action to ensure

the un-encroached enjoyment of Human Rights of

all individuals in accordance with the spirit of the

Constitution and the UDHR. The National Human

Rights Commission (NHRC) should also keep a

regular watch and ensure that under-trials do not

remain in jails on account of unnecessary delay in

beginning the process of trials. It is the millions of

common men and women whose liberties have to

be sincerely and judiciously protected to ensure a

just and democratic society through speedy and fair

justice administration system. Protection of the

Civil Liberties of the people is too serious and

sacrosanct a matter to be left at the mercy and

whims of the police and the prosecution’s failure to

begin the trial before a court of law.

PUCL on the Right to Food: Hunger deaths,

malnutrition, scarcity of medical services

constitute a very important component of the Right

to Life granted under the Constitution. Part IV of

the Constitution under the title Directive Principle

of State Policy lays stress on this right under

various Articles. In spite of being fundamental in

28


the governance of the country successive

governments have ignored them. The result is that

even after 63 years of achieving independence,

people die of hunger, malnutrition and lack of

medical care in a country where 70% of the

population is still engaged in agricultural farming.

The country has been producing surplus food for

the last several years but because of the lack of

proper management and failure of governance due

to the apathetic attitude of the ruling elite these

issues have not been on the priority list of the

government. Even the Supreme Court of India had

observed as early as 23 July 2001 in its interim

orders on the Writ Petition [Civil] 196 of 2001 filed

by the PUCL in the “right to food case”: “In case of

famine, there may be shortage of food, but here the

situation is that amongst plenty there is scarcity.

Plenty of food is available, but distribution of the

same amongst the very poor and the destitute is

scarce and non-existent leading to

mal-nourishment, starvation and other related

problems.” What can be more appalling than the

fact that millions of tons of food grains are allowed

to be rotten for lack of poor storage and care, and

the government still refuses to supply it to the poor

people free of cost in spite of the Supreme Court’s

directions even after a Bench of Justices Dalveer

Bhandari and Deepak Verma the Supreme Court

gave this clarification on 31 August 2010, again on

the Petition of the PUCL, that its August 12

directive to distribute grain at “no cost” or “very

low cost” was an order and not a suggestion as

made out by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.

But still instead of implementing the orders of the

Hon’ble Court, the Prime Minister himself came

out in defiance of the Court’s directions calling

them an interference in the policy framing function

of the executive forgetting that being the custodian

of the Fundamental Rights of the people, which

include the Right to Life also, the judiciary is

within its rights, and even duty bound, to issue such

directions. In the light of this apathetic attitude of

the government towards these fundamental issues

of life and hunger, it seems natural for rights

organizations to demand the Right to Food to be

specifically granted the status of a Fundamental

Right. A Right to Food Campaign was, hence,

started by the PUCL in coordination with several

other organizations and the government had to

introduce a Food Security Bill in Parliament,

which, however, is not acceptable to the Rights

activists because of glaring shortcomings in the Bill

in meeting the needs and aspirations of the people

to ensure a hunger free society where, even by

moderate estimates, more than 37% people live

below the poverty line. Unless Public Distribution

System (PDS) is streamlined, at least 35 Kgs. of

wheat and/or rice is given to every family, all

essential food items are supplied at reasonable rates

through the DPS shops and every individual is

brought within the ambit of the PDS system, the

Right to Food will have no meaning.

Unfortunately, the Food Security Act does not

address these problems.

Protection of the Human Rights Defenders: As

has been stated above also, the State is becoming

more and more ruthless towards the human rights

defenders who advocate the rights of the people.

Adopting an adversarial attitude towards them,

instead of looking at them as helpers in ensuring

proper governance of the country in accordance

with the rule of law and in a democratic manner for

which the Indian Constitution stands, the State

machinery harasses, arrests, tortures and even kills

these human rights defenders. The arrest of Dr.

Binayak Sen is an example of the same. In a

country where even the human rights defenders,

who work as a watchdog for the rights of the

people, are not safe and are targeted by the State,

how can the rights of ordinary citizens be said to be

safe? Hence the PUCL has been advocating for a

robust institutional mecanism for the support and

protection of human rights defenders. To this end

the PUCL had submitted a detailed petition to the

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and

had raised this issue during the core meeting of

NGOs affiliated to NHRC organized on 12.10.2009

by the National Human Rights Commission at New

29


Delhi. Acting on the plea of several other rights

groups as well; the Commission has fianally set up

a Focal Point for human rights defenders on 4 June

2010. It is hoped that now at least the aggreived can

approach the mentioned cell. However, much

cannot be hoped for unless and until the State

apparatus changes its attitude and approach

towards the human rights perspective in the country

and does not devote itself to governance in

accordance with the letter and spirit of the

Constitution of India. In its absence the need of

human rights organizations will continue to exist

and the PUCL will continue to pursue the goals for

which it was constituted.

