The Asian Independent 16 Oct to 31 Oct 2019
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www.theasianindependent.co.uk<br />
Ekta Parishad has launched its<br />
ambitious Jai Jagat 2020 march<br />
from Delhi <strong>to</strong> Geneva on <strong>Oct</strong>ober<br />
2nd <strong>2019</strong>. <strong>The</strong> Yatra will culminate<br />
at Geneva on <strong>Oct</strong>ober 2nd 2020.<br />
Activists from nearly <strong>16</strong> countries<br />
who are working on the land rights<br />
issues, came <strong>to</strong>gether in solidarity<br />
with Jai Jagat campaign. While,<br />
Ekta Parishad’s movement started<br />
with talks of land reforms but it look<br />
now ‘Love’ and ‘Peace’ is the main<br />
theme, perhaps, <strong>to</strong> commemorate,<br />
Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary.<br />
Like Gandhi’s work, there is<br />
some ambiguity in the ideological<br />
traits of Ekta Parishad but none can<br />
doubt their mobilising capacity, a<br />
disciplined cadre and well connected<br />
networking. Ekta Parishad<br />
founder Shri P V Rajagopal has<br />
done numerous ‘walks with massive<br />
mobilisation. His first walk was in<br />
the Madhya Pradesh Bundelkhand<br />
region, followed by the one in 2005,<br />
2013 and last year in Madhya<br />
Pradesh. Each Yatra showed their<br />
moblisation skills as well as well<br />
oiled network both with the government<br />
as well as the opposition parties.<br />
In 2013, they had an agreement<br />
with the then government about the<br />
Comprehensive Land Reform issues<br />
but it look now the current government<br />
has just thrown that document<br />
in<strong>to</strong> dustbin. Ekta Parishad <strong>to</strong>o<br />
seems not focusing on that <strong>to</strong>o<br />
much.<br />
This time the yatra is from Delhi<br />
<strong>to</strong> Geneva. It is over ten thousand<br />
kilometer long and has about fifty<br />
yatris in which about 15 are from<br />
different parts of the world. <strong>The</strong><br />
yatra focuses on spreading love and<br />
against hatred. It talks about building<br />
peace. So love and peace has <strong>to</strong><br />
be spread. Ekta Parishad founder Mr<br />
P V Rajagopal has been speaking on<br />
the Gandhian Economic and environmental<br />
model. On 4th <strong>Oct</strong>ober,<br />
we all marched from International<br />
Youth Center <strong>to</strong> Tees Janwari Marg,<br />
where Gandhi was assassinated,<br />
singing song : Jai Jagat Pukare jaa<br />
which is really a beautiful song.<br />
During the march, many of the<br />
social media activists recorded<br />
many small interviews with the<br />
marchers. A young activist asked me<br />
what is your message and hope. I<br />
have said many time that I will<br />
never agree <strong>to</strong> Gandhi’s sainthood<br />
or ‘spiritual’ ‘philosophical’ work<br />
but I respect his efforts <strong>to</strong> bring people<br />
<strong>to</strong>gether. It is not easy <strong>to</strong> bring<br />
so many thousands people <strong>to</strong>gether<br />
and talk of unity. <strong>The</strong> best part of<br />
Gandhi was from 1947 <strong>to</strong> 1948 till<br />
his death. I felt that Gandhi is surviving<br />
not because he has a ‘philosophy’,<br />
I feel it never was, but<br />
because he created a new generations<br />
of leaders. No other political<br />
leader was able <strong>to</strong> do so. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
various reasons for that <strong>to</strong>o but it is<br />
a fact that Gandhi was able <strong>to</strong> bring<br />
diverse opinion political class at one<br />
platform which was no mean task<br />
given the nature of India’s diversity.<br />
So, for me when any one is organising<br />
a yatra in the name of Gandhi,<br />
the first thing should be that it must<br />
focus on focusing the biggest challenge<br />
that the world face it <strong>to</strong>day.<br />
Climate crisis and all other things<br />
WORLD<br />
Will Gandhian speak<br />
up on who killed<br />
GANDHI and Why?<br />
are there but why <strong>to</strong> keep your eye<br />
close on the growing hatred. How<br />
