At a time when representative democracy has failed to produce governance either responsive or accountable to the people, it provides the much needed first step towards participatory democracy. Unlike the concept of transparency, the Right to Information requires an activist approach. It puts the burden of framing questions and demanding answers on the people. By establishing a Right, it creates a vested interest in extracting the truth. It gives ordinary people an opportunity to puncture the bubble of lies and fantasy by which they are surrounded. It allows them to place their understanding on record, to point out the false premises that may exist in the dominant framework. It curtails the excuses for inaction, and encourages resistance. But most important of all, the Right to Information forces an analytical debate based on facts. In this debate, those asking the questions are going to be subjected to the same standards of ethical behaviour as those they are asking questions of. But the contours of the Right to Information campaign are yet to be defined. The struggle in Rajasthan has shown us that it has the potential to pinpoint the extortion and force some degree of accountability on the state and development machinery. The fact that it concerned matters of livelihood, ensured that it was used by the people. But the use of information in fighting other forms of oppression and exploitation will have to be identified and developed. There are areas where understanding and using technical information will not be as simple. It is a tool that we will have to learn how to use. The challenge posed by the new power structures of multinational corporations, their growing control over resources and every aspect of people’s lives will have to be understood, before the Right to Information can be used to force them to answer the uncomfortable questions raised. How, we must ask ourselves, can we seek home truths from the mandarins of the World Bank, who dictate terms to national governments? These are the forces that control people’s destinies today. Their policies in distant Washington affect every aspect of remote village life. If the threads that connect cannot be severed, then a method must be found, whereby the strings can be pulled from both ends. They too must be accountable.
Gulam Rasool was young. He wrote for a Telugu newspaper and remained committed to his profession without forsaking his roots in rural Andhra. He asked, he probed and he informed. We need more like him in this country. Perhaps in the questions that have begun to be asked everywhere, the numbers will increase and make it impossible for the state or mafia to eliminate. In their rising questions, collective voice and struggle, Ghulam Rasool continues to live.
Acknowledgement: As we all know, thinking is not dependent on literacy, and our mental vocabulary is not restricted by the ability to read or write. Collective thinking and writing gives us the space to acknowledge the wisdom of the people, whose experience is the chronicle of the struggles we describe. All writings—including articles, memorial lectures, convocation addresses and speeches—accredited to individuals working in the MKSS owe their ideas, ideology and theoretical assumptions to the MKSS Collective.
KILLING FIELDS
On Sunday, 29 December, 1991, newspapers in Hyderabad carried a report that two unidentified Naxalites were killed in an encounter at Masjiguda, on the outskirts of the city. According to the police they were killed in the early hours of 28 December in an exchange of fire. By the next evening it became clear that one of the killed was Gulam Rasool, a reporter working with Udayam—third largest circulating Telugu daily. The news left everyone in shocked disbelief.
Gulam Rasool (30) was working as a city reporter of Udayam for the last six months. He joined the profession in 1986 after completing his intermediate (+2) and had earlier worked with Eenadu, Andhra Jyoti, and Andhra Patrika. While working as a stringer, he did his BA through the AP Open University. Rasool comes from a poor family of Sharajipeta, Alern, Nalgonda. He was a first generation graduate, if not the first literate, in his family. His own background has deeply influenced his interest within his profession and he was known for his reports on poor people. Commitment to the profession led him to make daring break-throughs in his reportage. Among the more well-known of his stories were his interviews with Sardar, a wanted underworld figure of Hyderabad, and with a dalam (armed squad) leader the Naxalite movement. He also covered police harassment of villagers in his area, misuse of TADA, and role of police in the land grabbing and eviction of slum dwellers in NTR Nagar in the city. In the latter story Mr K. Rajaiah, DSP of Saroornagar was named. In recent weeks Rasool appears to have done an investigation into the role of police in land grabbing activities in and around the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.