Concluded

30


BOOKS BY M.N. ROY PUBLISHED by RENAISSANCE PUBLISHERS, INDIAN

RENAISSANCE INSTITUTE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS and OTHERS

1. POLITICS POWER AND PARTIES Rs. 90.00

2. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY Rs.95.00

3. BEYOND COMMUNISM Rs.40.00

4. THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF ISLAM Rs.40.00

5. MEN I MET Rs.60.00

6. INDIA’S MESSAGE Rs.100.00

7.MATERIALISM Rs. 110.00

8.REVOLUTION AND COUNTER REVOLUTION IN CHINA Rs.250.00

9.REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION Rs.300.00

10. NEW ORIENTATION Rs 090.00

11. ISLAAM KI ETIHASIK BHOOMIKA (IN HINDI) Rs.25.00

12. HAMARA SANSKRITIK DARP (IN HINDI) Rs.40.00

13. NAV MANAVWAD (IN HINDI) Rs.90.00

14 .SAMYAWAD KE PAAR (IN HINDI) Rs.45.00

In Gujarat Human Rights andLaw & Order Situation

Worsens—by Gautam Thaker

[Mr. Gautam Thaker is General Secretary,

PUCL (Gujarat), M - 09825382556, C/o.

Prabuddh Nagrik Shakti Munch, 6–7, Rangoli

Complex, Ellisbridge, Ahmedabad – 380006]

Deteriorating public life, overall law and

order situation and realistic / actual well

being of common man in Gujarat clearly tells upon

the lack of responsibility on the part of the ruling

party. At some place, there is a problem of

unemployment or of drinking water, or about

security and respect of the women or lack of

security in day-to-day life. On one hand, farmer’s

land as precious as gold, is being forcibly acquired

in the name of industrialization, and on the other

hand, Government is not bothered to revive the sick

factories. On one hand, there is a talk of

strengthening of Gram Sabha and on the other

hand, process of snatching away grazing land with

the connivance of the State Government is

continuing unabated by hook or crook. Prices of

essential commodities are rising and ration shops

are empty or out of stock and all this is going on in

the midst of clamor and glamour of golden and

affluent Gujarat. In the State, attacks are waged on

the education, right from primary to the higher

studies, and instead of finding a solution; the Govt.

has thrown open doors of commercialization. This

is a stark reality of life of a common man of Gujarat

during the year 2011.

Tall claims of development are made in Gujarat but

the common man has remained where he was, or he

is not getting full benefits of Central Government’s

schemes and hence this class has suffered a lot.

There is no sanctity of any development until the

benefits of livelihood and other development reach

to the common man. With the affluence of the

State, living standard of the poor should also

improve, but this is visible nowhere.

In Gujarat, with the rise in the number of institutes

and strength of students, lot of problems in the

educational front, in the nature of academic,

scholastic, administrative, financial, human

relations and law and order have arisen. Gujarat’s

academic world is distressed since a long time. It

appears that education system has become

unsteady. Administration is taking temporary

decisions which do not help in resolving the

problems. In the changed contexts, situation has

arisen where it is necessary to reorient the

education policy, laws and rules. Center’s

pre-metric scholarship for minority has been

implemented in all the States in the country, except

in Gujarat. About 70,000 students of minority

community in Gujarat have been deprived of

scholarship. Students have been waiting to get the

same. Academic field is badly hit by the semester

system. Students have remained perturbed in the

controversies and conflicts arising out of

difficulties such as hike in admission fees, mistakes

in the process, in the smart cards, hike in

examination fees, compulsory fees for degree

certificate, city bus concession pass etc.

Narmada Project is a dream scheme of western

India. Lot of deficiencies and defects have recently

come to light, in the planning and implementation

due to wide spread breaches and cracks of Narmada

project. Full potential of the irrigation scheme of

Narmada project was expected to be materialized

by 2009 but the State could not achieve even 27 %

of its potential capacity. To state in nutshell, this is

indeed a sad and sorrowful state.

In Gujarat, as on 31st March, 4, 55,885 applications

for electrical connections for agricultural purpose

are pending. Farmer’s applications for electrical

connections in 26 districts, numbering 3, 48,997 in

non-tribal area, 56,464 in tribal area and 49,424 in

dark zone area are lying unclear and we are

boasting that more energy than what is necessary is

being generated in Gujarat !!

31


Deteriorating condition of law and order, lethargy

on the part of the Gujarat Government to shoulder

its constitutional responsibility and indirect

encouragement provided by the State Government

to the communal forces is a major issue facing

Gujarat, to-day. Attempts to crush and refute

fundamental rights and civil liberty in the State are

going on. Situation of law and order and human

rights has become difficult and serious. Whenever

any citizen or activist concerned about restoration

of lawful administration raises his voice, then he is

labeled as “anti-Gujarat” or “anti-development”.