will you build peace when there is<br />
no social justice, when caste and<br />
racial hatred continue, when one<br />
kind of people are born with privileges<br />
and other with debt.<br />
When we speak of peace, it is not<br />
possible without asking the privileged<br />
people leaving their privileges.<br />
Among the Gandhian, it was<br />
actually Vinoba, who could do so<br />
asking people <strong>to</strong> donate land for<br />
Bhudan. <strong>The</strong>re are many ifs and<br />
buts about his campaign but at least<br />
he started a campaign and was able<br />
<strong>to</strong> get a huge chunk of land under<br />
Bhudan. Now, Vinoba can not be<br />
faulted for failure of subsequent<br />
government and their inability <strong>to</strong><br />
distribute that land <strong>to</strong> landless and<br />
agrarian communities. Also<br />
Gandhians <strong>to</strong>o forgot that agenda<br />
and were satisfied in singing<br />
Ramdhuns and Vaishnav jan te.<br />
Government converted Gandhi in<strong>to</strong><br />
God and Gandhian organisations<br />
loved it as they had government<br />
patronage so all the people’s issues<br />
were forgotten.<br />
After the Gujarat 2002,<br />
we saw how people started<br />
keeping silent. Gandhian<br />
started talking of Gandhian environment,<br />
Gandhian sanitation,<br />
Gandhian economy thus converting<br />
Gandhi in<strong>to</strong> a ‘environmentalist’ or<br />
‘economist’ which he never was.<br />
Some Gandhian started with anti<br />
drugs campaign. Gandhi against<br />
smoking or liquor. All this is good<br />
but a deliberate effort <strong>to</strong> evade the<br />
real issues for which Gandhi was<br />
murdered. An issue which opened<br />
my eyes yesterday was raised by<br />
Subhash Gatade, in All India<br />
People’s Forum conference as why<br />
most of our young students, political<br />
leaders visit Rajghat where he was<br />
cremated but none visit <strong>to</strong> Tees<br />
Janwari Marg, where he was murdered.<br />
Now, I can share this that, on<br />
4th January, land rights activists visited<br />
<strong>to</strong> Gandhi Smriti, the old Birla<br />
House, where he was shot dead during<br />
the prayer meeting in the<br />
evening. We sat there and a veteran<br />
Gandhian talked about Gandhi’s last<br />
days there. He only gave us statistics<br />
that he was there for 144 days<br />
and it was a center where national<br />
leaders would meet Gandhi. He<br />
used <strong>to</strong> pray there and he was shot<br />
dead in the evening.<br />
Now, the issue is why we<br />
dont want <strong>to</strong> inform our children<br />
or those who come <strong>to</strong><br />
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat<br />
social and human rights activist<br />
India and bow before Gandhi<br />
as who killed him and why ? Isnt it<br />
important for all of us when we go<br />
on campaign for global peace, love<br />
that Gandhi was killed by an ideology<br />
which spread hatred, which<br />
wanted India <strong>to</strong> be a Hindu Rashtra.<br />
Gandhi’s murder is not a one day<br />
affair. <strong>The</strong> right wing Hindu organisations<br />
wanted <strong>to</strong> kill him since<br />
1935 and there were six attempt<br />
made on his life by the right wing<br />
Hindus which are well documented.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se people felt that Gandhi’s secular<br />
project would deny them the<br />
Hindu Rashtra of the brahmanical<br />
hegemony.<br />
As I mentioned earlier also that<br />
Gandhi’s philosophy if it is, has lots<br />
of problems and it is not essential<br />
for us <strong>to</strong> follow them. But Gandhi<br />
was killed by the people who have<br />
hatred in their belly and most of<br />
them visualise India as per the diktats<br />
of Manusmriti. <strong>The</strong>y have no<br />
faith in modern constitution drafted<br />
by Dr Ambedkar. It is they who celebrate<br />
Gandhi’s death. It is they who<br />
adore Adolf Hitler <strong>to</strong>o. It it worth<br />
writing here that after 2014, the two<br />
best seller in India was the books :<br />
Mein Kampf, the au<strong>to</strong>biography<br />
