TEN DAYS IN MODI'S CONSTITUENCY

D

Dr. Jai Maharaj

Guest
TEN DAYS IN MODI'S CONSTITUENCY

Forwarded message from Ashok Chowgule

Ten Days in Modi's Constituency

First a little background of the author, which some of you
may already be aware of. Shabnamji is a Marxist, just as
her husband was. He was murdered just outside Delhi, some
years ago, by people belonging to the Congress party,
because he was indulging in activities (related to trade
unionism) which the Congress party considered to be
inimical to their interests in the area. Today, Shabnamji
sides with the same Congress party in electoral politics -
she would be saying that she is forced to do so because
Congress is the only party which can confront the
'communal' BJP at the national level!

Now some comments on the article. Shabnamji visits an area
which is supposed to be a strong hold of an allegedly
fascist organisation.

She also is able to conduct some programmes in the area,
despite the alleged threats made to her by one of the
'fascist'. Even after the threats, she revisits the area.
She also tries to make complaints to the police who are
supposed to be controlled by the same 'fascists'. In my
book, if someone calls another person a fascist on the
other person's face, the latter is surely not a fascist.
Because a true fascist would conduct himself in the proper
manner - that is beat the hell out of the person making the
accusation.

Of course, Shabnamji would not dare to undertake a
programme of the type she has mentioned in this article in
a place where the target is the communists - as in case of
defending Taslima Nasreen in Kolkatta.

She knows that if she did it, she will be subjected to
severe bodily harm.

But, in her books, the communists are not fascists, but
progressives.

Incidentally, the events she has mentioned did not receive
any media coverage. Particularly the 'secular' media which
is always willing to give publicity to even imaginary acts
of violence by the 'fascists'.

The author laments that even the English media did not put
forward her version of the events.

Namaste
Ashok Chowgule


Ten Days in Modi's Constituency

Culmination of Eight Months of Save Democracy Campaign in
Gujarat

By Shabnam Hashmi
December 22, 2007

In December 2006 a colleague of mine and I started a
journey from the Dangs in South Gujarat and traveled to
Kutch covering on the way almost all the districts. The
mission was simple: to meet civil society groups and
friends and ask them to join hands to defeat the communal
forces in the coming elections. Many of whom we met thought
we were crazy and Modi was invincible and the opposition
too weak. Many of these were old Gandhians, who felt
absolutely betrayed by the only alternative that existed in
the state and felt dismayed at the communalization of the
opposition itself.

Our intention initially was to put up a resistance at the
ground level irrespective of what the opposition looked
like. For us it was clear that the results were very
crucial and they will have an impact on the future politics
of this country.

During the eight long months that the Anhad team of young
volunteers worked round the clock, the most interesting and
challenging were the last ten days in Modi's own
constituency.

Anhad during its almost a year long 'Save Democracy
Campaign' covered 630 villages ( Three Youth Aman Karwans
traveled across 25 districts covering 4-5 villages
everyday, performing, singing, holding public meetings,
screening films and distributing leaflets exposing the myth
of Vibrant Gujarat, one lakh copies of the preamble of the
Indian constitution were distributed, thousands of people
signed the pledge to uphold the values of the
constitution), organized three major Youth Conventions
attended by thousands of young people, the process involved
selection of delegates through a debate competition, then
training the selected ones into public speech and
sensitizing them to all basic political and social issues,
Anhad organized the first public screening of Parzania,
organized innumerable demonstrations, seminars, workshops
in various parts of Gujarat, produced innumerable kinds of
leaflets dealing with issues of democracy and exposing the
myth of Developed Gujarat, various posters, organized
various music concerts and cultural evenings, culminating
the Gujarat level programme with a motorcycle rally by 25
youth covering 22 district headquarters addressing media
conferences and holding rallies and distributing leaflets.
All these efforts were supported by over 20 Gujarat based
organizations, networks and fellow activists and friends.

We conducted a small survey on December 1 and 2nd in
Maninagar, Modi's constituency and the immediate response
was to move into the constituency for the last 10 days of
the campaign.

The decision was not easy because even though the earlier
campaigns were also not risk free (and during these
campaigns the activists were attacked in three different
locations) but for the Maninagar campaign I wanted
everyone's opinion and consent.

I explained to everyone that we could be attacked, injured,
arrested at any time during these ten days. All the young
Anhad activists emboldened by the success of the campaign
across Gujarat were too enthusiastic to plunge into action.