Such an atmosphere is created in the State that very

few people dare to talk anything not in favor of the

State and if one does so, then he has to pass through

one or the other difficulty. In Gujarat, R.T.I.

activist is also not safe and the best examples of this

are Amit Jethawa, Jabbardan Gadhavi, Nadim

Saiyed etc. In fact, a kind of serious situation has

been created about the rights and self-respect of

workers, marginal farmers, advisasis, dalits,

minority and the women and it has become a daily

routine of this Govt. to refute the reasonable

demands and to strangle their rights.

By one way or the other, fundamental rights of the

citizens have been curtailed for which the

globalization and liberalization have played havoc.

Due to this, a regular sequel of public lands, lakes,

rivers, forests and minerals going under the control

of the MNCs is set in motion. The time is ripe for

the people of Gujarat, those attempting to raise

their voice, non-party activists and the concerned

citizens to wake up. In the issues facing the

displaced, economic front, environmental issues

and the issues of education, health and

administration, serious inefficiencies have become

conspicuous.

Although, apparently there is no Naxalites’ activity

reported in the State, dozens of persons in our State

have been sent behind the bars by pursuing Central

Government’s green hunt line. This is an attempt to

entrust additional powers to the police and the

administration by creating an atmosphere of scare

or terror and to divert attention away from the

actual problems.

Development Vs. Human Rights:

Some examples of this are really the eye-openers.

As per the Human Development Index published

for the year 2011, in the matter of income, Gujarat

ranks at No. 5, in the Human Development at No. 7,

in the Education front, at No. 9, in the Health front

at No. 10 and in the starvation index, it ranks at No.

13. Rate of urbanization in the State as per the

statistical census is as high as 41 % whereas per

capita income of the State is half that of the urban

income. Per capita debt in Gujarat is more than that

in U.P. and Bihar. In the matter of expenditure on

the social front, Gujarat trails at No. 19. Before 10

years, Gujarat’s debt was Rs. 18,000 crores and

to-day it has reached to Rs. 1.48 lac crores. Debt

over the head of each Gujarati paying lot of taxes,

for development of Gujarat has risen to Rs. 24,000

per head.

In the year 2010, some 20,000 complaints were

lodged with the Vigilance Commissioner against

corruption and irregularities. It is revealed that in

the 24 departments of the Govt., such as Revenue,

Panchayat, Rural Development, Education, Home,

Urban Development etc. and 34 boards /

corporations, corruption has become rampant and

widespread. An Inquiry Commission under Justice

M. B. Shah has been appointed against the

corruption cases, in which many things will come

to light and hence it will not be proper to write any

more on this, at present.

As per the report submitted to the National Human

Rights Commission in India, during 2001 to 2010 a

total No. of 14,231 people i.e. on an average 4

persons per day died while in custody. Of these,

1,504 died in police custody, whereas 12,727 died

in judicial custody. In the matter of deaths in police

custody, Gujarat ranks at No. 3, when 134 persons

died during the period of 2001-10 whereas 458

deaths occurred in judicial custody. In Gujarat,

which is famous for prohibition, some 120 persons

died in hooch tragedy during July 2010. Home

32


Minister of the State is in jail facing charges of fake

encounter. Constant attacks are made on the R.T.I.

activists. Some of them have even died.

Perhaps it will be hard to believe that in the Govt.

hospital in Gujarat, No. of beds is only 58 against 1

lac patients. No beds are available for pregnant and

newly born infants. From this, it can be inferred

what will be the fate of public health, if some

epidemic disease breaks out. Moreover, as we all

know, incidents of doctors’ negligence have

increased during last two months. Everybody

knows about Gujarat Government’s anti-minority

mentality and hence it is needless to repeat that

story.

Exploitation of workers for benefiting the

industrial houses in Gujarat.

Recently, Chief Minister of Gujarat paid visit to

China and offered invitation to the industries there.

The biggest attraction for setting up industries in

Gujarat is that to-day nowhere, either in power

looms or diamond market of Surat or Ahmedabad,

chemical units in Ankaleshwar or Akik industry of

Khambhat, the laws regarding workers’ safety,

working hours, wage rate etc. are in force. At many

places, neither water nor elementary amenities of

humanitarian nature are provided. Workers

disputes in last five years have increased by 600 %.

Labour courts are quite inactive. No new workers

or employees are recruited. Gujarat ranks at No. 30

in the matter of wages paid to the private petty

labour jobs. It has become habit of the employers to

exploit, not to pay full wages, not to sanction any

leave, to extract work for 12 hours,

misappropriation in accounts, to capture the labour

officers by corrupt practices and to hoard.