of Adolf<br />
Hitler and Why I killed<br />
Gandhi, by Nathu Ram<br />
Godse, the man who<br />
killed Gandhi.<br />
Gandhi’s killers ideology<br />
and the person<br />
who killed Gandhi are not called terrorist<br />
ideology and terrorist. It is<br />
very similar of what is happening in<br />
USA where whenever the white<br />
<strong>16</strong>-10-<strong>2019</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>31</strong>-10-<strong>2019</strong><br />
23<br />
supremacists kills the black, that is<br />
not a terror attack but ‘gunmen’<br />
killing.. the headline changes<br />
according <strong>to</strong> your color and religious<br />
identity. So a terrorist has <strong>to</strong><br />
be a ‘Muslim’ otherwise the killings<br />
are simple crime and not a terror act.<br />
It is important <strong>to</strong> know who<br />
killed Gandhi, what was the ideology<br />
that spread hatred against<br />
minorities in India and what was<br />
their agenda and who are their<br />
‘goal-keepers’ and ‘<strong>to</strong>rch bearers’.<br />
If the Gandhians have decided <strong>to</strong><br />
keep conspira<strong>to</strong>rial silence on<br />
Gandhi’s murder then you cant<br />
blame others for the same. As a person<br />
who has no faith in Gandhi’s<br />
spiritual work, I respect his martyrdom,<br />
his last six months when he<br />
traveled nook and corners of the<br />
country stayed away from the government<br />
programms and celebrations.<br />
In 1947 Noakhali, now in<br />
Bangladesh, was burning and so<br />
were other places. Hindus and<br />
Muslims were butchering each others<br />
wherever they had the dominance<br />
and in such a scenario an old<br />
man move around, speak of his<br />
moral courage, ask for shedding<br />
hatred is simply remarkable.<br />
Gandhi tried <strong>to</strong> unite us against<br />
hatred that time. No other political<br />
leader had that charisma <strong>to</strong> do so.<br />
India after independence, started<br />
building up. Gandhi build leaders<br />
and his most loved disciple who<br />
never sung Ramdhun and was an<br />
atheist as well as a humanist started<br />
building up India. We did not go the<br />
way Pakistan went. We did not follow<br />
the Manu wad officially as<br />
Pakistan started with Sharia laws.<br />
Both countries got freedom same<br />
time and you see that India emerged<br />
stronger, democracy <strong>to</strong>ok root as<br />
Nehru built institutions here, contrary<br />
<strong>to</strong> Pakistan where no leader<br />
could complete full term in power.<br />
Military dictated things.<br />
Today, we are competing with<br />
Pakistan in attempting <strong>to</strong> become a<br />
theocratic state. Our institutions are<br />
collapsing and politicians are dividing<br />
society. Those who were supposed<br />
<strong>to</strong> lead are now sowing the<br />
seeds of divisions. Minorities particularly<br />
Muslims are unwanted, Dalits<br />
face violence in rural India and adivasis<br />
face dislocations. All of them<br />
combine <strong>to</strong>gether are nearly six hundred<br />
millions, more than the populations<br />
of many countries of the world.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y face exclusion and discrimination.<br />
So, when Gandhian walk for<br />
love and peace, the issue of race and<br />
caste will come , issue of minorities<br />
and immigrants will have <strong>to</strong> be<br />
raised. It is these people who suffer<br />
hatred. <strong>The</strong> Dalits, Adivasis, indigenous<br />
people elsewhere, the immigrants<br />
who are now being vilified.<br />
Will the Gandhian speak up on this<br />
or would follow Narendra Modi and<br />
his party who have converted Gandhi<br />
<strong>to</strong> a ‘sanitation’ expert <strong>to</strong> divert the<br />
attention from the main issue of who<br />
killed Gandhi and why ?<br />
Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a<br />
social and human rights activist.<br />
He blogs at<br />
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com<br />
twitter @free<strong>to</strong>humanity<br />
Email: vbrawat@gmail.com