On 27 December, Rasool left Udayam office at around 5 p.m. and went to the house of a friend, Vijayaprasada Rao (30). Rao was from the same village as Rasool and was an unemployed post graduate in Public Administration from Osmania University. He was an associate of National Students Union of India (NSUI). Both of them went to Eenadu office and left the place around 6.30 p.m. Attempts to trace their movements, in so far as recorded evidence goes, dry up around his time. There is one eye-witness account that suggests that both were picked up by the police an hour later, not very far from Rasool’s house near Amberpet. Seven hours later they were taken to an abandoned shed in the open fields near Masjidguda, about 20 kms from the city. Both of them were shot there. Next morning police announced that, acting on a tip-off they went to the village and found a meeting of a Naxalite armed squad taking place. They appealed to the Naxalite to surrender Instead the Naxalites opened fire. In self defence police opened fire. Two Naxalites died on the spot while others escaped. The police hand-out also claimed that there was nothing on the bodies or in the shed that could enable them to identify the dead. Subsequently their bodies were taken to Gandhi Hospital, Secunderabad from where they were removed on Sunday afternoon. The villagers say that they were not aware of any meeting and that they had only heard a jeep and a van around 3 a.m. and a little later sounds of gunshots. The village elders, who signed the panchanama said that the police removed wallets from the bodies which contained identity cards of the two young men. Following an uproar in the Press, police claimed that they were able to identify one of the victims as Gulam Rasool. According to them, Rasool was involved in extortion of money on the behalf of Naxalites, was a member of an armed squad of CPI(ML) (People’s War Group) and was involved in a murder case. An alert journalist community in the city is now able to trace and name some of the policemen involved in the arrest and killing of Rasool and Rao. They include Circle Inspectors, Rami Reddy (Saroornagar), Muralidhar (Vanasthalipuram) and Laxmi Narayana (Ibrahimpatnam) and were led by DSP, Mr K. Rajaiah.
The Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ) took up the matter at all levels. Successful bandh calls were given by the Union in a number of places. The state government conceded the demand for judicial enquiry but categorically rejected the demand for suspension of the police officials involved. This has emboldened the policemen to threaten the journalists. Many journalists in Hyderabad received telephone calls warning them that they will be ‘bumped off’ if they continue to write about police. Among those who received such phone calls were the president of APUWJ and chief reporter of The Indian Express. The situation for reporters in rural areas and district centres had become worse. It must be noted that almost all Telugu dailies bring out separate district supplements everyday. To feed the six page supplements, all newspapers have engaged stringers even in remote mandal headquarters on a piece-rate basis. It is these rural correspondents who have become particularly insecure after the murder of a reporter based in a metropolis. In Karimnagar eight journalists have received direct threat from the police. In Warangal, demonstrating journalists were lathicharged by a contingent of Border Security Force (BSF).
The murder of Gulam Rasool and Vijayprasada Rao in a fake encounter is part of large scale killing of unarmed citizens in the name of ‘curbing extremism’ in the state. As many as 106 people were killed in these encounters in 1991 alone. According to the investigations of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties C
ommittee, not more than 10 of those killed were members of armed squads. All the rest were unarmed citizens, like Rasool and Rao. This spate of murders has gone up since December when paramilitary forces joined various armed outfits of Andhra Pradesh police in their attempt to crash the Naxalite movement. In the last fifty days about sixty people were killed in ‘encounters’.
Likewise, whenever the government in power announced a resolve to ‘finish-off Naxalites within six months’ as Home Ministers have been periodically declaring for the last 25 years, there was a noticeable snit in such encounters. That explains the fluctuations in the rate of killings (see back cover). In other words ‘encounters’ are not ‘excesses’ of the police, nor are they chance happenings. They are part of a deliberate political policy and most of the victims of this lethal policy are tribals, agricultural labourers, small farmers, miners, and casual workers. The various agencies of the state police are thus given a free hand with cash benefits.