Friends, this is the reality of the Vibrant Gujarat

33


M.N. Roy Literature on RH Web portal:www.theradicalhumanist.com

Dear friends,

Kindly go through the following published material on the RH Web Portal in its ‘Literature’ section

on the following URL:

http://www.theradicalhumanist.com/index.php?option=com_radical&controller=literatures&I

temid=61

The books already uploaded are:

New Orientation; New Humanism; M.N. Roy’s letters to Dr. Reddy; Roy’s Writings on Georgi

Dmitrov; M.N. Roy’s write-up on Leon Trotsky and Ellen Roy’s letters to Warren Allen Smith (1, 2

3); Men I Met; Politics, Power and Parties; From the Communist Manifesto to Radical Humanism;

Historical Role of Islam; The Russian Revolution and Tragedy of Communism; Revolution and

Counter-Revolution in China.

We will be gradually uploading all the other major works of M.N. Roy. We are getting very favourable

responses from friends telling us that this is a historical feat as it is allowing Roy’s Literature to come

alive once again to newer and wider readership.

—Rekha Saraswat

Research Scholars’ & Teachers’ Section:

A Paradise Lost!

Prof. Chand Mal Sharma

Soon after I finished my 10+2, Dadaji gifted me

this book Memoirs of a Cat and that was my

introduction to M.N. Roy, the book indeed is

marvelous. So I started discussing about Mr. Roy. I

could clearly see the deep affection when he said

Mr. Roy was a hero. He said I lost his letters while

shifting, that was one of the greatest loss!

Then I was continuously provided with his works.

Gandhism, Nationalism, Socialism, Letters from

Jail, The Ideal of Indian Womanhood are

my favorites.

Whenever in his lectures, Dadaji started talking on

Radical Humanism; everyone could feel the

affiliation, though without doubt he was a just

professor who explained Gandhi or Marx with

equal brilliance. The lucidity with which he

explained Philosophers often made it feel like one

was meeting them live and then the thesis,

antithesis and synthesis would begin, all in one

room, in a few hours.

A Hero he was, with an indomitable spirit to take

life as it comes, unaffected by the hardships, he

continuously marched on, making life simpler for

himself and for thousands around him. The

tenderness with which the rikshawalah touched his

lifeless feet explained it all.

The gentleness, love and warmth with which he

used to greet and keep people were luminous.

He led continuously a progressive life. At the age of

86, till the last day before he was kept on ventilator,

he was thinking of his students who had to

write their exams in this month’s end. Perhaps he

could sense tense time ahead.

He was a survivor; he outlived two very critical

stages few years back, but it would have been

verydifficult, almost impossible to move on, this

time.

When my brother called me and said he was no

more, I could not believe him. When the TV

channels flashed breaking news of his demise I

could not believe them and when they came with

his body I still could not believe my eyes. I gasped

in recognition of the rawness of life and its vacuum

shared by all of us, and like Ms. Rekha Saraswat

said in one of her editorial notes - “no further

meeting in heaven or hell”.

Through all this the greatest teacher was my

dadiji (grandmother). She was believably

tormented, and it was so powerful to see her

balancing herself and Badri Kako Sa (Shri B.D.

Sharma uncle) who beautifully reconciled with the

great loss. Death is always there and will always be,

for all of us.

In the end we all get there, but the magnificent life

and the principles that people like my dadaji have

lived for leave their footprints behind on the sands

of time helping to make the lives of

posterity splendid so that we may still live this life

with all its charms and in full gusto following the

examples set by them.

The legacy lives on!

34


Chhavi Sharma

Book Review Section:

[Ms. Dipavali Sen has been a student of Delhi

School of Economics and Gokhale Institute of

Politics and Economics (Pune). She has taught at

Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, and

various colleges of Delhi University. She is, at

present, teaching at Sri Guru Gobind Singh

College of Commerce, Delhi University. She is a

prolific writer and has written creative pieces and

articles for children as well as adults, both in

English and Bengali. [email protected]]

A Man – A Movement[K.S. Singh, Birsa Munda ( 1872-1900),

National Biography series, National Book Trust,

2000, 1st Reprint 2006, paperback with

photographs, pp127, price Rs40]

Birsa Munda by K.S. Singh conveys us to

a world alien to most of us – the world of

forests and forest-dwelling tribes, their customs

and beliefs, their pain and protest – in the face of the

vast forces of civilization and colonization

An IAS officer and Director General of the

Anthropological Survey of India, K.S. Singh

helped shape the multi-volume People of India

project. He is also the author of The Indian Famine,

Birsa Munda and His Movement and Tribal Society

in India. This book is another of his contributions to

ethnography in India.

During their rule, the British not only took control

of the usual agrarian lands of India but also of the

forest lands. In 1840, the British colonial

establishment passed the Crown Land

(Encroachment) Ordinance that vested all forests

(also wastes, unoccupied and uncultivated) lands in

the Crown. In 1864 the Imperial Forest Department

was set up. In 1865, the Indian Forest Act

established British monopoly over Indian forests.