We immediately left for Mani Nagar-Sanjay Sharma, Chandu
Patel and Iin search of an office. I did not want to
operate from Anhad's Ahmedabad office as it was half an
away from Maninagar and we wanted to be there all the time.
After a day's search we found an office near the Bhairav
Nath Mandir, a small shop, enough to accommodate ten
mattresses at night. Immediately computers, tables,
banners, stationary etc were shifted and we started working
for the launch of the campaign. We decided to start our
work with the release of an appeal to women to defeat the
forces of hatred as the atmosphere of hatred had engulfed
the whole society and worst hit were women with the crime
rate going up everyday against them. The appeal was signed
by ten women and we organized a small launch ..Opened an
exhibition on the status of women, released the appeal,
Mallika Sarabhai, Ila Pathak, Sheba George and Sofiya Khan
came and spoke at the meeting. We released a CD of peace
songs sung by children from across India. The launch was
attended by almost 500 people from around our office and
covered well in the media.

We printed one lakh copies of a special leaflet for the
citizens of Mani Nagar exposing the myth of development.
The ten days that we spent there our young volunteers
reached out to 80,000 households directly distributing the
leaflet, talking to people, sharing with them their sorrows
and conditions.

We were shocked to see the condition of Mani Nagar. Mani
Nagar has five wards: Maninagar, Amraiwadi, Hatkeshwar,
Bagh-e-Firdous and Khokhra. Total voters in Maninagar are
3,28,000. The conditions under which the poor live is no
different from the worst slums that the reader might have
visited. A Chief Minister who boasts of the highest
development in his state can not provide the basic
necessities of life like toilet and water to the people of
his own constituency is shameful.

On December 8th, 2007 we decided to organize a youth
meeting and a cultural evening at Dakshini Chawk. This
place is the BJP stronghold within Maninagar and doing a
programme against Modi in Dakshini was unheard of.

Sachin Pandya, Sanjay Sharma and I went to Dakshini Chawk
around 11.10am to instruct the decorator and the sound
engineer to start the arrangements for the evening
programme.

As we stood there waiting for the decorator a white Maruti
800 arrived, there was a BJP scarf tied to the mirror
inside. Our few posters were on notice boards at Dakshini
Chawk and hundreds of leaflets had been distributed for the
programme on the evening before. A man, who we were later
informed was Parag Naik, came out from the car, very
aggressively moved towards Sanjay took a leaflet, tore it
off and threw it on the ground. I told him gently that it
was easier to tear than to join. He moved towards me
menacingly and started shouting, using extremely filthy and
abusive language and threatening to repeat what was done to
women in 2002. It was clear to us that we had to leave
immediately from the spot.

We came back in the afternoon and with the help of friends
who stood guard started the work. While the work was on
,Sanjay and I had to go back to office to finish some last
minute arrangements. After sometime the PI (in Gujarat PI
is like SHO of a police station) came and asked Sachin
about the programme and while he explained the PI said:, '
agar koye lafda hua to sabko dekh loonga'. Sachin objected
and said that we had the permission both from the Special
Branch as well as from the corporation. He repeated,'ek ek
ko band kar doonga'.

The programme went off well, a strong pro democracy
programme asking people to defeat the forces of hatred.
Mallika Sarabhai's group performed, she spoke, Digant Oza
spoke, Gauhar Raza recited a poem, young speakers Manoj
Sharma, Manisha Trivedi, Dev Desai, Sachin Pandya spoke,
Sanjay Sharma and Keshu Bhai sang movement songs. There was
stone throwing which we overlooked. After the programme the
whole BJP gang surrounded us, shouting and abusing, we
managed to leave, leaving all our exhibitions and banners
at the venue. The choice was between getting physically
attacked or leaving the stuff behind. Later the decorator
charged us for a number of broken and missing chairs.

I filed a complaint against Parag Naik to the Police
Commissioner next day for the morning incident. I asked in
my complain if this can happen to a member of the National
Integration Council, then what must be the condition of an
ordinary person, who dares to dissent?. Nothing happened to
him.

Our door to door campaign continued. Every morning three
teams of 8-10 volunteers left and delivered the leaflets at
doorsteps. In the evening everyone together went to the
major crossings distributing a second leaflet. Late
evenings were spent in organizing small corner meetings.