To these existing agencies, paramilitary forces of the Centre have been added recently. Initially in 1990 the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was inducted. Later, sometime in March 1991, the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) was added. ITBP, unlike similar bodies, is not a legally constituted force. It was formed, for administrative convenience, in 1954 for check post protection along the Tibetan Border. In 1962 it was upgraded as a guerilla force after the border conflict with the People’s Republic of China. This is perhaps the first time that the force in a major way is engaged in activities that cannot exactly be described as guarding the 2,000 km long border with Tibet. In a belated move to bestow legality on this paramilitary force, recently the Union Cabinet in its meeting on 2 January, 1992, decided to introduce a legislation bringing the force under the purview of an Act of Parliament. ITBP was joined in December 1991 by a number of companies of BSF. The deployment of ITBP and BSF in the northwestern districts of Telangana region in interior Andhra Pradesh is not without its ironies. The government and its media have been saying, with some justification, that the porous borders have become the channel for Pakistani trained militants to enter Kashmir valley. The army, means essentially to guard and fight against external attack, is deeply embroiled in a civilian conflict in the valley while the agencies meant to guard the borders are sent to Telangana.
Thus presently ANS, STF, APSP, CRPF, ITBP, and BSF are engaged in resolving the ‘Naxalite problem’ in Andhra Pradesh. For the last one month village after village in Warangal and Karimnagar are being subjected to raids by the combined forces of these agencies.
PUDR, New Delhi
On Founder’s Day (Dehra Dun, October 1992)
VIKRAM SETH (1952–)
Vikram Seth came back to Doon School in 1992 as the Chief Guest at the Founder’s Day function. There was an enormous amount of expectation about what he would say and Seth, always original, did indeed surprise everybody. He spoke wryly about his unhappiness and loneliness at Doon, the dangers of boarding school life and warned students never to fall into the trap of believing that their school years were the happiest of their lives. Sitting in the audience, as someone who had not been to Doon School, I was amused by the widely different responses that the speech produced. Most of the ex-students of the school—many of whom had sons in the school—were appalled by what Seth had to say. They felt on Founder’s Day, he was letting the school down. But the present students seemed to be enjoying the speech. The writer’s honesty and humour struck a chord with them as it no doubt will with many others. Everyone agreed, however, that Doon School had never heard a speech like this one.
Headmaster, Members of the Board, ladies and gentlemen, and most of all, boys—and girls too I should add, because the daughters of teachers and staff are as much students here as the boys and in fact seem to win half the art prizes, besides climbing peaks of over 20,000 feet. But for the rest of this talk I shall say boys, and the girls will forgive me.
I have had a wonderful two days here, and indeed, a very varied two days. From the athletics competition on the main field yesterday to an informal tour of Jaipur House (my old house)—and that new house at the end of Skinner’s field—now what on earth is its name? Ah yes, Oberoi, and a very attractive looking house it is too; architecturally as well as in terms of its intake, I am sure. From a spirited meeting of the Board of Governors to a spirit-filled dinner for the Class of ’67—the Old Boys and masters at their most reminiscent, the wives yawning indulgently; from seeing the excellent work of the boys in the art exhibition and general exhibition this morning, to the anticipation of seeing my own Beastly Tales adapted and performed in half an hour (if I can keep my speech short)—it has been by turns entertaining and affecting, fascinating and exhausting. I have greatly enjoyed it and I would like to thank all of you.
So much of my life is tied up with Dehra Dun that being back here forces me to think of when I first went toWelham at the age of six. I remember being left by my mother in the care of strangers, reassuring strangers, suspiciously reassuring—and feeling both indignant and disbelieving that she could dream of going back to Patna without me. But she did go away, and so did the mothers of all the other new boys, and we were all in shock for several weeks. But the Welham authorities were obviously practised in dealing with the trauma of separation. Just before dinner everyday, we new boys would be led to a bench near the hospital, and there, overlooking the playing field, we would sit. One boy would begin sobbing, and then another, and then we would all join in, weeping in concert for half an hour until we were quite hungry, and could be led gently away to be fed.