The Forest Act of 1878 brought forests in India

under the centralized sovereignty of the state.

The prevailing perspective was that forests

constituted national resources that were to be used

by the government in its own interest. It utterly

discounted the historical fact that tribals had for

unknown lengths of time inhabited and used forests

and adjoining areas. Indian forests yielded rich

revenue and imperial Britain regarded them as

theirs – to be used, or rather, exploited.

Especially from the 1850s, the Christian

missionaries were also spreading across the tribal

areas, specifically Munda and Oraon land. Though

not organs of the British government, the missions

spread education and ideas that were distinct from

either Hindu or Islamic ones that prevailed over

non-tribal India. Christianity also brought certain

cohesion into tribal communities. It is Christianity

that brought to forest and tribal areas the feeling

that they had a ‘commonality of interests’ that is

said to underlie the concept of ‘nationhood’.

By 1890, the Munda tribe of the Ranchi district of

present Jharkhand had grown disillusioned with the

government as well as the missionaries. Birsa

Munda, born in 1872 in Ranchi district of the

present Jharkhand, was a product of his times. He

emerged as a leader because “the situation was

ripe” for it (p 11). This is the main thrust of ‘The

Background’, the first chapter of this biography.

The next chapter, ‘Early Years (1872-94)’,

describes the ancestry, birth and formative years of

Birsa. Between 1886 and 1890, he stayed in

Chaibasa and was influenced by various streams of

Christianity. He also picked up rudimentary Hindi

and English. Between 1890 and ’94, he came under

Hindu (Vaishnava) influences and also participated

35


Dipavali Sen

in the agitation against the restriction imposed upon

the traditional rights of the Mundas in the protected

forest. He led a number of ryots to Chaibasa with a

petition for remission of forest dues – in vain (p 18).

In 1895, the agitator grew into a prophet. Birsa

emerged as a healer, miracle-worker and preacher,

propagating a religion of his own, and initiating a

popular independent movement (‘The Making of a

Prophet’).

This led to a political movement gathering force

and armed police arresting a sleeping Birsa in his

house. Trial and imprisonment followed. (‘The

Beginning of the Political Movement’),

After quietly serving his full two-year sentence

Birsa rejoined his people among great jubilation.

He was hailed as a religious leader with

super-human powers. His movement grew – and

developed into violent political struggle to restore

tribal rights and drive out foreign enemies, both

Christian missionaries and government officials

(‘The Interlude’).

In the next chapter titled ‘The Uprising’, the author

describes how the “Birsaite” religion and the

concept of the “Birsa Raj” gathered momentum. It

became clearer and clearer to the Mundas that they

had to regain their lost rights on the forest resources

as well as their right to their own religion as

expounded by their new leader. On Christmas Eve

in 1899, the rebels began their burning and

arrow-shooting in Singhbhum and Ranchi district.

The British began searching for rebel-leader Birsa.

Hundreds of soldiers – entire troops — began to be

brought in to quench the rebellion. Eventually there

was open firing on tribals who, armed only with

bows and arrows axes and stones, put up a

“stubborn resistance”. Then followed a bloodbath,

a rout, and ultimately a tragic end that has gone into

Munda folksongs.

“The End”, the next chapter, describes how with

the capture of other tribal leaders on 28 January

1990 and of Birsa (again in his sleep) on 3

February, the movement ultimately collapsed. In

the jail he continued to make spirited outbursts but

his conditions deteriorated, and on 8 June 1990, he

died under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

The remaining rebel leaders, after some

unsatisfactory trials, were either hanged or jailed.

However, the author points out: “The Munda cause

had become a public issue, debated in papers, and

once even raised in the Legislative Council” (p 78).

Birsa had introduced certain changes in the

religious practices of the Mundas, such as austerity

and cleanliness. He had framed a strict, even

Puritan, code of conduct (‘The Religious

Movement of Birsa and the Birsaites.’)

His violent protests had contributed to the ultimate

working out of a ‘settlement’, and the

Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908. The last

chapter of the book, titled “Consequences of the

Movement” describes the settlements and points

out how Birsa has been given recognition by the

Indian government in recent times.

Photographs of Birsa Munda and memorials

erected in his honour help to bring the young man

alive – a century and a decade after his death at the

age of twenty-five. More than the Bibliography, the

Glossary is extremely useful. The appended

Address of the President of India, Shri K.R.

Narayanan (made as he unveiled Birsa’s statue in

the precincts of the Parliament House in 1998) is

educative as well.

The song compositions of Birsa and the Birsaites

are however the best. I end by quoting one that

captures the essential alienation between forest and

civilization, tribal communities and empires, Birsa

and perhaps us?

‘A Lonely Birsa’

Deep in the wild forest.

Who is clapping?

Deep in the wild forest

Birsa is clapping.

Birsa claps.