We sought permission to organize two more public meetings
on 10th and 12th. The permission was not denied but it
never came till well past the meeting timings so that we
could not hold the meetings.

We asked for a permission to take out a rally on 13th. It
was denied on the pretext that it will disturb law and
order situation in Maninagar.

On 13th we organized a corner meeting at Hatkeshwar circle,
sang secular, democratic songs, distributed roses to people
and asked ten questions related to Mahatma Gandhi and the
freedom struggle and the winners were given the Video CDs
of Lage Raho Munnabhai. It was a great success. We then
moved to the next circle and did a similar programme near
the Khokhra circle.

While we were singing a song, suddenly Parag Naik appeared
again. Parag Naik and his BJP goons again attacked us near
Khokhra ciclethis time manhandling one of our fellow woman
activist they physically attacked, hit her on the chest,
twisted her arm, caught her by the neck and threatened to
tear her clothes, forcibly took away her camera and took
out the memory card, kicked at a panel with Gandhi's
photograph and a quotation, threw away the roses which we
were distributing, use highly objectionable and abusive
language. As we tried to leave we were surrounded in
smaller groups. A media photographer from a major English
daily was bashed up and his roll taken out.

We faxed a complaint to the Police Commissioner. The media
photographer decided not to file a complain. I reported the
matter to his paper -well known English daily. They did not
deem it fit to report.

On 14th morning three of our young activists Paresh Desai,
Dharmendra Rathore and Sanjay Raval were inserting leaflets
in the newspapers at 3am when they were surrounded by Parag
Naik and his goons again, BJP goons called the called
police and illegally detained all three of them, impounded
the Anhad vehicle and the leaflets. They were released only
after 13 hours. A FIR was registered against Anhad under
for illegally distributing the leaflets!

The details of the all the attacks were faxed to the media.
We organized a Dharna on 14th at the Police Commissioner's
office and gave him a memorandum. Parag Naik kept on moving
freely and even the day we sat on a dharna outside
commissioner's office he came and parked his car behind our
vehicle to show that he is above law.

Next morning all Gujarati newspapers reported: 'three Anhad
activists were arrested for distributing illegal leaflets
and a case has been registered against Anhad. A Delhi
vehicle belonging to the organization has also been
impounded. Anhad is a Delhi based organization headed by
Shabnam Hashmi'. (As all the activists were Gujarati and
'Hindu' it was important for the media to establish a non-
Gujarati and a 'Muslim' connection.)

The English media refused to report. When one paper did
after I spoke to the editor it printed the police version.

A DCP came to the office after Police Commissioner's
intervention, recorded my statement refused to record
anything beyond the 8th incident as it was not under his
purview. Nothing has moved after that.

On 16th December we again spent the day in Maninagar. Modi
reached Mani Nagar around lunch time, perhaps first time in
five years, went to 16 different localities in 4 hours
asking people to vote for him.

Today a very well respected journalist has written an
article on how even the police are not with Modi and RSS
has deserted him and poor Modi is fighting the battle all
alone. Where is he alone? The police, the local
administration, the industrialists, the local media and
even a major chunk of the national media stand with him.

The people who are not with him are: the poor and the
marginalized; the activists, the social reformers, artists,
film makers, writers, poets, intellectuals, people who
still believe in the dream that we saw in 1947, people who
will give their lives to save the values of the Indian
Constitution.

Those who are eulogizing Modi and not taking any chances
just in case he comes back have totally forgotten the power
of the poor, illiterate and marginalized citizens of this
country. They have forgotten that people of India have
rejected authoritarian rule many times in this country.

Poor and the marginalized do not have to see the
development on television screens and news paper pages,
they live and experience it. According to the latest NSS
Report on "Household Borrowing and Repayment, around 21 %
of rural population in Gujarat spend less than Rs.12 per
day to survive and around five percent population manages
with even below Rs. 9 per day.

Modi is losing and his government is going. But his
political defeat in elections is only the first step. The
struggle to reclaim the hearts and the minds of the people
is much more difficult. Will you join us ?

'Sabse Khatarnak Hota Hai Murda Shanti se Bhar Jana

Na Hona Tadap Ke Sab Sahan Kar Jana

Sabse Khatarnak Hota Hai Hamare Sapnon Ka Mar Jana'

Pash

http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/ten-days-in-modis-constituency_9557.html

End of forwarded message from Ashok Chowgule

Jai Maharaj
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