Since then, coming back to Dehra Dun has always made me nervous. But there are two other reasons why, though I was conscious of the honour of being invited, I was uneasy about accepting. The first is that I thoroughly dislike public speaking. But your chairman, Mr Lovraj Kumar, is not only an old friend, but also an extremely persuasive one, and he made it clear that I was to say yes; he never said so in so many words, but I felt that it would be both churlish and arrogant to refuse.
The second reason is more complicated, and I will try to explain it as well as I can. A few years ago, after a gap of about sixteen years, I returned to Doon. I had avoided returning for quite a while: certainly, I had made no particular effort to come back. But the family was taking a few days off together in Dehra Dun, and I decided that I would visit my old school again. I walked around the campus: from the main building to the tennis courts with their bel trees that bore those green elephantine apples which made such lethal meteors; past the hospital, past a military airplane which I didn’t remember from my time here, past a small temple, the school panchayat, several signs describing the bird life of the campus, the servants’ quarters, the backs of Hyderabad House and Kashmir House—at that time Oberoi house did not exist; the new swimming pool, along Skinners’ Field; past Jaipur house and the lichi trees which I remember having raided from the balcony of my dorm, and then back across the main field to the main building. It turned out to be a whole parikrama full of new sights and old sights. And at the end of the circuit, the school bell was ringing, tolling rather, in its old familiar way and I was brought back to my own school days by the last few fading notes, and especially the lightness of the last couple of notes which one could never be completely sure would be the very last. These last few strokes of the bell, I remember, used to cause me particular anxiety when I was running a change-in-break and had almost reached the sanctuary of the main building from the distant border settlement of Jaipur House. It always seemed unjust to me that the Tata House boys could virtually saunter through their changes-in-breaks, grinning away, while for us they were like mini-marathons.
Well, this time I was sauntering along myself under a chir pine, though not exactly grinning, and I remember thinking how beautiful the school was after all, and rebuking myself for having avoided visiting it for so many years, and not having kept up with it at all.
The fact of the matter is that I had been pretty unhappy during my school days and that was
why I hadn’t wanted to come back to visit. I did teach here for one term a couple of years after I left, but this didn’t really change my feelings about my school days. People are always surprised, sometimes even shocked when I say this, and most of all ex-Doscos, but it is true. Part of it was my own fault—or, perhaps, I shouldn’t say fault, but my own character. My brother Shantum, who followed me five years later, had a good time in school, and kept up with his school friends better than I did. I, for my part, just wanted to forget all about school once I’d left; and since I went to a school in England for a year after Doon, I did not even have to go on to a college and bump into those who had been my contemporaries at Doon—and this, for me, was an unmixed blessing.
Now it’s strange in a way to say that I was unhappy at Doon. After all, I did well here academically, joined a number of societies, edited the Weekly, and took part in debates and plays, many of them in the Rose Bowl itself. Since my reports were good, my parents thought that I was fine—and I said nothing to the contrary. I was kept well occupied from morning to night. And yet I had a terrible feeling of loneliness and isolation during my six years here. Sometimes at lights out I wished I would never wake up to hear the Chhota Hazri bell. For years after I left I thought of school as a kind of jungle, and looked back on it with a shudder.
Now, part of all this was of course simply the general stress and strain of adolescence, but part of it was also the ethos, the atmosphere of the place. It was a place where sports were almost the only thing that mattered as far as the boys were concerned. I was teased and bullied by my classmates and my seniors because of my interest in studies and reading, because of my lack of interest at that time in games, because of my unwillingness to join gangs and groups, because of my height—as you can see from the adjustment of the mikes—and most importantly of all because I would get so furious when I was bullied. No doubt, if in my teens I had been more relaxed about things, or if I had had more of a sense of humour, things wouldn’t have been so bad. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t, and they were.
The Great Speeches of Modern India Page 43