Bears, wild buffaloes, deer, elephants

And horses understand,

But not men.

36


Humanist News Section:

I

Report of the Study Camp

and meeting of the Board of Trustees of IRI

held at Murshidabad, West Bengal

on 31st December, 2011 and 1st January, 2012:

The Radical Humanists met in an All India

Study Camp and Conference convened

jointly by the Indian Renaissance Institute and the

Indian Radical Humanist Association, WB Unit on

31.12. 11 and 1.1.12 in Hotel Sagnik’s Seminar

Hall in the historic Murshidabad town, West

Bengal.

The IRI Board of Trustees held an informal session

from 9.30 am to 1 pm on 31 12 .11. as all its three

office bearers, namely Shri B.D. Sharma, Shri

N.D. Pancholi and Shri Narottam Vyas, could not

reach the venue owing to delayed flight and a

road-block in Krishnanagar, some 100 km away.

Three Trustees, Messrs. Manoj Datta,

Subhankar Ray and Ajit Bhattacharyya along

with other 34 delegates and invitees participated.

They were Messrs. Kiron Nanavati, Ramesh

Avasthi, Nirmal Sarkar, Debkumar Basu,

Debobrata Pal, Kanai Paul, Apurba Dasgupta,

Abdush Samad Gayen, Md. Nazimuddin Sk.,

Sushil Kar, Sisir Chakraborty, Madhusudan

Pal, Arun Bose, Saukarya and Ms. Anjali

Chakraborty, Archana Chakraborty, Sanhati,

Shyamashree, Debasmita, Manjusree, Sujata

Sarkar, Suchitra Ganguli and a few other.

The informal meeting ended at 1 pm for lunch.

After that the participants went on site seeing.

The delegates decided to meet in an extended and

regular working dinner session at 7.30 pm in the

near-by house of Md. Nazimuddin Sk’s brother

Md. Kabiruddin Sk.

Messrs. B. D. Sharma, Narottam Vyas and N. D.

Pancholi reached Lalbag (the name by which

Murshidabad town is now known) at about 5.30

pm.

The meeting of the Board of Trustees of IRI took

place formally at the working dinner session which

was also attended by many special invitees. Its

main decisions are being published at the end of

this report.

Study Camp: 1st January, 2012:

Before the Study Camp started at 9.30 am on

1.1.12, Mr. B.D. Sharma, President, IRI,

released a booklet The Twins of Irrationalism:

Selected Quotations from Reason Romanticism

and Revolution written by M.N. Roy. The quotes

are compiled by Ajit Bhattacharyya.

Mr. Bhattacharyya wrote in the preface of the book,

“It is a daring audacity to try to compress M. N.

Roy’s ultimate understanding into a nano precis of

23 pages.”

Mr. Pancholi, Secretary, IRI, spoke a few words in

commendation of the released booklet.

The Study Camp was inaugurated by Mr. Nayan

Anada Chakraborty Assistant Superintendent

Hazarduary Museum. Some 150 students,

teachers and social activists and 40

delegates participated.

Mr. Chakraborty pointed out the link between

Archeology, land acquisition and encroachment of

historical site lands. He lamented that so many such

encroachments had already been made though they

are forbidden by law.

Prof. Abdush Samad Gayen presided over the 1st

Session on the subject ‘Spread of Education

among Muslim and Dalit Children and Youth:

New Initiatives’.

Prof. Miratun Nahar, well known educationist

and activist for women’s rights, delivered her

keynote address on the subject. She highlighted the

indifference and discrimination faced by such

youths and the urgent need to spread education

among them (her paper will to be published later

on.)

There was a lively debate over her lecture.

37


Prof. Anjali Chakroborty from Tripura

commented that the so called discrimination was

not intentional. It was also not of contemporary

dispensation.

Nahar replied that she did not hint at a communal

bias. But it was there between the rich and the poor,

high and low and male and female among all

sections of Indian people.

Prof. Shamsuzzaman Ahmed commented that

such study camps may inspire the budding of future

Naba Ratnas (new jewels).

Mr. Sunil Sardar of the Adi Bashi Parishad

expressed that the downtrodden of all communities

together make the majority. But the minority elites

are usurping the lion’s share of the wealth and jobs

of the nation. He added that most of the victims of

politics are from the have-nots.

Mr. Farukh Ahmed cited an example of sex

discrimination: an engineer from an interior village

of Murshidabad sought divorce from his Honours

Graduate wife for giving birth to a female child! He

also told that the well-off Muslims in general do not

try to uplift poor Muslims. Rather they collaborate

with those in power and corner government jobs

and other benefits for themselves.

Prof. Samad summed up saying that an English

knowing new class is fast separating themselves

from the rest of the population.

The 2nd Session on the issue of ‘Land

Acquisition’ started at 12.20 pm under the

Chairmanship of Ajit Bhattacharyya.

The main speaker, Mr. Apurba Das Gupta opined

that such a gathering of young participants

discussing intricate social questions was a rare site.

It showed that with proper endeavour young people

could be attracted to the serious issues facing the

nation.

Mr. Ajit Bhattacharyya summed up the session.

He said that as industry could not be built on air,

agriculture could also not be built on air. India has

been able to capture a huge market of only small

arms as far as machine products are concerned. It

should rather concentrate on capturing the huge

world grain markets and import second hand

machine products such as auto mobile that are far

better than made in India and are also cheaper.

(Papers of both Messrs. Apurba Das Gupta and Ajit

Bhattacharyya will be published in the forthcoming

issues.)

Messrs Hassanurjjaman, Farman Ali,

Deptendu Datta, Kushal Pal and Ms. Naznin

Sultana took part in the question answer session.

Many of the young speakers quoted Swamy

Vivekanand’s secular comments. It is our failure

that we failed to popularize M.N. Roy.

The session ended at 1.30 with greetings from Prof.

Sunanda Sanyal and Prof. Swaraj Sen Gupta read

out by Mr. Bhattacharyya.

The last session on the issue ‘Democratic

Processes, Political Parties and Radical

Humanism’ commenced after lunch.

Shri B.D. Sharma presided over it.

Shri N.D. Pancholi initiated the discussion. He

said that democratic system is the best system for

India and at present we have to bring changes for

better India through parliamentary system, which is

under attack from the extreme left and extreme

right. Creating more and more institutions will not

improve the situation and the need of the hour was

to inculcate democratic values among the people.

Shri Ramesh Awasthi, from Pune, gave a brief

review of the constitutional and political

developments in the country since independence

and stressed for the need to combat communal

forces in order to save democratic institutions.

Prof. Abdush Samad Gayen pressed upon the

need of a humanist outlook in our attitudes and

behavior and to spread such kind of education

among the people which helps in eradicating

communal and caste bias.

Shri Kiron Nanavati from Ahmedabad said that

the people, instead of relying on political parties

and religious gurus, should rely on themselves and

develop co-operative attitudes and organizations in

order to solve their basic problems.

38


There was a lively discussion in which many

delegates, especially the youth, participated.

Shri B.D. Sharma, in his presidential remarks,

elaborated on the salient features of Radical

Humanism and exhorted the youth to develop a

spirit of inquiry and quest for truth in them.

Sensing the spirit and enthusiasm of the students,

IRI donated two sets of M.N. Roy’s books (Bangla

translations) and other humanist literature,

published by Renaissance Publishers Pvt. Ltd.,

Kolkata, to Murshidabad unit of the IRHA for the

use and study of youth in the area.

Shri Kanai Paul of Renaissance Publishers had

brought a large number of books written by M.N.

Roy, Prof. Sibnarayan Ray and Prof. Amlan Datta

and other related literature, especially in Bangla

language. It had a handsome sale during the study

camp.

In the evening there was a cultural show in which

many young students, especially children,

participated and enthralled the delegates by

fascinating dances on Rabindra Sangeet.

Shri N.D. Pancholi, on behalf of the delegates,

delivered the vote of thanks for the excellent

arrangements made by the West Bengal unit of

IRHA during the stay and programme of the study

camp.

Special thanks were given to comrade Md.

Nazimuddin Sk. who had worked tirelessly for the

last few months to make these arrangements for the

IRI meeting and Study camp.

—Report sent by Ajit Bhattacharyya

and Md. Nazimuddin Sk.

18th January, 2012

II

Decisions taken by the Board of Trustees

Meeting of the Indian Renaissance Institute:

Some of the important decisions of the Board of

Trustees meeting of IRI held on31st December,

2012 at Murshidabad are as under:

1.In order to strengthen financial position of the

monthly The Radical Humanist, it was decided

that an appeal should be made to the subscribers

requesting them to donate at least Rs.100/- p.m.

minimum to the journal.

(In view of above decision, 11 members offered

and payed Rs.1000/- each and one member

Rs.2000/- during the meeting on 31st December,

2011).

2. In order to publish works of M.N. Roy and other

Radical Humanists and connected literature, it was

decided to form a Publication Committee under the

auspices of IRI. The following Committee was

formed:

(1) Shri Subhankar Ray, Convener

(2) Shri Naik Navare

(3) Dr. Rekha Saraswat

(4) Shri Kanai Paul

(5) Shri N.D. Pancholi

3. Shri Subhankar Ray informed that IRHA West

Bengal unit will try to organize a seminar at

Kolkata in the month of March / April, 2012 as part

of celebrations of the 125th Birth Anniversary of

M.N. Roy.

(The complete report of the meeting is being sent

separately to the members.)

—Details sent by N.D. Pancholi,

Secretary, IRI

18th January, 2012


39

Dear Friends, IRI plans to celebrate the 125th Birth Anniversary of M.N. Roy this year.

Details will follow in the next issue and on the RH Web portal.

III

News from CFI, U.S.A.

Are you ready for Darwin

Day?

Celebrate with us!

Event Ideas & Darwin Day

Posters

Darwin Day is an international

celebration of human

achievement and scientific

inquiry. Held on or around

Charles Darwin’s birthday,

February 12, people gather to

pay tribute to him, to learn

more about evolution, and to

marvel at the natural world he

so vividly described and

explained.

At a time when anti-science groups are elevating

their attacks on Darwin and the Theory of

Evolution, it is important that we recognize his

significant contributions to our understanding of

the human species and the nature of life.

On Darwin Day, we stand up with scientists and

science teachers around the world to celebrate the

relevance and integrity of Darwin’s Great Idea:

“ ...from so simple a beginning endless forms most

beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are

being, evolved.”

How can you celebrate Darwin Day?

Whether you’re an independent humanist or

skeptics group, a biology club, a science

department, a researcher, a teacher, a student, or

just a big Darwin fan, there are plenty of ways to

celebrate

Darwin Day:

Read On the

Origin of

Species by

Charles Darwin or go

to LibriVox to download the

audio book for free!

PBS.org has a plethora of

information regarding

evolution, science, and

Charles Darwin. Their

evolution site has specific

sections about Darwin,

change, extinction, survival,

and more.

The Complete Work of

Charles Darwin Online has

drawings, journal entries, and

more fun, visual resources.

The National Center for

Science Education has advice

and resources to help you

promote and understand evolution. Check

their Taking Action page.

Visit the International Darwin Day website to

find events near you and to post your own event.

For more ideas, visit the Darwin Day Resource

Page on CFI’s On Campus site.

Darwin Day 2012 Promotional Posters:

Just like we did for Carl Sagan Day, we’ve

created high-quality posters to help you celebrate

this important day. Download feature posters (just

like the one above) or print promo posters

specially designed with extra white space where

you can advertise your own local event. Posters are

available in three sizes: 8.5 x 11, 8.5 x 14, and 11 x

17.

Visit CFI On Campus to download your

posters and

start

celebrating

!

Happy

Darwin

Day!

40



Pictures taken at IRI Study camp held at Murshidabad, West Bengal

on 31st Dec. 2011-1st Jan. 2012

Published and printed by Mr. N.D. Pancholi on behalf of Indian Renaissance Instituteat 1183, Chatta Madan Gopal Maliwada, Chandni Chawk, Delhi, 110006

Printed by Nageen Prakashan Pvt. Ltd., W. K. Road, Meerut, 250002Editor-Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8, Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001

RNI No. 43049/85

Post Office Regd. No. Meerut-146-2009-2011

at H.P.O. Meerut Cantt.

to be posted on 2nd. of every month

RENAISSANCE PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LIMITED

15, Bankim Chatterjee Street (2nd floor), Kolkata: 700 073,

Mobile: 9831261725

NEW FROM RENAISSANCE

By SIBNARAYAN RAY

Between Renaissance and Revolution-Selected Essays: Vol. I- H.C.350.00

In Freedom’s Quest: A Study of the Life and Works of M.N. Roy:

Vol.Ill H.C.250.00

Against the Current - H.C.350.00

By M.N. ROY

Science and Superstition - H.C.125.00

AWAITED OUTSTANDING PUBLICATIONS

By RABINDRANATH TAGORE & M.N. ROY

Nationalism - H.C.150.00

By M.N. ROY

The Intellectual Roots of Modern Civilization - H.C.150.00

The Russian Revolution - P.B.140.00

The Tragedy of Communism - H.C.180.00

From the Communist Manifesto - P.B.100.00

To Radical Humanism - H.C.140.00

Humanism, Revivalism and the Indian Heritage - P.B. 140.00

By SIVANATH SASTRI

A History of The Renaissance in Bengal

—Ramtanu Lahiri: Brahman & Reformer H.C.180.00

By SIBNARAYAN RAY

Gandhi, Gandhism and Our Times (Edited) - H.C.200.00

The Mask and The Face (Jointly Edited with Marian Maddern) - H.C.200.00

Sane Voices for a Disoriented Generation (Edited) - P.B. 140.00

From the Broken Nest to Visvabharati - P.B.120.00

The Spirit of the Renaissance - P.B.150.00

Ripeness is All - P.B. 125.00

By ELLEN ROY

From the Absurdity to Creative Rationalism - P.B. 90.00

By V. M. TARKUNDE

Voice of A Great Sentinel - H.C.175.00

By SWARAJ SENGUPTA

Reflections - H.C 150.00

Science, Society and Secular Humanism - H.C. 125.00

By DEBALINA BANDOPADHYAY

The Woman-Question and Victorian Novel - H.C. 150.00

Documents

Feb 2012 - RH